Chapter 20 Love was in the air…
Love was in the air. Amaal could sense that looking at Iram in the days leading up to their manifesto launch. But it was on the day of the launch that Atharva impulsively validated it, and made her job, plus her life, exponentially difficult.
Amaal panned her gaze across the crowd and to the backstage area opposite theirs.
Her eyes stuttered on Samar. He was looking at her.
Amaal didn’t want to hold his eyes. She had held his stare once, and come to regret it.
Things were beginning to happen again. She knew she would be able to hold herself back.
But he wasn’t making it easy. She had a sense that he himself didn’t know what he was doing.
He had started acting impulsively, instinctively, even thoughtlessly for a man who used to not even take his next breath without thinking.
What had triggered it?
Amaal looked away, listening to Atharva come back from his extempore detour.
He had developed this nasty habit of veering from the written word lately, especially when it was Iram’s speeches.
Her eyes fixed back on him, and she breathed a sigh of relief as his words matched the script in their hands.
“Thank god he is back on track. Why the hell did he go extempore?” She hissed to Iram, hoping she’d have a good enough reason.
“Did it sound wrong?”
“I sincerely hope, for his and KDP’s sake, that this is all the extempore he does today.”
A deafening cheer erupted. Amaal’s eyes crossed to Samar again.
He wasn’t looking at her this time; his eyes, behind those no-nonsense specs, were trained on the crowd.
He cut a simple enough figure in his formal plain shirt and pants.
Maybe another woman wouldn’t give him a second glance.
Because he was just a man, lean, exuding a muted gravitas of his profession.
She was unfortunate enough to know differently.
She was unfortunate enough to know the T-shirts and cargoes, the tight muscles under the lean build that lifted 100 kg rocks, the cold stares behind those specs, the ‘Hmms’ behind his public silence.
“Saeni khodgarzee…”
She startled and gaped at Atharva in the foreground of her vision.
“Saeni Kasheer!” The chant was one long, loud cry.
“Humaari khudgarzi…”
“Humaara Kashmir!”
“I’ll go down to the front to get the set-up ready,” she muttered to Iram and turned on the balls of her feet.
The chants and cries outside became louder.
She broke into a run to go down and check if the manifesto copies were in order when she caught Atharva storming off the stage and towards them in her peripheral vision.
Amaal stopped to see what was wrong and gasped when he took Iram with him, and then they were behind a stage panel. Gone.
What the actual fuck!
“Amaal?” Begumjaan’s voice made her turn, and there she was, climbing up the backstage slowly. She quickly schooled her features — “Welcome, Begumjaan. We were told you would give it a miss.” She held a hand out to help her up the last step. Begumjaan grinned — “Good that I didn’t.”
Amaal’s eyes widened. She gaped at the shrewd matriarch of this wild lot. “Begumaajn,” she warned.
Safiya Begum pinched her lips and zipped them shut. But her eyes were mischievous. Amaal turned to the stage. The manifesto copies were already being rolled out. Zorji, Qureshi, Samar, Adil, were all walking out. The MC was already introducing them.
Fuck you, Atharva.
She steeled herself and stormed up towards the panel. What she saw there made her recoil.
The mad man was kissing her, thankfully with her face and body shielded by his.
She cleared her throat. He did not listen.
“Atharva…” she coughed, loudly. And he stopped. His head turned.
“They need you on stage now,” she clipped. “Manifesto launch is being set up. Qureshi, Adil, Samar and Zorji are already there.”
“Zorji is here?”
“Yes, quick.” Amaal snapped.
He nodded. And she walked away, having seen enough. She wanted to wash her eyes out but first she’d have to get a hold of this election, which was going to spin out of control thanks to Atharva Singh Kaul.
————————————————————
Amaal speed-walked down the KDP Boulevard Road Headquarters.
If the mansion was her home, this was slowly turning into her second home.
Her Media Team sat at the house, but all major meetings, stakeholder conferences and official engagements happened here.
The place was ostentatious, on one of Srinagar’s most prestigious roads by the Dal.
For four soldiers who had started the party on rickety chairs, this was a whole kingdom won in five years.
Amaal saw the set-up for their post-manifesto launch press conference being dismantled from the atrium.
Despite impediments, it had gone off without a real hitch, just as the manifesto launch had. Or that’s what she hoped.
Amaal glanced around for any late lingerers, journalists or cameras. None.
