Page 227 of The Circle of Exile
“Yes. Jammu-Kashmir is the only state close by that has its own Disaster Management Force. Even if things are a little muddled right now, Adil said he will manage.”
Atharva read the last message from Vikram and locked his phone, jamming the charger in. He would need the battery once they reached there.
“Check ETA.”
“You’ve made me check it thrice in an hour,” Atharva remarked. “Checking it doesn’t make it come sooner.”
Samar was on edge. Atharva could see it.
What’s wrong with youwas the wrong question to ask Dr. Samar Dixit.
“Did you speak to Amaal?” He threw the stone instead.
“Why would I speak to her?”
Bingo.
“Because you should, before leaving for such a place at such a time.”
“What will she do from there?”
“Maybe say something nice to you to make you drive safer?”
His grip on the steering wheel tightened. “I am driving safe.”
Atharva rested his head back and eyed the road eating up in front of them, the wiper now slowed down on the windshield. Deodars were not dry or frosted anymore. But they were sure swaying harder. The wind was picking up. Cars were driving across them, in the opposite direction. Theirs was the only one driving towards the storm.
“She asked me to go and blow my dragon fire over the rain.”
Atharva snorted — “Don’t put it past her.”
“I snapped at her.”
“Don’t put it past you.”
“What’s happening to me?”
“You were always like this.”
“Was I?”
Atharva glanced at his long-time friend-turned-foe-turned-friend. His platoon doctor. His shadow. The man who was his senior in age but who, Atharva now knew, looked at him for direction even when he didn’t explicitly ask for it. The burns on his neck were whitened, puckered and apparent. The signs that he had taken that death meant for Iram and their twins on himself. Samar was an anomaly, a dichotomy.
“Your best trait is your self-awareness,” Atharva observed what he had known for a long time. “And your worst is your refusal to accept that self-awareness.”
Rain began to beat faster over their car and the noise drowned out whatever little peace there was to talk.
“I am trying to do it,” Samar whispered.
“Do you really want to do it, is the question.”
Samar’s profile hardened.
“Because if the answer is yes, then there will be notrying.”
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The village was peeping out of a waterfall. That’s how bad it looked. Their car had to gun through the outpouring rain. That was the thing with cloudbursts — they didn’t come in drops, they came in waves.
