Chapter 36
Samar didn’t show up in front of her again in the months that followed. The winter session came, passed, and was now trailing to an end. Samar did not come.
She knew his whereabouts, of course. He was mostly in Himachal, aggressively setting the groundwork for a party there.
She had sensed that Atharva was not happy about it, but he let it happen.
He himself was busy doing his own ‘hibernation planning,’ as he liked to call it.
The Kashmir valley was frozen in winter, people hibernating.
And sitting in Jammu, through the winter session, Atharva was working to extend his spy network across Kashmir — broadly to preempt militant threats that had begun to lift their heads again, and pointedly to hunt down an absconding Sufiyaan Sheikh.
For her part, Amaal found her days to be a mix of media stories, news firefighting because KDP was growing and its minister and leaders did not always keep quiet when they needed to, and spending time with Iram on the weekends.
Those were some of her most stress-busting times.
Especially when they found themselves alone and talking about anything and everything under the sun. Like today.
Janab CM was away on a stream of ‘shilaanyas’ ceremonies across Jammu as he was kickstarting infra-projects in partnership with the Central government and private players. Ideally, Amaal was supposed to be there too, but she had dispatched her juniors and chosen to enjoy her Sunday for a change.
“Hmm,” Iram held out the plate of garlic bread slices oozing cheese. Amaal accepted it, setting it on the floor in front of her, her eyes on the news channel playing Atharva’s B-roll on mute.
“Amaal!” Iram nudged with her knee. “This also.” A Pepsi bottle came down.
“I asked for Thums Up!”
“Shiva could only find Pepsi.” Iram settled down beside her, leaning back on the sofa. “And I don’t pick fights with him over minor issues.”
“Ha,” Amaal barked. “Coward.”
“You can?” She raised one knee, turning towards her. “Be my guest. Shiv…”
“Hey!” Amaal nudged her knee. “Don’t threaten ghar aaya mehman.”
“Eat, eat,” Iram pulled the pizza box closer to them. “Ghar aaya mehman.”
They both knew Amaal was not much of a guest in their house. Be it Srinagar or Jammu, Atharva and Iram’s home was as open to her today as Atharva’s house had been before his marriage. More so now with Iram here.
“How’s work going?” Iram asked.
“Going. How’s your new book going?” She bit into the slice of her pizza. Jammu had started to make really good pizzas in the last five years. The thought of that naan kaladi pizza made the taste of this one turn to dust in her mouth. She still chewed.
“Going.” Iram bit into her garlic bread.
“Jammu has felt so good… time passed in a blink. I never knew a change of scenery would do this to me. Srinagar is so dear to me that I did not think another city would help us heal. But after… we lost the baby, Jammu has been like rebuilding everything. This house, our perspective, our future… What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Did you like Jammu?”
“What’s not to like?’
Iram narrowed her eyes — “Do you feel lonely in Jammu?”
“Uh,” Amaal pointed to the food between them, “yes.”
“Come on,” Iram pushed. “I am the introvert among us and it is you who never talks about you. Especially when it comes to things like these.”
“Being lonely?”
“Yes.”
“Why would you say that?!”
“Because you went from being at the centre of people in KDP to working almost alone… You have your staff at the Secretariat, but it’s not the same people you helped raise from the ground up. I came to KDP and saw how that was your family.”
“They are still my family.”
“And here you are, alone in Jammu.”
“You are there, Atharva is there, Sarah, Qureshi, Adil…”
“But he is not there.”
Amaal laughed, picking an olive off her pizza and popping it into her mouth — “Now you have set your mind on romanticising us for your next book. Again.”
“You mean there is nothing?” Iram cocked her brow.
“No.”
“Liar. There was something. Something is different in you now.”
“Nothing is different.”
“You yourself told me last year that he is a fortress but lets you peep into his life from time to time.”
“And that means nothing,” Amaal cut her off. “Also, stop remembering all this stuff from what I say after midnight. It’s usually a byproduct of sleeplessness and face masks.”
Iram reached for a slice of pizza. “Just saying.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes. Amaal couldn’t keep it in longer than those few minutes.
“How do you think there is something going on between us?”