She ran up the curving staircase and straight to Atharva’s office. Amaal knocked on the cool wood but did not get an answer.
“Where is Atharva Bhai?” She asked a member outside.
“He just went towards your office.”
“And the rest?”
“They are in the conference room.”
She turned and strode down the corridor to the small office that she had chosen months ago.
She didn’t visit here often. She didn’t need much space here.
Amaal pushed the door open and found Atharva there, on a call.
His eyes met hers, and he held one finger up. She could not stop glaring at him now.
“Yes,” he was smiling into the call. “Thank you. It’s because of your faith in me… I’ll see you tonight.”
He ended the call, and she pounced — “What the…” she stopped in time. “And you are talking to her here also?”
“Who?” He glanced from her to his mobile. Then his confusion cleared and he slipped it inside his pocket — “Not that it is any of your business, but that was Mohan Dhar from London.”
Amaal lost her gumption. These soldiers always did that. Or rather, Atharva always did that.
“Sit, we need to talk.” He tipped his chin to her chair.
“I am listening.”
Atharva looked at her, she stared back. No, you are not turning this on me, mate.
He went and sat down on one of her visitor’s chairs. Relaxed. And Amaal jerked with a realisation that she was standing in front of Atharva, not Samar. She could not deal with him like she did with Samar.
She quietly slipped into the second visitor’s chair beside him and turned towards him.
He did not stare, or try to intimidate her. He started talking in true Atharva-fashion, pre-empting the scandal that she could foresee blowing their way just as clearly as he did.
“Iram and I are together now,” he announced.
Thanks for the information, she wanted to retort, but kept her mouth shut out of respect for them both.
“It’s very new, but it is serious. I did not violate any lines as the Party President or her boss. We tried to hold back, but we came to a point where it was inevitable. I understand what happened today was out of line. I should not have done that. I apologise that you had to see that.”
All the wind fizzled out of her sail in front of that. Amaal sighed. How did she forget that this was Atharva, the man who could bring wilted flowers back to life? He had done it once by throwing them into sugar water.
“What’s next?” She asked, their SOP in difficult situations.
Always solution-oriented. But he blinked, falling silent, for the first time looking unsure in front of her.
She had never seen him so… human. He was the most humane leader out there, since Day 1.
But today he looked like… just a man behind the President.
“Ideally,” he started. "I would prefer to hide her and keep her safe from everybody around me right now. I have enemies, so does she.”
“Iram has enemies?”
“When she joined KDP, her papers were classified.” Atharva’s eyes met hers. “Nobody asked what H stood for in Iram H. It is Iram Haider. She is Aamir Haider’s daughter.”
Her eyes widened.
“I suspected it once,” Amaal murmured. “When you and Samar were fighting… but… then it seemed fantastical to even imagine. Wow.” She rolled her eyes and let out a breath — “Atharva, you are making my life difficult with every new revelation.”
“There’s more.”
“No!”
“Until there is guaranteed security for her in Kashmir again, her identity cannot surface. Will not surface.”
“You mean she is under threat?”
“Of sorts. But what happened today, if somebody saw it, from our own party…”
“Nobody was there,” Amaal reassured him. “Just me. And Begumjaan.”
Atharva nodded.
He took another pause, then opened his mouth, this time assertive — “I am ok with two options right now — preferred one would be to not reveal anything until the election concludes. But I know that something might slip or give, and if it leaks internally, the party won’t like it.
Especially those we have working at that office. So find me a middle ground.”
“You want to tell the members closest to us and ensure that word does not get out?”
“Utopian expectation,” he chuckled.
“And what does Iram want?”
He went silent.
“ATHARVA!”
“I haven’t spoken to her since the launch.”
“Oh my… ok, first, speak to her. Ask her. Is she ok with what you are proposing?”
“I will. But I had to first see where your head is at from a media perspective. I want to make Iram’s life as easy as possible, only give her the options that are available to us.”
In spite of the fire that he had unleashed upon her, Amaal found her lips tipping. “It’s pretty serious, isn't it?”
“I told you it is.” Then he smiled, unconsciously. “It’s just come at a challenging time.”
“I am not one to hand out advice or anything but my Dad always said this about my Mom, when they met in medical college. The timing was against us but what a time that was.”
Atharva’s smile widened. She felt her own smile bloom. “Begumjaan looked giddy.”