Chapter 49 #2
Life was Atharva’s stuttered eyes, without any answer to his son’s demand to go for a picnic to this place. And then, when he shut the album and threw Yathaarth up for a tickle attack, life was those giggles too.
Iram had teared up and laughed with them. Because that was life.
Life was Yathaarth’s fourth birthday and their entire clan there. Begumjaan and Zorji, Ada, Mirza and Fahad, Amaal and Samar, Noora, Shiva and Daniyal. Adil couldn’t come. Sarah and Maha didn’t come. But again, that was life.
Life was Ada making a meal out of the blue unicorn cake that she had ordered in spite of her nephew’s ‘car’ cake already on the table. And then life was a small, tiny white unicorn candle placed atop the blue one’s back. The one that burned the brightest.
Life was Begumjaan sitting beside her and teaching her new Gen Z lingo. And then life was also her throwing a whistle at Zorji because he couldn't stop taking second and third servings of the cake — ‘Because both are different flavours!’
Yathaarth throwing confetti around and playing with his friends in the garden was life.
Atharva being the perfect father and breaking the khoi bag for them was life.
Whistles, toffees, paper balls, cars, stars, pencils, erasers, more confetti was life.
As Iram sat on a patio chair with their clan mingling around, Atharva’s reassuring pat to her head was also life.
Their eyes met, and the unnamed thread of sorrow passed through this joy — He never knew what celebrating his birthday in his own home was. We miss it. He doesn’t. But that’s life.
Atharva was right. Life would never give them 100%. But whatever it was giving them, was a blessing that they accepted with both hands and celebrated.
The Maverick did not make it to any television news or big reports.
He was still working quietly to put together student organisations and unions, strengthening the skeletal framework that was bigger than any state or region.
Then slowly penetrate panchayats and municipalities across North India.
He was not doing it for himself, but for a set of people with the right intentions, whom he was cultivating into a broader party. Oblivion wasn't his curse anymore.
Iram was grateful for it at this point in life.
He toured a few days a month, spent almost all the other days at home — being a full-time Baba with hours dedicated to meetings with his newest partner: Vikram.
She had more than enough time to expand her literary universe.
Write more. Devote herself to a story that, in retrospect, had been a lot of prophecy and a little experience woven into one big ball.
Zoon and Taj’s story was coming to its culmination soon.
And even though she had fought with Sherry six years ago about it not being a romance, it had turned out to be one.
Not the fluffy — girl meets boy and they live happily ever after kind.
But one that she had understood as the base of life — two people meet, fall in love, and change begins.
The Kashmir of Zoon and Taj’s world had gone from being a strife-torn, brutal heaven to a civilisation that was slowly looking back at itself in the mirror.
A Kashmir that was finally acknowledging its own greatness again.
She hoped that the Kashmir that she and Atharva had left behind was still doing that.
The light of knowledge, the power of debate, the bloom of discussion, the wheel of innovation — all of that was Atharva’s Kashmir.
Now that he wasn’t there anymore, what would it feel like?
She often wondered it, and instead of letting it pull her down, wrote about that imagination in Zoon and Taj’s version.
Iram had given up on book tours. To keep Atharva’s low profile going, and to keep them out of the public eye, she had sacrificed that.
And it was not even worth calling ‘sacrifice.’ Was it because she herself didn’t want to do those anymore or because any price paid for Atharva’s welfare was not even a price worth thinking about — she did not know.
But it reminded her of Begumjaan’s words — the more you can sacrifice for somebody, the more you love them.
But ‘out of sight, out of mind’ did not dull her readership. It did not stop her stories from talking what she couldn’t. Even away from home, she was talking about home.
Sitting miles away from home, she had made a new home.
Shimla was slowly beginning to feel like the home that had always kept its arms open for them, but they had taken a while to settle into it.
Now, as the hot summer and the touristy crowd grew in the hills, the life that they had cultivated in the last few months was jolted by news.
An attack on an Indian military convoy carrying medical aid to the Amarnath Yatra camp had shaken them all.
The mood had been sombre, not only in their house or their group but across the country.
Now, weeks later, terrorists had been identified, three were neutralised, and the rest had been traced back to their bases in Pakistan.
Normalcy had returned but an undercurrent was still buzzing.
“Iram?”
