Page 234 of The Circle of Exile
Light wakes you up and it’s not your light.
Night comes down but your stars are missing.
You discover brothers, but they’re not of your blood.
You’re like an embarrassed ghost, not loving more those who love you so much, and it’s still so strange to you that you miss the hostile prickles of your own country, the loud helplessness of your own people.
-Pablo Neruda
2 YEARS LATER
October 2019
Thwack!
Atharva lunged to stop the ball with his shoe but it went straight down the slope of the garden.
Loud little giggles with thumping running feet echoed as he turned and ran.
“Count the runs, Dilbaro!” He called out, skidding down the slope until his shoe had stopped the ball from rolling out of the gate.
“Ten!”
Atharva bent down, scooped the ball and turned — “Ten, huh?”
“Ten!” His son held his plastic bat up.
“Either you are learning counting wrong or you are cheating, which one is it?” Atharva dribbled the ball in the air, grinning, climbing back up.
“Baba your batting,” he held out his bat, his ’t’s so soft and so sweet.
Atharva cocked his head to the side — “Don’t change the topic and don’t even try to bribe me.”
Two little wobbly jumps on the spot and then his son was running. Atharva gave a half-hearted chase, which sounded like he was out to catch the greatest thief of the century. Yathaarth ran around the house and straight into the kitchen. And suddenly, his loud giggles went silent.
Atharva rounded the door at a leisurely pace and stepped inside, the warm scents of simmering dal and pressure-cooked rice assailing his senses. Shiva was at his platform, chopping stuff, looking harmless, while Iram sat on a high chair on the adjacent platform, writing on her laptop. She had weirdly found this spot to be a fun place to write. He had tried to decipher the psyche behind writing in this madhouse of a kitchen where Shiva was either silent all day or did not stop fighting with Noora for weeks on end. She didn’t care. She called it her ‘multitasking spot.’ Cooking, chopping, baking, issuing recipe commands — all the while writing.
Atharva eyed the chubby leg between the legs of her chair, the body well hidden between her knees.
“Myani zuv?”
“Hmm?” She didn’t turn, typing at that furious speed. Her hair was up in a messy bun — her most common state at home with the active little toddler they had between them.
“Have you seen one cricketer who runs three rounds and says he scored ten runs?”
“No,” she answered instantly, glancing down at her son — “Dilbaro.” She whisper-warned.
“I thought I heard him run inside the kitchen…” Atharva began to leave the kitchen. “Maybe he went to the hall.”
“Hmmm…”
He stepped back from the kitchen and hid behind the door.
“Gaye, gaye,[65]” Shiva-the-newest-traitor murmured.
“Arth, if you cheat, then there is no hiding behind me.”
“I no cheat, Mama.”
