“I snapped at her.”
“Don’t put it past you.”
Samar glanced at this profile, still relaxed.
“What’s happening to me?” Samar said to himself, focusing back on the road ahead.
“You were always like this.”
“Was I?”
That was a shocker. Samar thought he had become better in the past year. Not the best, but at least bearable. Had all his progress only been in his head? If it was that, then… fear spiked inside him. What if he couldn’t become worthy of her in the time that he had promised? Amaal was waiting on the other side for everything she deserved.
“Your best trait is your self-awareness,” Atharva said. “And your worst is your refusal to accept that self-awareness.”
Rain eclipsed the sun, and it was so sudden that the silence in the car went ballistic with the pattering. He sped on, tearing down the sleet.
“I am trying to do it,” Samar whispered.
“Do you really want to do it, is the question.”
Of course he wanted to!
“Because if the answer is yes, then there will be notrying.”
————————————————————
They reached Sirmaur, and it was already washed out. Visibility was close to zero, with nothing but a white sleet of rain in front of them. They thankfully got a covered lot to park the car.
“Atharva sir,” Vikram Rana came running to Atharva, torchlight to light up the dark space. This was news to Samar. Vikram Rana, one of their youngest rising HDP leaders, close to Atharva?
“There’s food and medicines in the car,” Atharva directed. “Clothes and some baby things. Do you have people to take it?”
“There are people but we will have to trek uphill.”
“No pulleys? Cable cars?” Samar opened the dickey, looking at the haphazard way Iram had stuffed the final bags of baby clothes, pushing them through the crevices between boxes.
“We suspended everything,” Vikram panted, more men running into the lot in raincoats and plastic bag kaftans.
“Is everyone evacuated?” Atharva asked.
“Everyone but one family of seven,” Vikram reported, their coordination matching. “They are stuck on their roof on their farm outside the village. We can see them from the highest point here but cannot reach them. Kacche raste have been swept away and the roads are closed. When I spoke last to a Captain on radio, he said an airlift is being arranged.”
“From the NDRF?”
“He said he was a Captain from Kashmir.”
Samar’s satellite phone rang.
“Adil.” Samar blazed. “Tell me you have the go.”
“I do, but Qureshi is in a meeting now. I need it all signed.”
“Adil has gotten the nod to send J&K Disaster Management Force,” Samar relayed to Atharva. To Adil, he barked — “Go inside then!”
“Hang on. Wait. I need an hour.”
“We are here and waiting, get it fast.”
