“Can’t I have requested this meeting to get to know you? Sit with you? Talk about our collective futures?”
Samar remained silent.
“Sit, Samar sahab, sit. Sitting with me will not make you betray your KDP.”
Samar walked to the low table, then sat down in front of him, crossing his legs on the cushion. He set one hand on the table and leaned forward — “Sitting with you puts me on the same level as you. That’s not where I like to be.”
“Aah,” Sufiyaan barked a shocked chuckle. “Waah! You and I fight on the same ground, in the same back lanes of old Srinagar. Your militants kill mine. Take the areas that belong to me. And you say we are not on the same level? Hippocrates ki toh sharam karo, Dr. sahab… arey arey, uski toh oath lete ho. And then you bring your militants to kill my innocent militants. Does this Dr. Dang behaviour suit you?”
“There is a difference between militants and militia.”
“Let’s not get into this debate. It’s never-ending, just like Awaami’s rule over Kashmir.” Sufiyaan thumped the table with his palm. “You tell me now, honestly, two months are left. Do you even see any hope for yourself in the valley? Atharva Kaul is begging Shahid Agha for a chance. It is not going to happen. A Pundit CM can never be accepted here. You, as Jammu’s Punjabi, still have better chance than Atharva in this state.”
Samar stared at him.
“But that’s not why I wanted to see you.” He sighed. “It’s about something your party has that belongs to mine.”
Samar did not take the bait.
“Iram Haider.”
If that name, pronounced in this room, shocked him, Samar held his expression still. It didn’t take much effort. The way he had kept himself closed in the bombs of the last few weeks was a testament to his self-control.
“I hear you have a bone to pick with Aamir Haider.” Sufiyaan Sheikh’s lips tightened at the name. “Aamir Chacha.”
“You hear wrong.”
Sufiyaan Sheikh nodded. “But eyes and ears don’t report wrong.”
“Aamir Haider has been dead for years.”
“That’s not how you look at his daughter in your party.”
Silence.
“It doesn’t work like that, Samar sahab. I can’t keep opening all my cards and you sit with yours close to your chest.”
“I don’t have any cards.”
“But you do. You do not want Iram Haider to remain in your party. And I want her in mine.”
“It’s a free land,” Samar announced. “Relatively,” he added. “You are free to go and approach her.”
“If only.” Sufiyaan shook his head. “Your Party President guards her like a dog. I’ll be honest. Iram has been lost to us since the day Aamir Chacha died. If we could have saved her that day, gotten to her in time, she would be with us at our party. Her party. As her brother, I am appalled that she had to join your party in those circumstances. We don’t even know how she lived for all these years, what struggles she faced. But now that she is here, Sayyid Chacha and I have come to this conclusion — that Iram belongs here, back to the party that her father founded.”
“And why would you think I could do anything about that?”
“Arrange for a meeting.”
Samar let out a scoff.
“I am serious. Arrange for a meeting. Your office campus is far out of the main town, plus it is not a place one can walk into easily. There is bad blood between Atharva Kaul and me, though I have only met him a handful of times. Allah knows what I ever did to him.”
“She is our star writer. Why would I give her to you?” Samar played the devil’s advocate.
“Because you do not want her there. And, because you want to win a second constituency.”
“I have Udhampur.”