Iram began to open her mouth but Amaal held up a hand — “Not that there is. Let me make it very clear. I told you before also, there cannot be anything. He is a closed off fortress and he used to open the occasional window to me to peep in. That was because we worked in closed quarters and sometimes when you spend so much time together you can’t help but get attached to each other.
I have experienced that twice with him, first here in Jammu years ago and then again in the thick of the election last year.
When we are in close quarters, it may seem like something is happening, but then I get to know a little more of him, and I don’t want to go forward… ”
“Jammu, years ago?”
Amaal’s mouth dropped open. “That’s what you took from this?”
Iram smirked — “Now it explains it all.”
“Explains what all?”
“Nothing.”
Amaal’s temper swelled — ‘Why is this amusing?”
“It’s not amusing.”
“Then why are you smiling? He is the one who gave you to…”
Iram’s smile vanished.
“Sorry.”
Iram shook her head — “I have gotten over that time.”
“Let’s not talk about it.”
“No,” Iram insisted. “Let’s talk about it.
Because I am not scared of that time or that event anymore.
It’s taken me a lot to reach here. Am I ok with him?
No. But my anger was directed at, first, Sufiyaan Sheikh, and then, myself.
I never got a chance to be angry at him or hate him.
And then when Atharva was taken for investigation, he tried very hard to sideline me.
I was angry at him then more than I was for what he did to me…
His hatred of my father is maniacal, he did a lot of damage to Atharva, KDP and me.
But he is still in Atharva’s circle and his life.
There is no way around that.” She set her pizza down.
“And, Amaal, this is not amusing to me. But having gotten to know you closely over the last year, I know that you wouldn’t feel like this for somebody who is rotten to his core. ”
Amaal stared at Iram. And realised what she had been suppressing inside herself for all these months.
That she couldn’t fall for somebody this bad.
She couldn’t have been attracted to somebody who was…
rotten to the core. She couldn’t have been wrong about the man she saw through that window.
Samar was many things — wrong and dejected and disillusioned and lost. But not rotten.
“Am I right?” Iram’s voice broke through her thoughts.
“Man! How are you so mature?” Amaal sputtered, picking up her pizza again.
“I thought the same about you when I joined the party. I even asked you, remember?”
Amaal filled her mouth with pizza and eyed her over the crust — “He still dislikes you to the core.”
“I know. What else would he do?” Iram picked up her slice, her gaze going far away.
“Lucky for me, there is no place anymore where our paths cross. And where they do, Atharva will be standing in front of me. I have spent a lifetime being afraid of a lot of things. Now that things are going well for a change, what will I get from thinking about his dislike of me? He has moved on, he stays far away from us. That is enough.”
Amaal rolled her eyes. “I came here for fun stuff and you have made this into a dark, deep therapy session.”
“Fine, Drama Queen, get those naughty movies out… Amaal, isn’t that your area?”
She focused on the TV. It was a news item about a petty robbery in a bungalow.
“That’s far away from where I live.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, at least two lanes away.” She switched the TV to DVD. “Let’s start with Pretty Woman again.”
“Piano scene!!!” They squealed in unison.
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Amaal didn’t see Samar for months, and then, one fine summer evening, just like that, he walked into the Jammu Secretariat while she was leaving.
“Hi.” She stumbled back on her heels, coming to a halt. He looked good, not as tired and worn out as he had the last time they had met. In his monochrome formals, his jaw stubbled, he still managed to look fresh.
“Hi,” his face softened, nodding at the bright evening outside. “Leaving early?”
“Hmm.”
His eyebrows went up. And Amaal realised what she had said.
“Hmmm,” she repeated, pointedly.
“You can Hmm to me but I cannot?”
She found herself giving away the smile that had sprouted naturally for him after a long time.
“Why are you leaving early?”
“I have taken a half day.”
“Nine to five thirty is not half day, Amaal.”
“My kind of half day.”
“Is it one of those months?”
Her eyes widened. “How do you know?”
He gave her that unyielding expression.
She waved him away. “Go do your work.” Amaal walked past him and continued to cross the atrium.
“Amaal?”
She turned.
He hesitated.
Then — “If you can wait for twenty minutes, we can eat carbs outside.”
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