Chapter 24
A man could burn for the woman he loved, but he would burn the world down for the family he made.
As Atharva stepped on the soft earth of the deep winter forest of Kupwara, his team and security bubbled around him, the media a barrage behind him, and the heads of two units of forces waiting for him at the door of the small hideout, he knew this with crystal clarity that the stakes to protect had risen.
It wasn’t just his wife he protected now, it was the mother of his child.
Major Banot straightened and saluted him as he approached. Atharva nodded, holding the man’s stare. He wasn’t supposed to salute a CM. There was no hierarchy or protocol like that. And yet the three Captain-rank officers behind him snapped their hands in salutes.
“Sir,” Major Banot briefed. “Operation Black Crag was a success. Target cell was neutralised. Eight confirmed KIA, two captured. Minimal collateral. No civilian footprint in the area.”
Atharva gave a nod. He didn’t smile. He never did after ops — especially not when the smell of iron was still on the wind.
“Walk me through the breach.”
DGP Khan, from the J&K Police SF unit opened a map folded over his arm, gesturing to the ridge.
Major Banot weighed in on it, surprisingly cohesive.
Atharva remembered not a few months ago how Major Banot had gone toe-to-toe with Commissioner Malik.
This operation, among its many wins, was also an unprecedented smooth sail between the military and the J&K Police.
“Intercepted comms yesterday morning confirmed a weapons drop,” Major Banot led.
“Our drone teams marked infrared movement near the pine line at 1300 hours. At 1400, two teams entered from the west and north, silent incursion. They were running triple-layer security. Booby traps on the western entrance. We cut through.”
“Intel confirmed local or foreign assets?”
“Mixed, sir. But leadership was foreign. Pakistani handlers, possibly from Gilgit.”
Atharva’s gaze panned across the group gathered, meeting Captain Husain’s before moving on. Find out if this has Dilshad Khan’s fingerprints all over it.
DGP Khan offered a tablet — “We have visual ID on one of the dead. Cross-checked with the July 9th Srinagar school blast.”
Atharva’s jaw barely moved.
“Positive?”
“Facial match 96.2%. Fingerprint match 100%. Hassan Qadri. Explosives expert. We believe he was training two new recruits inside. One’s alive. Seventeen. Scared.”
Atharva looked at the screen for exactly three seconds. Then — “Keep him that way. Interrogation should be protocol Delta, no stagecraft.”
“He is strong-headed, sir.” Major Banot remarked.
“But he is seventeen, Major. It will be possible to catch him between that place of ‘I cannot betray my masters’ and ‘I don’t know what I’m doing here.
’ We want to know where Hassan Qadri’s masters are stationed, and what the next plan is — without turning the boy into another martyr in someone else's war.”
Atharva saw that the Major did not like it.
He wasn’t obligated to take Atharva’s advice either.
But Atharva was stuck in a hard place between making friends with the forces again and holding his responsibility as the CM.
It became a three-way tag when his own experience leading interrogations in SFF began to play like it was just yesterday.
These young kids weren’t broken by psychological tactics or coercion of pain.
The brainwashing was too fresh and their minds too soft to understand grey.
Atharva moved toward the hideout’s mouth — low stone, scorched black from a flash-grenade ignition. His boots crunched frost and ash.
“Who cleared air recon?”
“Captain Bedi got us satellite coverage for twenty-seven minutes pre-strike. That gave us the clean entry.”
Atharva gave Captain Bedi a brief look. “Did you find any signal jammers?”
“One, sir. Crude rig. Iranian make. Likely exfil from the Sialkot corridor. We’ve handed it off to NTRO.”
He turned to Major Banot.
“This site, it’s not a cell. It’s a station. That means they're laying groundwork for forward operating logistics. I want this forest mapped to the root. Canopy scans, heat-sigs, rabbit holes — everything. If they’ve buried anything, I want to know before winter buries it even more.”
Major Banot gave a curt nod. A stillness settled for a second. No one spoke. Then Atharva looked around. The men, the gear, the trees wrapped in frost and sun.
“You just gave this state a victory when it needed it most. Make sure that seventeen-year-old tells us what we need to hear. But don’t let him forget what he almost became.”
With that, he turned — the camera shutters in front of him already going off, catching him as he strode to his fleet. Questions were shouted, hustle ensued. He didn’t flinch.
Some wars were being fought in the forests. And some were just beginning inside the city.
