“Vikram bhaiyaaa!!!” A teen boy came running downhill. “Vikram bhaiyyyya! Attack aayaa![49]”
“Kya attack? Kisne kiya?[50]”
“Shailendri ki Dadi ko attack aaya.[51]”
Atharva saw Samar panic.
“Samar,” Atharva commanded. “Go with them. I’ll take the boat.”
The panic remained. It had been years since Samar had been in the middle of a battle where so many needed him all at once. It had been the same for Atharva too but he had just left the CM’s chair. That had been his everyday — putting out fires in 18 and a half directions before lunch.
“Samar!” Atharva shot out. He stood straight. “Make me a kit for an asthmatic patient.”
“Yes, yes,” he immediately got to work, a splendid soldier when he had direction. “Here.”
Atharva accepted the kit, checked the pump, medicines, water and syringes. “Now take your kit and go up with Vikram…”
“Then who will keep a watch out for you?” Vikram demanded.
“Jagga.”
“But you will take him…”
“No, I will go alone. Jagga will keep watch from here. You go up with Samar. If this case is serious, then Samar might need you to mobilise men and systems to get her moving.”
“I’ll see you,” Samar was already lifting his bag and climbing up, back in his element. Atharva grabbed a bag of apples and now soggy biscuits, a ham radio set, and stuffed it all into one rucksack. Then covered it with plastic. When he glanced up, Vikram was still standing there, drenched, looking like a stick figure that would blow away with the next gust of wind.
“Go, move,” Atharva ordered, the voice coming from deep within his stomach. His Captain Kaul voice.
“Look out for Bhaiya,” Vikram warned Jagga. “Come to me immediately if anything goes wrong.” Then he reached for a neon band and fastened it around Atharva’s wrist before jumping up and behind Samar.
“Alright, Jagga, help me inflate this now.” Atharva held up the portable raft.
————————————————————
Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink. That’s how impossible the world looked as Atharva rowed the small raft across the village. Nothing looked like the village. It was like being in the middle of the sea with night quickly falling. He reached back and turned on the red light signal. And kept rowing. The lashing flood waves swung his boat from side to side, the oar no match for them. He still kept going. Breathe in, row in, breathe out, row out. Repeat. His muscles weren’t as good as they once were, having deteriorated over the last few months of break. He went on, pushing mind over matter and spirit over stamina.
He saw it before he felt it. A lurch of a massive wave. The boat toppled over and down he went. Atharva clawed, blind, holding onto the oar as he found his strokes to fight the wave. He broke the surface and gasped. His eyes cleared of the water and burned, nothing but sky and rain pelting in.
Suddenly, in this grave moment, he had a sick moment of imagination. Iram in Kishanganga. Fallen. Drowning. Bleeding. Lost. His arms and limbs were flailing with the rhythm of the waves, his eyes were focused on the beacon of red glow — training setting in. Panic had dunked him but he swam on, knowing there was a way out. There was always a way out. A way out because there were people waiting for him on the other side, as well as at home.
His hand caught the edge of the raft and he threw the oar in. Atharva braced himself and climbed in, heavy with the water weighing him down, panting. He gaped at the horizon in front of him. Panted. She had nobody to keep swimming towards. His breath was swollen and he snorted the water out of his nose, coughing out as much as he could, letting the burn in his throat, nose and eyes settle. Nobody and nothing to swim towards and yet she had come out. She had been the flame that kept burning for herself, by herself. His own strength bolstered at the thought of such a woman standing behind him. The rucksack he had fastened to the raft hook thrashed with the waves. He tightened its knot once, then grabbed his oar and began to row again, checking his watch to recalibrate his direction.
“Yahan![52]” He heard that shrill plea.
“Bachao![53]”
Atharva raised the hand with the wristband and waved.
“Bachao! Bachao!” The voices went louder, a group screaming in unison. “Bachaaaao!!”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the whistle. Then blew. Loud and reassuring. Kept blowing.
The waves were rising. He got his first good look at the family on top of the roof. The roof was swallowed in. All that was left now was the thatched joint where seven of them were precariously balanced. Four adults, three children.
“Bachaaao!”
“Haan, ek minute![54]” He yelled back, manoeuvring the boat to them. Atharva wedged his oar on their roof. When he found some resistance, he buried the oar between what he assumed were tiles. The raft was still free-floating. He tied the hook to the oar and jumped out on the roof. It was four feet down. The kids were nearly drowning.
