“What happened?”
“You haven’t even asked me yet! And your end date is ending next week.”
“Are you coming back next week?” He knew she wasn’t. She had been back home properly after ten years. And her parents needed her. She needed them. She needed to take a step back from the race that she had been running to breathe just as much as he had needed this moment.
“Samar, it will still take a month, maybe mor…”
“Amaal,” he turned solemn. “I was joking.”
“You know how to joke?”
“Quiet.” He commanded. “And listen carefully to me. Come when you are ready. Even after Dad is ok, stay if you want to. I am going to be right here where you left me.”
“I did not leave you. And if for one minute you think you are a bachelor, Samar Dixit…”
He smiled.
“Remember, you have to spend the rest of your life with me and I am awesome at knife fight.”
“Noted.”
“Good. Now go form your government. Are you taking the Deputy CM post?”
Samar glanced at the closed gates of the bungalow in front of him.
At one suspended point in his life, he had vied for a position like that. It was anger, listlessness, jealousy, need, and so much more talking. Now, he knew his strengths. More than that, he acknowledged his weaknesses.
He was not a man who could blaze open new roads. But he was exceptional at paving a way that had been opened up. He was not about to confine himself now.
“No,” Samar started the car. “I am going to expand this party across India.”
59. Maa ka ashirwad worked wonders…
Maa ka ashirwad worked wonders, especially when the said Maa wanted you to get married so badly that she pushed you out of the house, the cityandthe continent.
“You better come back with your husband next time.” She had squeezed Amaal under her arm at the airport, making Dad grunt. He was now a reluctant member of the Samar Party, but as always, he still thought she could do better.
Amaal stepped back on Indian soil in the cosy winter of December, with the last few months in London having reset a whole lot of her life, her perspective and her priorities. She now wasn’t hard pressed on running behind the trail of her career. She had given it enough of a decade to finally slow down. She was no more desperate to make it big, to keep her CV glowing, to stay ahead of time itself. She was now ready to settle down. Buy that house, even if she needed a loan, get her parents to return now that Jammu-Kashmir was her future, and marry that man standing at Arrivals.
She spotted him before he did, and Amaal slowed down, keeping him in her eyes before he realised she was here. The Shimla Airport was busy with this Delhi flight traffic, the passengers in a commotion of trolleys and bags around her. She had eyes only for Samar. Even from this distance, standing among a line of waiting families, he stood out. Not because of his height or sharp eyes, but because of the sheer strength of his presence. His kurta sleeves were rolled up, his burn scars a bright, beaming part of him, visible around the leather jacket he had folded over one arm. The mandarin collar of his kurta was open at the top, giving a peep into the side where another scar lived. And yet, the melted skin only told a story of bravery, of redemption, of simple decision-making in a man as complex as this one.
His head turned, and she knew the exact moment he spotted her, because that straight mouth, which was pressed into a thin line, began to soften. Slowly, his eyes shone. And he took off his specs just as she ran the remainder of the way to him, abandoning her trolley.
His arms opened when she thought she would have to weasel her way into him, and Amaal jumped, making him whirl with her momentum. His low laughter reverberated in her ears as his arms pressed her tight to his chest.
“Netaji,” she pulled back, making it a point to give him a once-over. “Wear a koti now at least.”
“I will.” He set her down, putting his specs back on and stepping around to get her trolley. Amaal turned to look at him. She had seen his back in some of their life’s worst moments and now it was a delight to see it as he caught hold of the handle of her trolley. She sighed, then noticed eyes on them.
“What happened?” Samar touched her lower back, pushing her trolley one-handed. She stepped out of his touch.
“Umm, Samar,” she leaned in. “People recognise you here.”
“Yes,” he gathered her close again, making her hold onto the trolley handle with her free hand. “But I am not as famous a face as you think. They will see me, talk about it and forget it. Our Deputy CM Balwinder Joshi is famous.”
“Look at that, when I left India, you were a small-time Himachal party…” she teased. He meandered the trolley to the parking lot. “We were never a small-time party. And now we are expanding across three North Indian states.”
“How’s that going?”
