“You two should be married.”
Atharva smiled — “Adil and Qureshi would tell you the same thing.”
Amaal rolled her eyes, the bright blue returning not on his eyes but on his scar. They lingered there, and as if the moment of reprieve was gone, Atharva exhaled.
“You moved fast,” Amaal started.
“What did you expect?”
“Sometime!” She sat up. “Two weeks? You got news two weeks ago and you already have your application going to the MEA and the DEA and the Home Ministry?!”
“You want me to wait for Diwali?”
“No, but look around! Look at the current condition in Kashmir.”
Atharva did not blink. He knew better than Amaal the conditions, considering he chaired every security meeting that she did not have the clearance to. Lucky her.
Usama Aziz’s death had only been the start of a fuse that had been lit long ago. Weeks into his death and the fire was roaring, so much so that, every Friday, stone-pelters were gathering around mosques and starting their parades through downtown Srinagar. Mischief-makers were targeting army bunkers, torching gardens and raising anti-India slogans. Everything was a black mess of chaos.
When the army was given permission to use tear gas, the stone pelters came with E600 masks. When they were permitted to use water hoses, the pelters started climbing buildings and terraces to attack. That led to domestic crimes multiplying exponentially. Homeland and police forces were stretched thin. It was the prelude to civil war — disguised as civil unrest. Atharva saw it, from his manual-driven military brain, as well as from his experience in politics.
And he was going slow — firm, but slow.
The figurative political suicide for him, though, had come when he had let the Central Government intervene. Yogesh Patel’s pressure had finally strained the KDP government because the Janta Party MLAs had refused to cooperate in the house. Their threats hadn’t meant anything as Atharva was sitting on a majority that could go on even in the wake of Janta Party breaking their alliance. But he knew it was political suicide to burn the bridge with the Centre at such a crucial time. Especially with Momina Aslam and Awaami Party rallying tirelessly against whatever he did.
Then had come his literal political suicide. He had silently supported the Central Government in letting the army use pellet guns last week. He had seen the ground reality. Gotten firsthand reports of malicious intents behind every stone pelting — starting that civil war. Pellet guns were the only viable option left to maintain civilisation in a rapidly depleting social order. After all, school-going children had been brought to the hospital stoned due to these Friday shows. He couldn’t allow that.
Atharva had been silent but explicit in the support of the move, knowing that was the only way they were holding the state together and keeping innocent citizens safe. But those sitting outside wanted a pound of his flesh. All those media vultures, all those fake NGOS, all those pseudo-human-rights organisations that had not been patronised by him during his two years’ term had come clamouring to his door. Articles, reports, editorials, op-eds, videos, news reports — there was a whole campaign being set to shape the narrative against him.
There was also one more fact: over the last three decades, as many times as the pellet guns had been used in the valley, the ruling government had fallen, and fallen hard.
At this time, though, he did not care for a longer term or even a repeat term as much as he did for Kashmir to remain alive. Atharva had tightened his fist. And held his silence.
And that had made him into one of ‘those Indian army.’ The narrative? He was Pundit, Hindu, and from the Indian Defence fraternity. Kashmir was again beginning to talk in ‘us’ and ‘them.’ It was slow, in whispers, but Sufiyaan Sheikh had managed to light this spark all the way from his grave.
“Atharva?”
“Hmm?” He startled back.Shit.He would have to stop doing this. It had never happened to him before. Why was it happening now?
His son’s wiggling hands banged on his stomach and Atharva rocked him up and down, leaning back to get him comfortable.
“What’s wrong?” Amaal’s voice softened.
“Nothing’s wrong.”
Her mouth pursed. If she had more to say, she chose to keep mum on the topic.
“Ok, then let me come to the point.”
“Finally.”
“You cannot go to PoK.”
“Says who?”
“For two minutes, I need you to set the snark aside, please.”
“Amaal.” He turned solemn. “There is no world in which I wouldn’t go.”
