Page 83 of The Circle of Exile
Iram stared at the profile of Begumjaan’s beautiful, wrinkled face. She had these lines around her eyes that were wise. And now Iram realised that maybe that wisdom wasn’t age or struggle but experiences like hers. Maybe everybody had their own demons and their own times to battle them. Some spoke out loud, some didn’t. A phase of life when the questions were too many and answers too few, when you could not make sense of yourself or the world around you.
But with the right people by your side, some patience and some resilience, you managed to climb out of that demon’s well. She hadn’t managed to do that yet, but Iram could see the sky now, within reach.
“Begumjaan?”
“Hmm?”
“Have you ever felt like… like I did? Or something similar?”
She smiled — “It’s so good to know that you are not alone, no?”
Iram shook her head, knowing that answer was not coming. But she liked this answer too.
“Don’t fight your thoughts and feelings, Iram. Let them come.”
“That’s what Dr. Baig said too.”
“See? No point in hiding from your thoughts. It’s ok if they scare you. You tell Atharva, don’t you?”
She beamed. Nodded. That she did. It had started with the morning after their big showdown. She had felt it begun to weigh on her at dot 9 am and he had been at the Secretariat. Her first thought had been to tide over it herself, but then she had picked up her mobile and dialled him.
He had answered her call on the second ring and listened quietly as she had launched into a monologue. She had hated describing what she was feeling, the fears that were surrounding her. She had been scared of being sucked into them, those thoughts — of being alone, without any family behind or ahead of her, without her identity, without her children, without him. All irrational. All baseless. But what did you do with feelings? When did logic ever work? She had told him everything. Uncensored. And when she had finished, she had heard nothing but silence on his end.
“Atharva?” She had called out.
“Still here. One moment, please.”
When a second had passed, he had told her that he had been reviewing the situation in Baramulla where a rail project had been vandalised. The area was being monitored closely by the forces and he had exited the room to listen to her.
“Go, this is not that important,” she had laughed through her tears, immediately out of that lost space as her mind had started to calculate what his next steps would be to secure the town.
“Do you still feel it?” He had asked instead.
“A little, but it feels better.”
“Tell me more.”
“No, that’s it. You go now.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
And he had gone.
After that, she had not stopped. Every time something felt out of the usual — be it while feeding Yathaarth or sitting in the kitchen with the menu lists, be it in the middle of the afternoon or early at dawn, she would always tell him. He would listen. Patiently. Sometimes they would talk about it. Sometimes they would not, because things would feel a little too raw.
Shiva was ecstatic and he showed it in his morose moods. Iram had begun to help him more regularly. She had volunteered to be his sous chef for menial work like chopping and prepping. He abhorred having her in his space all the time, she knew. But she was the head of the house and she wanted to chop, deal with mindless chores. They surprisingly always lifted her mood.
One thing that she wasn’t able to do was write.
She had opened her laptop multiple times. Opened her old drafts too. Sherry had been in touch, not-so-delicately asking for that draft of her second book that never saw the revisions she had promised her editor. Iram had cited her time as a new mother and asked for an extension. Atharva had proposed to return the advance and get done with it until she was ok.
Iram had opposed it. So what if she started feeling everything too deeply and too loudly when she sat to write? It was right now. Not forever. She would climb out. She alreadywashalfway out. Though looking at her dismal progress with regard to her writing, she was beginning to drift towards her old glass-half-empty self. Maybe returning the advance wasn’t a bad thing after all.
“Ready for his bath!”
Begumjaan’s cheerful holler brought her back to the now, her eyes snapping to a happy little slippery boy clasped between Begumjaan’s hands as she held him up. Iram was still scared to hold him in the cradle of her arms. She was in awe of Begumjaan’s daring to hold him like this.