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The sun was going down and Jammu’s sky was burnished copper. Atharva got down from the car and nodded back at Altaf and team. As the fleet of cars ahead of him emptied the long, broad driveway, Altaf came to stand in front of him.
“Happy birthday, sir.”
Atharva found it in himself to return the small smile — “Thank you, Altaf.”
The dickeys of the cars behind his were being emptied of flowers and gifts vetted by security at the Secretariat. Atharva couldn’t find any energy or joy in this day.
“I’ll be in the outhouse, sir. Are you going out tonight?”
“No. We are home.”
He nodded, stepping back and turning around to stride home.
Atharva turned too, seeing the door of his house glow with happy orange light.
Iram hadn’t touched the decor in the house but she had changed the light temperatures the first year they had stayed here.
He had to agree that warmer lights switched moods instantly.
Today, though, he was exhausted. Travel had never exhausted him before.
Maybe it was age catching up. Or maybe the fear inside him.
He climbed the steps and crossed the threshold of his house, his face warming up at the boy sitting inside the playpen Iram had built around him. He was half on his knees, trying to strain out and grab the remote from the sofa, his bum round and dancing to some imaginary tune.
“Myani zuv!” He called out, striding in. “Myani zuv?”
“Zuuub zuv!” Yathaarth’s tiny voice echoed. He stopped in his tracks, head whirling to his son. His head was now turned to the kitchen, lips round on his last ‘zuv.’
“Myani zuv!” Atharva yelled louder, eyes on his son.
“Zuzuv!” He called out louder, dark grey eyes wide and waiting on the kitchen’s door.
Iram came running, mouth open — “Did he say what I heard?”
“Myani zuv?” Atharva grinned, stepping close to Yathaarth’s playpen. He was banging his hands on the playpen fence, grinning at Iram — “Zub zuv… zuuu!” He sputtered and Atharva swooped him up to a barrage of maddening giggles.
“She is my myani zuv, find another name,” he cradled his son in his arms, blowing raspberries into his neck. Yathaarth couldn’t stop chortling.
“Myani zuv, come here.”
“Zuvzuvzu…”
“Aye!” He mock-growled, making his son go off again.
“Zu…”
“Aye!”
More chortles. More raspberries. More zuuus from his little rebel.
Iram’s face came into his view from over his son’s neck. And her eyes were wide, rimmed, heavy. Her face buried in his curls and Atharva gathered her close.
“Arth, Mama or Baba didn’t catch on,” she vibrated, her voice watery.
“Goes to show that I chant your name more than you chant mine,” he intoned. Her head came up, brown eyes wet but shiny lips curved. Their gazes locked. It was their son’s milestone, and yet it felt like theirs.
“Zuzuv!” Yathaarth’s hand thumped his chin. Atharva jostled him to his shoulder. “My myani zuv!”
“Zuuuv,” he giggled.
“This game is going to be the end of me,” Iram buried her face in her fingers and wiped her eyes clean. He tipped her chin up and brought her face up for a kiss.
She grinned — “Happy birthday.”
“You wished me this morning.”
“I can wish you as many times as I want.”
He laughed out loud, thumbing the impish grin on her mouth. He had barked the same words at her once in a fit of jealous rage.
“It’s good we didn’t call everyone for dinner tonight,” she stepped closer and under his arm. “Just you, me and Arth.”
“And Shiva and Noora.”
“How did you know Noora is here?”
Atharva’s eyes strayed to the photo frame of the said man-child, staring back at him from his TV console. Iram followed his gaze and gasped. Then burst out laughing.
“Why would he set his photo on our TV console?”
She shrugged — “Should we ask him? He is in the kitchen.”
“No! Please, no. I am going to go shower. What’s for dinner?”
“Mango milk cake, a special Italian feast,” she rose on tiptoes and whispered in his ear — “And a tired baby who didn’t take his evening nap.”
He smirked — “Which means his zuvzuv is available to entertain his father.”
Iram kissed his cheek, plucked Yathaarth from his arms and pushed him to go up the stairs.
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After a long, scrumptious dinner, half of which was spent teasing Iram and the other half fending off Noora’s attempts to butt into their table for two, and a spongey vanilla cake dripping in mango milk (only god knew how she had found mangoes in this season) cut with Yathaarth’s fascination for the lone candle burning on the side, Atharva lounged back in the living room.