Chapter 5
“Roke zamaana chahe, roke khudayi tumko aana padega…” Dilshad Khan hummed along to the car deck.
He was very lax with his own security for a country that was known to blow up random public places out of sheer negligence.
He had just casually come and sat in Atharva’s car, personally taking him to their ‘world famous’ tea stall for his headache.
Then onwards, he had their car drive down the Baltit Fort, Altit Fort, followed by their village lake.
It was all very picturesque but Atharva felt every muscle in his body fidget at the tick of time.
Fahad had snuck out from the royal palace.
She had not yet left for Sikardarabad. She had taken a palace car to some school.
With her niece. This was their chance. Atharva did not know how convincing Fahad would be but he would try his best. A phone call would have to do.
He would have to talk to her over the phone…
FAHAD
She left from school with her niece
Going back to the palace
ATHARVA
Still have two places to finish here
Get her
He had no other option left now. It had come to nabbing her. Atharva pulled the contact for OTP. He had a backup of men ready to do just this. Plan C and their final desperate call.
ATHARVA
C activated
OTP
OK
He didn’t want to put her through the horror but this was it. If he wasted this day, tomorrow was packed. He was to leave the day after.
“Kya gaane bante the uss zamaane mein…[26]” Dilshad Khan’s voice broke his chain of thoughts. “Mmm… hmmm… jo vada kiya woh… umm mmm hmmm mmm…”
“You are a fan of old Indian classics?”
“Fan? Sabse bada fan kahiye. Umar dekhiye humari,[27] Janab. I have grown up on these.”
“Where did you listen to the songs? Records, tapes, TV or radio?”
“TV? There were no TVs for so many decades. Where there were, the cable rates were so high. Those days there were radios only. And then sometimes during wars or tense times they would switch off radio transmissions across the border. But even we were ustaad.”
“What would you do?” Atharva cued.
“Tune into Indian-occupied Kashmir’s frequency,” he laughed, his voice throaty. Atharva’s jaw tightened. There was more that had happened on alternate frequencies across the border.
“We can go to lunch after Nagar Jami. I have arranged the best kebabs for you at my office.”
“I would like to return to my hotel if you don’t mind. I feel bad declining your invitation for lunch but my son is alone and I have to connect back with offices in Srinagar. I hope you will understand, Dilshad sahab. Your hospitality has been nothing short of impeccable.”
“Arey, bilkul, bilkul. I have been like an overbearing grandpa taking you around all day. Go to your son. We will take dinner together.”
Atharva returned his easy smile, wondering why he had relented so easily. Dilshad Khan’s phone buzzed. He took it, conversing in easy, happy Burushaski. Atharva observed his face slowly dimming.
He ended the call.
“I am so sorry, Kaul sahab, I will have to take a detour to my office. It’s an emergency…”
“Not a problem. We can do this final place tomorrow, or another time.”
“No, no, we are almost there… let me lend you my secretary. I will hop into my car behind and my secretary can come with you to show you. Now you have come so far, don’t go without seeing it. It’s one of the rarest relics of both our Kashmirs’ unity.”
Atharva had to relent. No point in wasting time arguing. If Dilshad Khan wasn’t here, it would be easy to do a cursory round of the mosque and get going.
Their fleet of cars was flagged to a stop. No protocol, no roofs — only one guard came to open Dilshad Khan’s door.
“Theek hai toh fir[28],” he held his hand out. Atharva shook it. “I will see you at dinner. This time I won’t hear no for an answer.”
“Of course.”
————————————————————
Atharva recognised a trap when he saw one. But the golden rule about traps was that if you had walked into one, immediate evacuation or retreat was 100% fatal. The manual in that case? Halt, assess, and control the field of decision.
He was halfway inside the mosque, the alleys empty of devotees.
The marble flooring was pristine, freezing in this autumn cold.
And yet a few late lingerers sat without any carpets to cushion their butts.
They were all in the same age group, too.
On a weekday, at 12 noon, even in a small village like Nagarkhas, strong-bodied youngsters wouldn’t be found lounging in a mosque.
Atharva gave Altaf a raised eye. Altaf’s body did not react, but his jaw twitched.
He, and five others had deposited their weapons outside with the rest of the security detail.
They were seven of them inside the mosque with no ammunition.
