Chapter 20 Love was in the air… #2
“She is already rearing sheep in Budgam and knitting sweaters from the farmhouse we will build there one day.”
“Ok, so here’s what we should ideally do,” Amaal sat up.
“All those members who work or live at the house are tightly bound by NDAs plus background secrets that can destroy them. More than that, they are all trustworthy. All parties have secrets like these and they remain intact. They don’t get leaked so easily. ”
“I know.”
“We will announce quietly and honestly to the people at the house, and then keep it quiet outside. It should not be a problem, because the amount of work coming up for everybody in the week starting next is going to be crazy. Notwithstanding your Ladakh road trip.”
“Tour, Amaal, tour.”
“Yeah, tour,” she shook her head. “I want to control this narrative of you and Iram from the get-go. It’s a big deal, a young CM-aspirant but also a young CM-aspirant in love.
It shouldn’t become sleazy or come to your reputation as a man.
On the other hand, if handled well, this has all the makings of a dynastic love… ”
“Slow down,” he asserted. “Iram will not be used for any propaganda, before or after the election. She will not be in the public eye.”
“She is going to be a published novelist. How do you think that happens?”
“That’s her profession. She will not be used in mine.”
“You can’t control that. Anyway, give me until tomorrow to shape the strategies that I have in mind.”
“Tomorrow is her birthday.”
“Really?”
He nodded.
“What are you doing for her?”
“I don’t know yet. I have a gift for her, two actually. But after that, I am not sure.”
“Let’s arrange a small gathering, like our old off-site parties. You can make it a manifesto-launch-success party and her birthday. If you are ready, that can be a soft launch.”
“This is going too fast.”
“What did you expect when you pulled her backstage with thousands of people outside and…”
“Fine, fine,” he pushed to his feet. “Nobody knows yet. Only you.”
“Not even Samar?”
“No.”
Amaal stilled, taken aback.
“But I think they all have an idea, Atharva,” she managed.
“I know they do.” He moved towards the door and pulled it open. “Thanks, Amaal.”
————————————————————
Samar sat in the conference room with Adil, Qureshi and Zorji, sharing messages from the day’s success. He nodded where he needed to, smiled where it was warranted.
“Sorry, I was on call with Mohan Dhar.” Atharva closed the conference room door and sat down in his chair at the head of the table.
“Good day today.” Adil slapped his back and rounded the table to his own chair.
“Yes, before we get on to the dissection, I have something to tell you all.”
“Are you getting married in the middle of the election?” Qureshi joked. Samar chuckled. Genuinely amused for a change.
“Not married,” Atharva said. “But I am in a relationship with Iram.”
Samar felt his chuckle die. His ears began to roar.
He knew it; he had seen them this last week, even confronted Atharva about dallying around her, scraped his throat raw trying to warn him. But here he was, making it official.
“Chilla, m*******d!” “
“C*****e, chilla! Yeh chillata hi nahi hai, biba.”
“Mashuka helicopter sahiba tashreef laa rahi hai!”
“…maataram.”
“… I am consulting with Amaal on making this seamless and minimise any controversy.” Those words were the first ones he heard in real-time. And that was because Amaal’s name was uttered. The static was too loud. Atharva was talking like he was throwing around names for ticket distribution.
“What about her father’s name?” Qureshi’s question completely broke through Samar’s static.
“What about him?”
“Are we sure she is completely clean of his contacts, history and loyalty?”
“Yes.”
Samar felt his mobile vibrate in his hand. He glanced down.
FARIS
SMC released Aamir Haider’s property papers today
Atharva had them collected
He read the words, but kept a quiet leash on his emotions. He could not feel them, could not let them even bubble to the surface. Or he would lose it again like that last time. And right now, four pairs of eyes were on him.
“Samar.”
“Hmm?” He coughed.
“Samar,” Atharva’s voice had softened. “I asked everybody, and I am asking you. If this is going to be a problem for anybody in this room, speak up now.”
Samar stared at him, and Atharva at least had the decency to look apologetic.
“You know my stance on this.”
Atharva nodded. “I hope, in time you will be able to see what I see. She is not her father, not even close to his ideologies. And her being in my life will not interfere with my work, or our work. Have faith in my judgement.”
Samar kept quiet. Because he no longer held faith in the one judgement he would have trusted with his eyes closed.
“So good news in the morning and good news in the evening,” Adil slapped the table. “Our boy is growing up.”
At first, Samar thought that Adil had taken a jibe at his tame reaction, but soon realised that he was ribbing Atharva. The room burst into laughter again. Samar did not nod or smile this time. This was the limit of his playacting.
————————————————————
It was late by the time he strode out of the headquarters, calm and composed. Outwardly. Inside, he didn’t know what to do. Panic was loud, as was rage. Atharva had freed Aamir Haider’s house. And lied that Iram had no connection to her father? What was he about to do?
Suddenly, he did not trust Atharva. And that was not a world he wished to live in.
Samar left his car and crossed the road to the bank of Dal. Late shikara rowers were sitting and smoking together, kangris burning close to their chests. The moon was glinting on the waves of the lake, making the dark waters shine with sparks of electric blue. Amaal’s eyes’ blue.
Samar startled. What was he thinking?
“What are you doing here?”
This couldn’t be.
He turned around and found her on the pavement, electric blue eyes of the night, folders tucked under her arm, bundled in a jacket. The wind whipped her hair and again the shards of her hair looked like lashes across her bright face.
