by Rohit Gaur
He had almost resolved on returning to Parvati and explaining what he had done fully, so that he might be forgiven immediately and allowed to participate in the release of the murtis, when an abrupt concussion of booming sound tore through the air behind him. Did a firework misfire? How could it have landed there? His mind could only have these thoughts for a split second before a great blasting force of wind followed upon the boom, lifting and tossing his body to the ground. Landing with a thud, the breath knocked clean out of his lungs, Tarun felt himself plunge into a yawning abyss. He saw the lanterned path and the shimmering sky go dim, then dark. Then the world around him was darkness itself.
Chapter 4
INTO THE DARK
Parvati heard the sudden boom behind her, much louder than the other pops that sent the fireworks into the sky, ricocheting off the close buildings all around. Must be a big firework this time, she thought, scanning the sky for the telltale line that indicated the path of the rocket. When nothing happened, she looked over at her companions.
“Do you think it was a dud?” one of them said.
Parvati shrugged. Another rash of fireworks was now exploding, blue and white. She was distracted, anyway: only a few minutes before, Kumar and Tarun had run off into the crowd, Jay and Tejinder in pursuit. Normally, she would have been the one to chase them down, but not in the dark, not in this formal sari, and not in the middle of this festival. When they returned, however, she would have to think of how to handle this right. She knew the boys hadn’t been getting along lately. Was it only last year that they had taken a family vacation to the coast and the boys had been best friends, playing in the surf and building castles in the sand? No, two years ago. And now Kumar was in high school—and he acted the part, flirting with girls, making the wrong kind of friends, teasing his younger brother for being shyer. Why couldn’t they stay children forever? Why did they have to grow up?
A sound intruded on Parvati’s thoughts. In between the bursts of the fireworks, she could hear what sounded like distant yelling from back up by the path. No, she thought, it sounds like screaming. Ripples of concern washed over the crowd as others picked up on it. “What’s going on up there?” someone beside her asked, squinting in the darkness. As their eyes adjusted, the lanterns from the path, shining up into the night sky, revealed a plume of black smoke drifting up from the path. The explosion. It wasn’t a firework. It only took a moment for everyone to make the same realization, and before she knew it, mothers and fathers around her were grabbing their children and hurrying away from that ominous smoke.
And here she was alone. Not alone, though, she thought, looking around at the hundreds of Ganesha statues still lining the bank. A painful thought nevertheless began gnawing in her head: when she lost sight of Tarun and Kumar, they had been running toward the path.
Hiking up her long skirt, she ran in the opposite direction of everything else: toward the path, the screams, and the smoke.
Huddled around the conference table, the Kashmiri governing council remained hard at work. “The bill should include a firm declaration that the wall will not be used to bar innocent civilians from entering the city,” Vishal was saying, pointing to the marked-up copy that two deputy secretaries had prepared. “We don’t want to give the militants any more propaganda for recruitment. Just think about what would happen if—” Vishal stopped short as a security agent burst into the conference room. For a moment he prepared to reprimand the agent for the interruption, but then noticed the expression on his face, wild and urgent.
“There’s been an explosion at the festival,” the agent sputtered out, “a bomb, we think. We haven’t been able to confirm.”
“A bomb?” Arjun quickly asked, standing up. “Are we sure?”
“No, not yet, we only just received the call from the dispatcher.”
“What did the dispatcher say?” Vishal interjected. “Who set off the bomb?”
“All we know is that police are trying to evacuate the festival. No one has been able to determine what—or who—may have caused the explosion.”
“We know exactly who caused it!” Vishal spat out.
“Vishal, stop,” Arjun commanded. He turned to the agent: “We need more information. Are we able to get through to any of the officers on the scene?”
“Not yet, it’s chaos down there. Nothing is getting through.”
“We need more information. Contact the police commander, make sure everyone is on this.”
