Chapter 21 #3
She remained silent, knowing his pauses were always pregnant when it came to her. Atharva smiled. A few years with someone could make such a difference. That they started to become so aware of you, your life, your needs, your mannerisms. Sometimes more than you yourself were.
“I went back and forth inside my own head, trying to come to terms with the fact that you did not leave me. And in doing so, I couldn’t give you the affection that you clearly needed from me.”
She still did not utter a word. And so he went on.
“I was there for you, but not in the way you needed me. All of me. At first, I thought everything was new, your body needed to heal just as much as your soul. But then… I never took any steps towards you because I was scared I would feel or say or do something cutting again and it would undo so much of what has gone forward between us. I was scared, and hesitant, and wrong in not…” his breath gave away.
He swallowed the ball of saliva, suddenly pierced by the thought that his wife, the mother of his son, the woman he had loved, revered and seen as the only focal point of a blurring world had felt that he did not want to look at her like that again.
In hindsight, she had mentioned something to that effect while feeding for the first time. And he had laughed it off.
Her fingers slipped up the column of his neck, to his jaw. The knuckles turned and scraped across his stubble, gently pulling his face down to her.
“If I was not ready to welcome you into my body once and you waited, and that was right, then how is this wrong?”
His eyes fell shut.
“Intimacy of body and soul remains,” her soft, wise voice sounded, close to his eyes. “But sometimes it takes a minute to bring the mind back.”
He felt her mouth on his eyes. Warm, deep, pressing with all the weight of their shared intimacies and tragedies.
“I had a long time to deal with all that was going on inside me,” her forehead fell on his, her nose on the bridge of his nose.
He held the feeling of that behind closed eyelids, feeling ecstatic even while they resurrected the memories of the worst days of their life between them.
“You were holding Arth close, being a single father to him, handling Kashmir burning up again and searching for me while keeping this secret. Atharva, you cannot always be the man who gives everyone everything.”
“I want to give you everything,” he snapped his eyes open.
She rose up enough to meet his eyes — “Whatever you give, for me that is everything.” Her fingers went to his temple, caressing him, sprinkling affection on pain points she knew unravelled parts of him.
“My guilt is wide and deep. But if I let it overpower me, then I am losing on what’s right in front of me.
We decided to walk out of this jungle together. You are going back, Janab?”
He chuckled. Her gaze went to his mouth, then came back up to his eyes — “What brought this on, though?”
“Mmm?”
“You say you were scared of coming close to me…”
“Not scared, myani zuv,” he rolled his eyes. “I meant skeptical.”
“Wordplay,” she brushed him off. “What changed suddenly for you to not even let me bathe in peace?”
“You had finished bathing.”
“Don’t change the topic. I am two years into you and I can keep track of lost topics with eyes closed.”
“Into me?” His brow cocked up.
“Atharva.”
His mouth pursed. And that look on her face returned. The one that compelled him to cough up his greatest crime in a heartbeat.
“Why didn’t you tell me you… fell into a river?”
Her brows drew together.
“You didn’t tell me everything about your journey to Nagar.”
Her eyes widened, understanding dawning.
“Rahim came today.”
She remained silent. Atharva went on — “He has been coming for weeks and waiting outside the gate for me. I don’t know what made me stop today and listen to him. He said some things. And when I asked him why he was telling me, he said because you wouldn’t.”
“I didn’t hide it from you, Atharva,” Iram sighed. “But there was nothing to tell.”
“Whatever you thought was nothing to tell showed me a picture I had ignored in my own grief. Iram, there was haze, and my eyes had become accustomed to only finding my own footing. Now it’s cleared, and even though I knew you were struggling, now I see it.
I really see it. You have borne it all to come back to me, to bring yourself back to me.
My suffering is nothing compared to what you have done on your own.
Once again, you had to build yourself back up on your own and you did it.
I should have been more understanding… you were out of surgery, thought you’d lost our babies and you fell into a river… ” his breath gave away.
“Stop,” her whisper vibrated into his jaw. She held his face and pasted her mouth to his cheek. “Atharva, stop.”
He breathed. “I am sorry.”
“You told me.”
“I can tell you a thousand times.”
“On every one of our honeymoons that are still pending, along with 500 hours.”
He gaped at the woman. A girl again. His. His, his, his.
“Umm mmm, you are circling back, Janab.”
“How do you know?”
“These grey eyes which are a little less prettier than his son’s are screaming sadness right now.”
“My eyes are as pretty as my son’s.”
She grinned. And a chuckle left his mouth. Her index finger pressed down on his downturned mouth — “That’s the smile I like.”
“You like all my smiles.”
“This one’s my favourite.”
Atharva finally let his arms go around her, holding her naked back and buttocks in the palms he knew were only meant for her. Whatever shape or form, she was meant for his arms and his arms for her.
“You are my only,” he snapped her down on him, pressing the lengths of their bodies together. “In whatever shape or form, you are my only. Next time, remember that. I will not repeat it then.”
Her mouth dropped on his and her thighs straddled his waist. Atharva surrendered, letting her take him inside her — mouth, body, heart and soul.
————————————————————
“Dry your hair,” he urged her as he pulled on his pyjama bottoms and climbed back in bed. He used his towel to rub her head gently as she fed their son.
“Don’t jolt me,” she held steady, Yathaarth whimpering.
