“The latter.” It wasn’t a complete lie; Atharva was smoking very close to him. Samar glanced at her through his eyelashes. How could he let her see something in him that appalled her?
“Who?”
“Who what?”
“Who was smoking close to you?”
Atharva.But he couldn’t say it to her.
“An old friend.”
“From SFF?”
He nodded.
“You meet them still?”
“Hmm.”
“What do you’ll talk about when you meet?”
“What kind of a question is that?”
“Like… do you talk about your old days, the memories? Or do you talk about what’s going on right now in your lives? I, for example, when I meet college friends, I talk about the memories more than what’s going on.”
“This life isthatboring for you?
“On the contrary! It’s the most fun I have had. But my friends wouldn’t understand this brand of fun. For them, 15-hour workdays are not fun. Because they don’t have the passion that I have or the people and goals that I have.”
“You still want to build your own house in Kashmir?”
“With a hammock between two trees, preferably apple trees.”
Samar smiled. “I have a house in Udhampur.”
“Really? Like a house-house or a flat?”
“House. With a garden.”
“Who lives there?”
“No one.”
“Do you go there?”
“Haven’t been in some years.”
“Not even when you are in Jammu on long tours?”
He shook his head. He did not like to venture there unless completely unavoidable.
“Does it have apple trees?”
“No, there are peru trees. And they smell very nice in season. They also double up as great remedies for joint pain and Vitamin C supplements…”
“Ok, Daaxsaab, keep that extra information to yourself.”
“If you ate peru and chewed peru leaves, you would recover quicker from your next bout of malaria.”