“Yes, sir.” The agent turned and left as a palpable layer of unsettled anxiety settled over the conference room. “My wife and kids are at the festival,” Arjun heard himself say to no one in particular, as an uneasy tightness knotted up his stomach. The fluorescent light seemed to be pulsing, the walls breathing in and out. A bomb? Today? At the festival? It couldn’t be an accident, could it? Maybe it was an accident; it could still be an accident. He pulled a cell phone from his pocket, hands shaking. Remembering the room, he added: “Everyone, please check on your families if they were at the festival today.”
Dialing Parvati, Arjun tried to silence his mind: They’re fine. They’re going to be fine. The phone rang, once, twice, three and four times, before the voice mail picked up. “Hello, you’ve reached Parvati Sharma, I’m afraid that I cannot answer your . . .” He tried calling Jay and then Tejinder, but the fragile cell network of Srinagar had finally collapsed under the strain of thousands of concerned Kashmiris trying to reach loved ones. Putting his phone down, he hailed another agent and ordered, “I need you to get someone to find my family and get them out of there.” The agent nodded and turned to leave.
Vishal approached and put a hand on Arjun’s shoulder. “I’m sure your family is fine, sir. Their security detail knows exactly what to do in situations like this. I bet they’re already on their way home.” Arjun looked at Vishal’s face, a portrait of tenderness and sincerity. Except for the eyes: the eyes still shown with a furious energy from the outburst before. Vishal didn’t have a family, Arjun remembered. Married to his job, his country. No one to call.
A different agent stepped in. “Excuse me, I have an update. We have received confirmation from officers on the scene that the explosion was likely a bomb, set off in one of the most crowded areas of the festival. Ambulances have arrived and there are a number of wounded and dead, none of them yet identified.”
“And my family? Where is my family?” Arjun interrupted.
“We have not been able to reach their security personnel, sir. We’re working on it.”
“I’m going down there,” Arjun decided abruptly. “Tell the garage to get my car ready; I’m coming down.”
“Sir, the situation at the festival is not secure. There might be additional bombs. The crowds are being evacuated from that area. You can’t go down there.”
“What would you have me do? Sit here?”
“You’re more likely to get information about your family here. The agents will report in once your family has been safely evacuated.”
Arjun looked down, fists clenching and unclenching. “Fine. But I want information as soon as you have it.” He looked back up at the agent. “Has anyone claimed responsibility for this?” he asked quietly.
“No,” the agent replied. “Not yet at least.”
Tha-thump. Tha-thump. Tha-thump.
Tarun’s heartbeat pounded in his chest, in his ears. He was conscious of other sounds and movements, shouts and running feet and crackle of fireworks still exploding in the sky, but the pulsing of his blood was his central thought, saying, I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive. He forced himself to take stock of his body: legs, arms, hands, feet. Everything seemed to work. He realized now that his eyes were squeezed shut and so he opened them slowly. Lying on the ground, his left cheek and temple were pressed tightly to the packed dirt of the path. His head still spinning, he couldn’t distinguish much from the swirl of colors that rushed past him. A face swam into view, speaking to him, a string of sounds that came to him as if throug
h a thick gauze. What was he saying? Was he asking a question?
“Yes,” Tarun eventually said, the dizziness churning his stomach. “I’m okay. I think.”
A dull pain swathed his head, making him feel slow and clumsy. The inquirer helped him to raise his chest from the ground, resting unsteadily on his hands and knees. More sounds, clearer now, sharper in their tone.
“We need to get you out of here,” the face now said. “Can you move?”
“Yes,” he choked out, allowing himself to be raised to his feet and pulled off the path. Tears rose in his eyes as he became aware of a new pain coursing through his body. Looking down, he could see blood on his knees and a torn shoe, and his back ached from being thrown to the ground. Placing him gently back on the ground underneath a tree, the face told him to stay still and wait for help to arrive, then it hurried back to help others. Tarun realized he was not alone: at least three other people, wounded and stunned, lay splayed out on the grass alongside him. Beyond them, the path seemed mostly empty, although it was hard to tell through the thick smoke. He watched a man run past holding a sleeve of his tunic to his mouth, coughing painfully. Tarun noticed the acrid, scorched smell invading his nostrils and a wave of dizziness overtook him. Retching violently, he threw up into the grass, unable to prevent the nausea and the shock and the questions that pounded in his head.
