“Bye.”
He stalked to the door and grabbed the door handle.
“Samar?”
“Hmm?”
She hesitated.
He stood there, his back tightening with every empty second that passed.
“Maybe…” she said. “The start to your peace is becoming independent of Atharva. If you spent your prime years on something with your core team and it didn’t work out for you, you have another mature decade to spend on something all on your own.”
His head turned over his shoulder, his eyes cutting to her, hopeful, needy, looking more innocent than they ever had. Amaal smiled — “And I am told politicians become better with age.”
A small wrinkle dipped into his cheek in what was a semblance of a smile.
“Hmm.”
36. Samar didn’t show up in front of her again…
Samar didn’t show up in front of her again in the months that followed. The winter session came, passed, and was now trailing to an end. Samar did not come.
She knew his whereabouts, of course. He was mostly in Himachal, aggressively setting the groundwork for a party there. She had sensed that Atharva was not happy about it, but he let it happen. He himself was busy doing his own ‘hibernation planning,’ as he liked to call it. The Kashmir valley was frozen in winter, people hibernating. And sitting in Jammu, through the winter session, Atharva was working to extend his spy network across Kashmir — broadly to preempt militant threats that had begun to lift their heads again, and pointedly to hunt down an absconding Sufiyaan Sheikh.
For her part, Amaal found her days to be a mix of media stories, news firefighting because KDP was growing and its minister and leaders did not always keep quiet when they needed to, and spending time with Iram on the weekends. Those were some of her most stress-busting times. Especially when they found themselves alone and talking about anything and everything under the sun. Like today.
Janab CM was away on a stream of ‘shilaanyas’ ceremonies across Jammu as he was kickstarting infra-projects in partnership with the Central government and private players. Ideally, Amaal was supposed to be there too, but she had dispatched her juniors and chosen to enjoy her Sunday for a change.
“Hmm,” Iram held out the plate of garlic bread slices oozing cheese. Amaal accepted it, setting it on the floor in front of her, her eyes on the news channel playing Atharva’s B-roll on mute.
“Amaal!” Iram nudged with her knee. “This also.” A Pepsi bottle came down.
“I asked for Thums Up!”
“Shiva could only find Pepsi.” Iram settled down beside her, leaning back on the sofa. “And I don’t pick fights with him over minor issues.”
“Ha,” Amaal barked. “Coward.”
“You can?” She raised one knee, turning towards her. “Be my guest. Shiv…”
“Hey!” Amaal nudged her knee. “Don’t threaten ghar aaya mehman.”
“Eat, eat,” Iram pulled the pizza box closer to them. “Ghar aaya mehman.”
They both knew Amaal was not much of a guest in their house. Be it Srinagar or Jammu, Atharva and Iram’s home was as open to her today as Atharva’s house had been before his marriage. More so now with Iram here.
“How’s work going?” Iram asked.
“Going. How’s your new book going?” She bit into the slice of her pizza. Jammu had started to make really good pizzas in the last five years. The thought of that naan kaladi pizza made the taste of this one turn to dust in her mouth. She still chewed.
“Going.” Iram bit into her garlic bread. “Jammu has felt so good… time passed in a blink. I never knew a change of scenery would do this to me. Srinagar is so dear to me that I did not think another city would help us heal. But after… we lost the baby, Jammu has been like rebuilding everything. This house, our perspective, our future… What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Did you like Jammu?”
“What’s not to like?’
