Her name from his mouth, for the first time, felt like an endearment.
“You are not planning to do straight talking tonight then, fine.” She rolled her eyes. “I’ll shut up. We are meeting after two months and you what? Just bring me to your new house and sit here giving one-word answers and not even airing my conversation starters. What will we do in regular life when everything is said and done? Just sit silently like this looking at each other…?”
Her mouth was taken with a vengeance. She hit his shoulder, making it vibrate. Samar pulled back.
“I have never seen somebody talk so much after saying they will shut up.”
“Because you only live in your own company and obviously that company is quiet. Hmm? Hmm. Hmm hmm? Hmm.”
His body warmed up, vibrating louder beneath hers. And Amaal found herself chuckling too. He didn’t laugh often, but when he did, silently like this, it was infectious.
“You are enough of conversation between the two of us.” He gripped her chin and shook. “We could easily spend a lifetime on your side of conversations.” Samar’s eyes softened.
“Where is this going, Samar?”
“This as in?”
“This as inthis.” She ran her knuckles up and down his kurta buttons. “It’s been five months and we haven’t been able to meet even five times. Today, it felt like starting all over again between us even though we met like we’ve been meeting every day… I am not complaining. But long distance has to have an end date, no?”
He stared at her.
“There should be a day of meeting finally for which we go through all this.” Amaal croaked. “One day, at the end, that we believe in.”
His hand smoothed the hair off her face and cupped her cheek. “What do you want?”
“I am not demanding. I just want to know what is the plan for you.”
“Plan…” he looked away, shaking his head. “Plan was to move away from Kashmir eventually. Establish Himachal Development Party, hold my own in Jammu. After years, I am reclaiming something I had let go under Atharva’s shadow. My own voice. I may not be great at things, but I am me. I have a way of doing things and I would like to keep doing that until I see if I can succeed on my own. It is now more about putting something… inside me to rest. Grow up and face the world without asking for comfort of places that were never mine in the first place.”
Amaal cupped his neck. His eyes came to her.
“Do I fit there somewhere?”
He smiled. “You have fitted there where I never knew any place existed.”
“But I want to make a home here,” she whispered, looking around them, expecting this to be a roadblock in their plans. Srinagar had always been the endgame.
“Can there be two homes?” He asked, and jumped the car over the roadblock even before she could realise it.
She looked up and smiled, then nodded.
“Some more months,” he wrapped his arms around her, laying his jaw on her head. “Let us get through these primary membership drives and establish grassroots.”
She nodded.
“This long distance is meant to end, one way or another.”
“There is noanotherwhere we are concerned now!” She shot back. And heard another rare vibration of his laughter.
41. Amaal was a know-it-all…
Amaal was a know-it-all. She knew when he had a bad day, she knew when he hadn’t eaten, she knew when he was happy. The last one was impossible to figure out because Samar never knew it himself. He hardly ever experienced joy with awareness, forget projecting it outwards.
AMAAL
You are in Srinagar since the last four hours
Come show me your face!