“What are you doing here?”
“I asked first.”
Samar gestured to the headquarters behind her with his eyes.
“Use your words.”
He gritted his teeth and felt like laughing all at once.
“The office is right behind you,” he said instead.
“Are you going back home?”
“Why?”
“Can you carry these back?” She held out the bundle of folders, and he found his arms opening to take the load. They were few, but heavy. “What’s in it?”
“Old ad campaigns, originals.”
Samar lifted them under his arm and frowned down at her — “Where are you going?”
“Out.”
“It’s 8.30. Where out?”
“Ok, Daddy, I’ll text you the address and my friends’ numbers,” she mocked. Then waved and turned to go. He caught her elbow. She stumbled, and he tightened his hold.
“What?” She pushed her hair back from her face, this time only with one hand. The strands struck across her cheeks again.
“Where?”
“Maikhana.”
He frowned.
“Pub, pub,” she pronounced. “I have Indianised my vocab after all these years but you are raised here. Still don’t know what maikhana is?”
“I know what maikhana is. Why are you going there?”
“KDP drove me to drinking.”
That reminder brought all his rage raging back.
“Some of the Media Team is meeting there to celebrate.” Her voice broke through the haze that was beginning to cloud his mind. Samar left her elbow. “I can drop you on the way.”
“That works, actually. It’s on your way.”
They crossed the road and got into his Innova. The party Innova, because all the cars in their fleet now were registered under the KDP name.
“It’s clean,” she commented as he turned the wheel and merged into the swiftly flowing traffic.
“My old car wasn’t clean?”
“You never knew what you’d find in there.”
He frowned, concentrating on navigating the tight spaces between mopeds and hatchbacks that drove like the road belonged to their fathers.
“Glock or blood or whatever,” she muttered. And his mouth curled up, just as they cleared the jam and zoomed out onto a relatively empty stretch. It ran parallel to Dal, and the streetlights and glints from the lake made it smoother.
“I once borrowed your Indica to pick up my parents,” Amaal went on. “And I spent the entire drive to and fro worried that they would find something antisocial inside. Even after I had checked it multiple times. I don’t know if you remember…”
“I remember.”
Her face pushed closer to the windshield — “How do you know where I am going?”
“There is only one pub in Srinagar open on all days.”
She sat back.
“Do you have a pepper spray?” He asked.
“Do you have a pain relief spray?”
He cut his eyes to her, staring. Silent.
She stared back. Unaffected.
Samar’s jaw clicked. “I am serious.”
“When are you not?”
“If you don’t have it, I am not stopping at the pub.”
She grinned — “I’ll just have to find a rickshaw from home then. It’ll be at your expense.”
He frowned.
She did not take the bait.
“How?” He clipped.
“I am putting my travel on party expense.”
“Your celebrations are not party expense.”
“As per my latest conversation with Atharva on employee budgeting, they are.”
He exhaled through his nose. The turn to Highland’s Pub came closer, and Samar took the turn, sensing her whole body brighten up at an apparent victory.
They came closer to the pub, and he slowed the car.
Just when her finger went to the handle, he pressed the accelerator and she was thumped back in her seat.
“Hey!”
“Answer straight.”
“Stop! Samar!”
“Do you have it?”
“It must have expired.”
He stopped the car. And turned to her — “You haven’t bought a new pepper spray in four years?”
“I never got around to using that one. It’s anyway in my other purse.”
He ground his teeth. Amaal smiled at him, that dimple pushing into her left cheek like some redemption for any crime she had ever committed and ever would commit. Samar startled at that thought. Where was he going with this? This was wrong. This was… madness.
“Don’t worry,” she snapped open her door and pushed one foot out of the car. “I will be coming home with Fahad and everyone. They have a car.”
“What time?”
“Enough now.” She jumped down and closed the door. Bye, she mimed through the closed window. Then turned and began to walk back to the door of the pub behind them. Samar sat there, watching her go in the sideview. And then he saw what she had left behind.
He put the car in reverse and hit the accelerator. She startled as he stopped next to her.
“What?!” She fumed.
He depressed the passenger window. “Call me when you reach home.”
“Ok.” She waved, clearly not looking like she was planning to.
“With what will you call?”
“My phone.”
“Where is it?”
She pushed into her pocket and stilled. Instantly, she dove through the window, pushing her head and arm to reach for her mobile lying in the coffee holder between their seats. She couldn’t reach it. She began to open the door, and he locked it.
“What?” She snapped.
“Stand on the side.”
She stepped back from the window but did not move from her spot. So he had to reverse twice to turn the car and park it in the space outside the pub. Samar grabbed her mobile, her folders, and climbed out. He shut the door and locked the car.
“You are going to come inside or stand guard outside?” She joked.
“Keep the car,” he held out the key and her mobile.
“We have a car.”
“Keep it.”
“You just want me to not drink.” She laughed like it was a joke. It was true.
But naive as she still was in certain things, Amaal accepted the key and her mobile. “Thanks. How will you go?”
He turned and began striding.
This closeness, this concern, this urge to care was breaking through his static.
He did not want it to. Samar strode down the quiet Srinagar road, breathing in the spring air of this night.
He had never been in such a position before, with so many crossroads running over him, all meandering through him, clouding not only his judgement but his ability to function.
Nothing was making sense anymore.