What just happened? Was it an explosion? A bomb, like on the news? One thing he knew for sure: it hadn’t been a firework.
He looked across the path again at where the smoke was thickest: though it was now completely dark, the lanterns strung on the path gave dramatic light to the scene below. He could just make out a small knot of people scouring the area, calling out names, examining what looked like a massive dent in the ground. It couldn’t have been twenty yards from where he had been standing.
No, he thought, not standing. Running. A chilly shudder traveled down his spine. Running from Kumar. He pushed his head off the ground and swept his eyes across the dimly lit faces rushing around. Where was Kumar?
“Priya? Raj?” A woman, desperation thick in her voice, shouted as she pushed into the area near the crater. She wandered through the smoke, clutching at the few people who remained in the area, begging for help. One of them, a middle-aged man, took her by the elbow and began leading her away from the site of the blast. As they walked, they stepped gingerly over a pile of cloth that lay on the ground. He looked again: it wasn’t cloth.
“Tarun?” Above the smoky chaos, a deep and booming voice rang out his name. “Kumar?” It was Jay. He would find them both, him and Kumar, and he would carry them away, away from all this noise and pollution. Tarun tried to yell out but he felt weak and exhausted. Then his mother’s voice floated in, edged with panic: “Tarun? Kumar?” He had never heard his mother sound like that, his calm and soothing mother who smiled and rubbed his head and made him buttered toast. He tried again: “Mom! Mom!”
Before he could call again, she was there, arms around him, tears falling. In the crush of her arms, Tarun felt tears rush unbidden into his own eyes. “Tarun,” she murmured, kissing his head over and over again. “I was so scared. I thought maybe I’d lost you.” Jay loomed over him, asking, “Are you hurt? Can you feel your legs?” He bent down and examined Tarun’s legs, smeared with blood and dirt, looking for signs of injury.
“I don’t think so,” he blubbered. The arrival of so many familiar faces caused him to sob uncontrollably. Trying to control his whimpering, he added, “I mean, no, I can feel my legs.” In truth, Tarun was not sure that his legs were fine, and Parvati noticed.
“Jay, can you lift him?” she said, arms still around Tarun’s neck. “I don’t think he should walk and we have to get him to a hospital. We have to get him out of here.”
“Yes, I believe I can, ma’am.”
“But wait,” she stopped him. “Tarun, before we go, I need you to think. Did you see your brother before the explosion? Were you with Kumar?”
Tarun shook his head. He didn’t know, he didn’t remember, he couldn’t think. Where was Kumar? He’d lost sight of him when he hid in the stall. He could have gone anywhere.
“Okay,” she said, nodding. “Jay, pick him up. We need to look for Kumar before we leave.”
Jay spoke to him softly as he lifted him, gently and effortlessly, off the ground, arms tucked beneath his knees and neck. He rested his head on Jay’s shoulder and tried to shut everything out. He was safe now. He just had to wait. Soon they would go back to the car and then back to the house. Soon he would be home.
“Kumar?” his mother shouted, cupping her hands around her mouth as she circled the small crater left behind by the explosion. The smoke was clearing now and Tarun could see the earth had been scorched, dark smears spreading out in radiating lines from the center. At the edge of the charred ground, a man lay facedown on the ground, the radiating smear of black soot spread over his festive orange kurta.
“Tarun, don’t look,” Jay whispered to him. “Close your eyes.”
But he couldn’t. Was the man dead? Tarun had never seen a dead body before, never encountered death. What did it look like? What did it mean?
“Kumar?” his mother yelled again. Jay had turned away from the body, so Tarun could no longer see it or his mother. Her voice was growing distant as she walked farther away, yelling and yelling for Tarun’s brother. Tarun wished Kumar would come out—he wanted desperately to leave, to have his knees bandaged and his face washed, to be put to bed and grounded for weeks, if that meant he could just go home.