But it wouldn’t be hand-to-hand combat, Atharva surmised as the Imam of the mosque went on talking about the history of the place, the current affairs around it, its role in Hindu-Muslim unity during the freedom movement of 1947.
What was this? Dilshad Khan had dropped out for this reason.
But what was planned? Atharva slowed his footsteps, purposely veering from his path to walk towards some carvings on a pillar — “This looks like Deccan work,” he observed.
The Imam followed him, droning on about how it was not Deccan design but patently Indo-Saracenic.
Atharva observed the body language of late lingerers.
Uncomfortable.
So, instead of following the path that the Imam was trying to lead him down, Atharva walked perpendicular, wandering away.
“Iss taraf, Kaul sahab,” the Imam pushed. “Yahan se ghoom ke raasta bahar nikalta hai.[29]”
“Yahan se?[30]” Atharva frowned, giving Altaf time to plot a peaceful exit. “Lekin hum toh iss taraf se andar aaye the…[31]” he began to walk out towards the main door of the mosque. The body language of late lingerers? Fidgety. Eyes moving but not moving.
The Imam was running behind him — “Aapne naam toh dekhe hi nahi…[32]”
“Haan, hum yahin se toh andar aaye the, Imam sahab,[33]” Atharva stopped at the gate, the sun streaming down on the small hilly market outside. The walls of the mosque glinted and Atharva gave it a perfunctory once-over.
Altaf and team reunited with the rest outside and immediately collected their weapons.
“Sir,” Altaf brought his menacing presence and voice closer. “We need to leave for the hotel. Your son is ill.”
Atharva nodded apologetically at the Imam — “Maaf kijiyega, Imam sahab, mujhe jaana padega. Main waapis zaroor aaoonga.[34]”
The man was left flabbergasted, his head nodding vigorously.
Atharva felt his socked feet leave the cold marble of the mosque and step out on the warm sunned threshold.
He stepped down, eyes panning the market, the roofs, the trees in the distance.
The buzz of the locals was loud, the market alive with chants of dry fruit vendors and lace sellers.
He wasn’t known in this part of the world, and yet Atharva felt curious eyes sizing him up as he slipped his feet into his shoes and bent down to tie the laces.
Altaf was by his side, one finger on his earpiece.
“The cars have been sent to the back of the mosque,” Altaf murmured in his ear as he straightened. “They have been called back.”
“Quick,” he muttered under his breath.
“Allah haafiz, Kaul sahab,” the Imam’s light voice made him stop.
Atharva turned to let him pass, nodding at the man’s salaam. He pointed to the intricately carved blue names in Devanagari and Urdu on the white marble of the door’s arc. Atharva followed his finger, took a moment to absorb the few names before his heart stopped.
There was something about the woman staring at him from across the hilly road.
He felt it in his peripheral vision. She stood beside a chestnut seller, her head covered in a dupatta, eyes half-hooded under the mild rays of the sun.
He turned, and saw into his wife’s eyes.
She saw into his. His throat constricted and his legs shook.
Atharva started walking in her direction and she into his.
His gaze didn’t leave her. Altaf began to whisper words in his earpiece behind him.
Atharva didn’t listen. Nothing worked inside him except his legs, his feet, his arms — all taking him in the direction of Iram.
She broke into a run too, and he ran faster.
They were crossing people and spaces and yet the distance between them felt like a life of forever.
That distance just extended for a few more lifetimes when a loud shattering sound went off behind him.
He froze, because she froze, her eyes wide at the spot behind him.
Atharva turned, and the spot he had stood at outside the mosque had gone up in smoke and flames.
Atharva turned to her. The market exploded in chaos.
She was looking at him, her face not clear in the plumes of smoke that suddenly engulfed the space.
A missile came and blew up the place where he stood in the middle of the market, but he didn’t realize that he had been bubbled into a human shield and pushed.
His eyes only remained on Iram, getting fainter and fainter as distance and smoke kept getting thicker and thicker.
Until that second, he didn’t realize that he was being physically restrained by two of his bodyguards and was fighting like a madman to get away.
That a wall of men stood in front of him.
He didn’t realize until the buzzing from the bomb died down in his ears that he was shouting her name, screaming, wailing.
But she wasn’t in his sight anymore. People, distance, smoke had separated them.