“Hmm?”
“How would you like me home a little less?”
She finished typing the paragraph that she was working on and peered at him over the hood of her laptop. He had just come up to the observatory after putting Yathaarth to sleep and was perusing his records collection.
“One headache less at home,” she rolled her eyes. He smirked, fingering the spines of the collection and pulling out a classic Rafi mix.
“We are both headaches for you now?”
“Have you counted the number of times I hear ‘Mama’ and ‘Myani zuv’ in a single hour?”
“How many?” He lodged the record and set the pin on its surface. It began to run with a soothing, crinkly sound.
“At least 81.”
“You’ve counted?” He chuckled.
She hadn’t. And she loved it, unless she was doing something important and the calls did not relent. Or when the calls were for something insane like finding batteries from the ‘drawer of batteries’ or holding a baby punching bag ‘steady’ or keeping ‘my drawing safe in your locker.’
“You didn’t ask me why I was asking,” Atharva sat down beside her and put his feet up on their newest addition to the space — a coffee table.
“Why are you asking?” She went back to her typing.
“Because Lok Sabha elections are coming.”
“So?”
“You think NDP won’t give it a shot?”
Iram stopped typing and gaped at him — “Wait, is there an NDP?”
“It wasn't until this morning…”
She shut her laptop — “Atharva!”
He grinned.
“You better tell me everything. Was that why you and Vikram were out all evening?”
“There was an emergency conference call with KDP high command, HDP executive committee and the high-level stakeholders from Punjab and Uttarakhand.”
“Don’t create this suspense.”
“And they agreed to North India Development Party to be registered.”
“And? You will lead it?” Her mouth dropped open.
“No. I am not in the picture anymore. But there are some feelers from Janta Party. They want to align with NDP, if it is formed…”
“In spite of what Qureshi did in Kashmir?”
“That’s state, this is centre. Alliances are like live-in relationships.
Janta is diluted in north. They have the national identity but grassroots are weakened.
And their members and our new members that Vikram and I have cultivated have been working closely anyway. There is a camaraderie building.”
“So?”
He stared at her.
“Atharva, if you remain silent one more second…” she picked up a pillow to hurl at him when he said — “They might want me to lead North India. The entire pre-poll alliance of North India.”
“Lead?” Her hand lowered. “Lead, as in?”
“In-charge,” he smiled, the glow of purpose, the glow of a mission burning bright in his eyes again. He had been working all these months but now there was a focused look on his face again.
“I don’t get it.”
“I do not belong to any party anymore. But I know all these parties inside out, including Janta. I will be the central point of connect for them through this election. Janta and NDP are planning to enter a pre-poll alliance. It’s big.
But it would mean more frequent travel for me.
Short day trips or a few days a week. Are you ok with that? ”
“Yes. Yes! Of course, I am ok. Wait, NDP is registered?”
“Day after tomorrow. We are going to Delhi to register NDP with Samar at its helm.”
“Not Qureshi?”
“Qureshi has gripped Jammu-Kashmir, but Samar’s name and face is plastered across the rest of North India.”
“Will Vikram also be going with you?”
“With us.”
“Us? What will we do there?”
“I have half a day’s work there. Go with Samar to file party papers at 10, then Yogesh Patel wants to meet me at 12.
After that, we can take the weekend off and show Yathaarth the city.
I want to show him Amar Jawan Jyoti and the National War Memorial.
Show him his grandfather’s name etched there.
The August heat will be crazy but we will manage… ”
She smiled, cupping his jaw and thumbing the curl of that mouth that was down after a long, long time. “We will.”
His smile widened.
“From political strategist to… what is this job profile?” Iram asked.
“Zone In-Charge. Not an official job profile, but, Iram, it’s exciting work. Nine months of readying an entire zone to go into election? And that too the largest election in the country. I haven’t been more wired about a challenge since… maybe since Kashmir 2014.”
She pushed the laptop away from between them and slid closer to him.
His arm came around her, pulling her atop his knee and then into his lap until she was straddling him.
Her mouth opened even before his head had begun its descent and then she was kissing him just as desperately as he was kissing her.
The spark lit anew and even though they had been doing this almost every night, this time, as he stripped them both and buried himself inside her, Iram was sure that the wins of his work life were soon going to translate into the win of their love life.