Page 179 of The Circle of Exile
“Sorry, Atharva Bhai. Can you… give me a lift to my Nani’s house?”
Atharva stilled. He peered into the boy’s eyes, eyelids tittering under the drizzle. Daniyal Qureshi had the time of his life in his Nani’s house but he wouldn’t be caught dead being there again. In his own words, all the ‘action’ for him was here. Atharva stared at him, hard. He squirmed, scratching his shaggy jaw, then pulling nervously on his nose.
“What did you do?” Atharva asked, making it easy for him.
His mouth turned down — “I left the house.”
“Daniyal!” Iram leaned forward. “Does your mother know?” She began to reach for her mobile.
“She knows, and she is helpless like always. I am nineteen. My boards are over. I don’t want to go to college here.”
“You can’t just leave like that! Let me call Sarah…” she began to swipe her phone up.
“No, Bhabhi…” “It’s ok,” Atharva stopped her. To Daniyal, he gave a curt nod to the back of the car. Eager and scared that the invitation would be rescinded, Daniyal ran around the car, opened the dickey, stuffed his bags and came to the rear door.
“Install Arth’s seat to the centre,” Atharva directed. Then kept an eye on the rearview as Daniyal slowly unbuckled the seat, playing with Yathaarth, and set it on the central cushion between him and Shiva. Iram checked the fastenings.
“All set, Bhai.”
“Atharva,” Iram warned him with her eyes.This is madness.
He blinked reassuringly. She didn’t look convinced but she sat back, clipping her seatbelt on.
Atharva depressed the handbrake, put the car in gear and inched forward slowly. Before tipping his window closed, he pushed his hand out and held his palm up. Qureshi’s old Tavera parked in the shadows blinked twice with flashlights.
34. Kehte hai gyaani, duniya hai faani…
Kehte hai gyaani, duniya hai faani,
Paani pe likhi likhayi.
“Head north on Mall Road. In 400 meters, turn right onto Jakhoo Hill Road. Continue straight for 1.2 kilometres. Your destination, Briarwood Bungalow near Christ Church, will be on the right.”
Atharva turned the indicator on and activated his foglight, taking the sharp bend up the steep slope. One side was dark, deciduous thickets rising up with the mountain; the other was fenced, falling down into the valley. As the car’s floodlights moved over the bends, he got his first glimpse of tall, dark deodars, swaying in the wind. The rain was pelting here, the night sky deep blue with lightning trailing across its surface.
“Are we there?” Iram startled awake.
“Two minutes,” he croaked, his voice hoarse after being silent for the last four hours. They had started after dinner at Pathankot, and Daniyal had tried to take the wheel. Atharva had talked him out of it. Shiva and he had both dozed off then. Iram had, after unsuccessful attempts at playing DJ to keep his spirits up, succumbed to sleep too. Only Yathaarth had stared ahead, his pacifier in his mouth after an extra tumultuous dinner time, wide eyes blinking at the dark interiors. He had been quiet. Every time Atharva had met his eyes, he had felt guilt roll through him.
His happy baby, thinking he had an outing of a few hours before he would go back to his home, having spent cooped up in this car for 16 hours, would now enter a place that wasn't home. He would celebrate his first birthday in a house that wasn't his great-grandfather’s.
“Arth,” Iram cooed softly, reaching back to tickle his chin. Their son did not smile, looking zapped, lost.
“It’s been the longest drive for him,” Iram covered up. Atharva was grateful she was so upbeat about this, shouldering his own morose mood with her rare positive attitude. It was like she had taken up the mantle of being the bright side of his soul, the one that he seemed to have left behind in that moment when he had been banished from the home he had given his everything to. The injustice of it all crashed down on him as he turned the car right and into the already open gates of Briarwood Bungalow. The fenced gated entry led a short way up the driveway, where he noticed the porch light on. A frail old man stood hunched, balancing himself on a long stick, shielding himself under the porch roof from the rain.
The driveway was small. A security convoy wouldn’t fit here. There was no pole to hoist the flag. The bungalow was two storeys, not three. The dark and rain blanketed most of the house from his eyes but Atharva knew the skeleton of this structure. Had seen the photos. Deep green sloped roofs patent to this part of Himachal, dull white facade, crossed windows with Deodars framing the back. Beautiful, but not home.
Black lampposts glowed all the way up to the porch and looked iridescent in this damp weather. A perfect holiday home. Except, this wasn’t a holiday.
“The house looks exactly like we saw,” Iram leaned up towards the windshield. “Samar had it ready in record time, isn’t it?”
“Hmm.”
Atharva parked the car under the porch and the pattering of rain on the roof silenced. He stared at Briarwood Bungalow, bought by HDP through one of its local members. Now rented out to him. The current lease was locked for twelve months, but who knew? It could be terminated in two or be extended for another twenty. Atharva held himself back from thinking longterm. Instead, he sucked in the silence.
The music was off. Three quiet passengers in the rear silent. The car itself became an eerie box of vacuum. Atharva stared at the entrance of the house. He had spent a lifetime without a home. Iram had asked him once —where would you live if you could live anywhere.He had answered —everywhere and nowhere. There is no one place for me.And that was true before he met her. Before he began to value the weight of his heritage — his grandfather’s hearth, his gramophone, his father’s letters, the Chinar of his backyard, the grave of his mother. Before he made a home out of that old house, where not only memories but countless dreams and broken promises stayed. Even the ghosts of that house were his. Even the ghosts of Kashmir were his. The bad of that land was as much his as the good. And a part of him was tormented that the land he had accepted with all its shades had banished him so easily.
Logically, he knew the facts. Emotion had no place in politics. Emotion had no place in this mess he had entangled himself in. But looking at his one-year-old son blinking blankly at his dark surroundings, uprooted from his rightful home, Atharva could notnotfeel. The injustice, the loss, the helplessness.
