Chapter 2

1.

"Dil hai Kahin, aur dhadkan kahi"

Zoya 

How could one be so heartless, so self-absorbed, so egotistical in one's own right, that they can't see the world around them. That they can't feel the emotions of those hurting.  

That they can't feel. Period.  

The more I think about it, the more it boggles my mind. Being in Mangalpur was an outer body experience and the trauma associated with it hasn't even begun to unfold itself. Clearly. My hands still shiver every time I think back on it.  

I occasionally still wake up bathed in sweat, wondering if I am still under the ground. Shovels in face. Cruel triumphant smiles in the air. 

It messed me up, in all different and special ways.  

Especially the aftermath.  

It wasn’t much of a surprise he had come back. I know him enough by now to know that he would do that. He may be the rigid moral police, but he is also responsible and looks after people in his family, however heartless he might get towards the ‘outsiders’.  

It made sense that he came back. Something had to be done about the guilt; afterall living with oneself knowing that you drove someone's fate to a final end on this planet must be the hardest weight to bear. At least for people with conscience. And I don’t imagine anyone wants to live with that.  

But it was in the way... the way that he came back. The way he had held me to his chest and kissed the top of my head like I belonged there. That he would have lost his mind if not for finding me.  

It scares me more than I’d ever been scared.  

Mangalpur changed us. Whatever dynamics he and I had prior to leaving, they are no longer there. Whatever boundary we had is no longer present. He pretends often that I’m invisible and there is a wall separating us, but the truth of the matter is that there just... isn’t. He is lying to himself, and he is lying to me.  

We have changed, Asad. 

But it had to take my death for him to take me seriously?  

Seriously?! That is some other kind of non chalant. And stupid. And khadoos. 

What kind of person does that make him?  

And now adding to the injury, what kind of person does it make him to avoid Miriam at the moment. Someone who is so in need, of food, of shelter, of protection, of everything. 

True, he is looking out for his family; Phuphi, Najma, maybe perhaps even me. 

But there are rules to humanity and no amount of fear should trump those rules. Those are the beliefs that I was brought up with. 

And looking at Phuphi, it seems like he was given the same upbringing, but he just never wants to follow it.  

It is sad, his small heart and small mind sometimes. 

"Wouldn't you have helped her, if she was Najma?!" I’d screamed at him last night.  

"Exactly, you need to get it in your thick skull, that I have a Najma to look after. An Ammi to look after. A family to protect, cater for. And...” he’d run a frustrated hand through his black hair “And I can’t believe you are the one saying all these things. Do you have no self - preservation? How irresponsible are you? Do you not remember anything?! Do you really think they would leave us alone and not come after every single one of us if we play hide and seek with those criminals. They are hardened criminals, Miss Faaroqui and you are NOT living in a fantasy world. Wake up and face the reality. You will get yourself and all of us killed if you continue down this path.”  

His fingers had dug into my shoulders then, as he lightly shook me as to wake me up. His speech became progressively fierce; eyes stormy and more intense than I’d ever seen or imagined.  

My shoulders ached for the touch of his fingers now, as I stood outside the hospital door watching doctors take him away. 

I took a step inside. It was the saddest step I’d ever taken.  

I wish I’d listened to him. This was all my fault. All of it. As apathetic he could be at times, he was not wrong. 

I just... I’d never believed they would shoot their own nephew... 

I was a firangi, a modern woman who challenged their beliefs and so their sane minds thought to bury me with my provocations. 

But Asad, why him? And why Phuphi? Why was the man pointing the gun at phuphi? 

My legs tremble and ache. When there is no more strength left, I slide down onto the hospital floor thinking how we’d even gotten here.  

How the afternoon became the ugliest afternoon of my life. 

.

.

.

I had heard a male voice – bleak and harsh – as he argued with Phuphi, stepping into the house even as she protested. 

Coming out of my room, it happened in seconds. The appearance of a gun, adrenaline shooting down every nerve cell, fight response kicking in.  

Asad was closer and he had leaped in front of his mother. I would have done the same.  

But he was a little too late. He saved his Ammi but couldn’t save himself from the bullet. It had hit his shoulder blade propelling his body with force onto the marble floor. 

I had never seen a man, as strong and as muscular as him, thrown about the wind like that. It was a horrifyingly surreal vision. 

The next thing I knew, I was running towards the shooter. He was pointing his gun at him again; I couldn’t let that happen. 

I ran with all my might, cussing my feet that they didn’t know how to fly. A war had ensued between me and the demon, and I had ripped his shirt in the exchange. He fled knowing the longer he stayed, the longer the chance of him being caught. 

And then the screams came... 

The mind numbing, skin crawling screams.  

Screams of a mother who was watching her child bleed out.  

Screams of a mother who wished he’d never saved her.  

My only wish is this day be evanesced. Dispersed and dissipated from existence.  

Sitting on the bleached white tile floor, my head on the metal bench, the tears flow quietly as I stare blankly at the wall.   

Waiting. 

Waiting. 

Waiting. 

*** 

It was a couple hours after the bullet had been removed and the doctors had stated he was out of danger. 

Was he?  

I let the grief flow through me creating new channels.  His words echoed in my mind, 

“...Do you really think they would leave us alone and not come after every one of us if we play hide and seek with those criminals. They are hardened criminals..." 

I was hawk-eyed now that the disturbing thought had made its arrival in my mind. What if he came back to fin...  

I took a deep shaky breath but couldn’t stop the ache from my eyes to slip out. I looked over at Phuphi and Najma curled up together on the sofa of the private room we had moved Asad into.  

I stood guard at the door not daring to step in lest I had to look into his mother’s grief-stricken eyes. All we knew was that he was out of danger, but what effects did the bullet have on his body? What were his movements going to be like once he woke up? 

We tried not to talk about it. 

I wondered about Miriam. She had left with her brother this morning. 

Such a sensitive, young woman, exposed to such blasphemy. It made me angry, outrageously mad and inevitably despondent what women were subjected to in this day and age.  

Objects for male satisfaction. 

Raised as obedient daughters to become compliant wives.

Following all and every direction. 

Maybe that was the reason I never listened to Mr. Khan even when he spoke logic.  

Snapping out of my woman rage, I looked at the person who had tapped my shoulder. It was Najma.  

“Bhaijaan is up” she said meekly through a red nose and swollen eyes. My heart broke seeing what I’d done to her. And more so seeing what I’d to the man that lay on the hospital bed.  

He was attached to a million tubes, his eyes barely open. I wondered if he could even register any of us with the amount of painkillers that had been injected in his system.  

As I moved slowly to enter the room, he muttered in his drugged state, “Ammi” 

*** 

----------------------

Chapter 1 ladies and gentleman. What do you think is a good chapter title? Suggest one for all the chapters as we go ;) 

Edit: 

🥀Song in title: Kyun main jagoon 

❤️Title credit: DBaranwal