Then a wail, high and full of pain, reached his ears: his mother’s timbre, unmistakable. It was a sound he had never heard before and never wished to hear again, a crescendo of sorrow that broke on its own grief, collapsing in on itself before ending with an angry choking sob. It was the purest cry of agony and loss he had ever heard. And he knew exactly what it meant.
At the capital office building, Arjun paced back and forth over the thick carpet of his private chambers. Discussion of the bill finally stalled, Vishal and the other council members had dispersed to collect information on what was happening at the festival. It had been twenty minutes since the agent had first informed them of the explosion, and Arjun had still not received word from his family or their security detail. It worried him, eating at him, stirring up every dark thought he’d entertained since becoming chief minister and dragging his family along with him. The lack of privacy, the overcrowded schedules, the forced cheerfulness—nothing compared to the danger, the very real physical danger, that he had exposed his family to in the course of his political career. His wife had always assured him: it was worth it, the good he could do for Kashmir, the healing he could bring to his country, the danger was worth that noble purpose. But now, at this moment, nothing could have convinced him so.
He dialed again the number for his wife, for Jay, for the other guards in their detail. Nothing. Outside the window, the distant lights of the festival still blared, lighting up the riverbanks. No longer did they look warm and inviting. Now they burned like a conflagration, an uncontrolled fire reaching out, consuming everything within its reach. What was happening down there in that blaze of light? What was it igniting and sending into the sky?
A knock at the door and there was the grim, understanding face of Vishal.
“Sir, we’ve been able to get in touch with an officer at the scene. They’ve found your family, madam and the boys, but I’m afraid I have some difficult news.”
The fire.
In the backseat of the black SUV, Tarun rested his head on his mother’s shoulder, as she rubbed his arms and rocked him slowly, her hands softly caressing his hair. The wail of sirens roared overhead as they fought with the snarled traffic of those fleeing the festival and those getting close enough to take a quick look. No one spoke. After they had found Kumar’s body, the security detail had insisted it was no longer safe for the family at the festival and ushered Parvati and Tarun to the SUV as quickly as possible. As so
on as the doors closed, the engine had roared to life and the SUV sprang onto the road.
Remembering, Parvati broke the silence. “My husband,” she said. “I need to talk to my husband.”
“Cell phones don’t seem to be working right now, ma’am,” the agent in the front seat said, “though we’ll keep trying. In the meantime, we’re headed to the Sharma compound outside the city. We’ll be there in twenty minutes. You can use the line there. I’m sorry that we cannot stop before then. It’s too dangerous right now.”
Parvati nodded and frowned and kissed Tarun on the head again. Tarun looked out the window at the night sky, the stars, and spoke silently in his head to whoever might be listening. I’m so sorry, Kumar, I didn’t mean for that to happen. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. No answer returned from the sky or the stars.
He felt the road condition change as they turned off onto the highway that led out of the city and toward the family compound. At this dangerous moment, he had heard the agents saying, it was the safest place for them to be.
Chapter 5
DESTINY
Arjun laid the phone on the conference table and looked around with unseeing eyes at the white walls, the gray carpet, the inky black midnight sky. He tried to process the conversation he had just had with his wife, a conversation that no previous experience or contingency plan had prepared him to have. Kumar is gone, he said to himself slowly. But how could that be? When he was alive just this morning, making jokes at the breakfast table, smiling and drinking his juice? When we had plans for next weekend to buy him new shoes? His mouth dry, Arjun reached for an abandoned glass of water and drank it down. Parvati had seemed calm but he could hear the strain in her voice: for the benefit of Tarun, no doubt. And Tarun: he couldn’t bear the thought of what he must be going through. At least they were safe, being whisked back to the family compound. With cell service returning, he could at least communicate with them now. Soon, he would join them, but first he needed to be assured that the festival area had been evacuated and secured.