“Shhh, drink your milk, Dilbaro,” Atharva nuzzled his downy hair, pressing his mouth there. Dark grey eyes stared up at him upside down. Then smiled. Atharva felt his own answering grin break a thousand suns. “How are you so active so late at night, huh?”
“He has his Mama’s genes,” Iram held him closer, now expertly handling him singlehandedly as she changed breasts. Atharva held her wrap open and then instead of pushing it closed, peeled it down to her elbows.
“What are you…”
He dropped his towel and pushed closer to her, wrapping his arms around them.
Her skin was as cool as ever. It pebbled when his body touched hers.
But after that first jolt, she melted back into him, allowing him to hold and warm their little family up.
Atharva glanced down at Yathaarth. He had latched on and accepted his mother’s breast a long time ago.
Now, it was Atharva’s own selfish desire to hold his family close like this.
He pushed Iram’s hair over her back and pressed his lips to the shell of her ear — “You haven’t started using your attar again.”
“In the beginning, you were angry, and I didn’t want to start using it and create bad memories with them.”
“And then?”
“I guess I just forgot. Once Arth’s care took over, all else became immaterial.”
“Even me?” He asked.
“Junior Janab over Senior Janab.”
He bit the shell of her ear, making her laugh. But she held steady. They both knew how calm their son needed his milk time to be.
“He is growing so fast,” she murmured, tracing patterns on his little cheek, just the way he had recently begun to enjoy.
Atharva could see how his son was adapting into new habits, new routines, new pleasures with his mother.
At the onset, it had made him a little jealous.
Now, he was nothing short of grateful, thrilled even, about it.
“Dr. Shankar suggested we slowly introduce him to semi-solids, Atharva.”
“What do you think about hosting his Annaparashan sanskar first and then starting him on semi-solids?” He asked as the idea struck him. “Technically, it’s not a grand affair, but we didn’t even give him his Naamkaran sanskar.”
His wife’s cheek swelled with a smile. “Let’s call everybody. All our friends and family. Will Pops and Grandma also come?”
“That’s a great idea. I spoke to them after your delivery and they wanted to come. But I asked them to give us time to adjust. They don’t know about anything else. I have been barring them from talking to you, citing that you are not ready to talk yet.”
She nodded — “Let’s do it. All our family. Everybody. Will it be here or in Jammu?”
“Here. I want to do it here in our house.”
“But that leaves us with just two weeks to prepare before we move to Jammu…”
“We will manage, Iram.”
“What will the ceremony be like?”
“Just a pooja and feeding him some grains or something like kheer. I am not sure, let me ask.”
Iram sighed. “Dr. Shankar asked to replace his primary meals with semi-solids slowly.”
“I was there. You did not like it,” he pulled her back on his chest to recline them, enjoying some of the last days of this skin-to-skin intimacy.
Yathaarth was growing, and growing up fast. Soon he would start semi-solids and then solids.
And then this little bubble wouldn’t exist again. Or not as frequently as it did now.
“I just started feeding him. It’s like I didn’t even get to hold him enough.”
“Myani zuv, you know you won’t immediately stop feeding, right? Milk will still be a supplement. Dr. Shankar and Dr. Baig both were in favour of breastfeeding for the next year if you wish to.”
“But I won’t be his only source of sustenance,” her face broke into a bittersweet smile. “I love that he is growing; his milestones are on time. But it’s like I am missing things already, even before they are gone.”
Atharva chuckled — “How do you put all that I feel into words?”
Her head fell back on his shoulder, brown eyes so tender and satisfied as they stared into his.
“Do you ever think about how we both experience so many things the same way?”
“Like our thoughts?”
“And feelings. Like we are experiencing the same things and have similar feelings? Learning the same lessons in life but in different ways? These last few weeks have made me think about it. I read something about twin flames in a blog on modern spiritualism. It stated that sometimes, one soul that is too heavy to finish its karmic learnings and healing, splits into two. The masculine part takes its own journey, the feminine part goes on its own path. But the two always keep intertwining, reflecting each other’s lessons, helping each other reach a higher state of being.
And then when they reach there, or are close to reaching there, they meet and merge into one. ”
Atharva traced the curve of her cheek, using the tips of his nails to caress the creamy skin.
“My Dadi used to say this about Shiv and Shakti. They are not two different entities but two parts of one whole soul.”
“Look how we have always crossed at moments of our lives when we both had to learn, make a choice and leap from one phase of our lives to another,” she recounted, eerily perfect in connecting the dots back.
“It’s like, if one hadn’t done something, the other’s choice might have been different.
If I hadn’t taken your Bhagwad Gita, you wouldn’t have grown into this fearless man who did not put his security in an object but in its teachings.
If you hadn’t saved me and left me at the army shelter, and left with your advise of not going back home, maybe I would have been picked up by the men sent by Faiz’s father.
If I hadn’t stayed here to work in KDP, none of this would have happened.
All the sorrow, all the losses we bore, as well as the blessings we received,” Iram glanced down at their son, his eyes now closed as he suckled slowly, done for the night.
“None of this would exist, and neither would our realisations.”
“And what are they, myani zuv?” He cleared his throat, his voice feeling hoarse.
“That everything will pass, good and bad. And when it all passes, we will remain. We are not here for the joys or the sorrows. We are here to be. Just be. You and me.”
Atharva pressed his mouth to her eye, holding her in the circle of his arms again, holding his family together. Beyond joys and sorrows, they would exist. Whatever happened now, in this one fact he believed.