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“It’s been too long since I heard it in such thick accent,” she grumbled. His amused gaze met hers only partly before they settled into the small shikaras suited to the narrow water canals that they had to traverse.

More lotuses from ice grew for them, more beauty from harshness splashed her face; feeling like a fresh morning’s basin water.

Iram didn’t blink, scared she would miss something.

Rafiq rowed their shikara himself, talking to Atharva in fast Kaeshir.

She didn’t understand most of it, but caught random parts like how well his son had done in his exams and what peak of winter had been like in the interiors.

In her head, she had already reached her book, already started day dreaming about Zoon hanging clothes outside her small lake-house.

Taj, farther away, rowing in search of her.

At the sharp turn from a woodwork shop, Taj’s shikara hit ice, and lotuses came tumbling down — some uprooted from their leaves and others right into his lap.

Taj cursed. Then the ice block itself broke into splinters of snow, showering like shards of fire on his exposed wounded hand.

A litany of angry curses tore out of him as he shook his hand violently.

“Who is making that noise?” Zoon mumbled, walking from behind the big white bedsheet she had been hanging, and straight into the deep blue eyes of Taj. Her shocked eyes turned angry.

“Iram, Iram?”

She blinked. Atharva stood on the shikara floor, his hand outstretched. Everybody else had already disembarked. She quickly stepped out too.

The village was raw and rustic, and beyond beautiful.

Shikara houses, mini lake-houses, small patches of water populated with baby vegetables like cucumbers and melons waiting for summer, floating gardens of water nuts and nadru all around.

Apple-cheeked fairy-faced children played hopscotch on the side while fishermen packed their boats.

Iram only observed — how Atharva and company started greeting, how they opened conversation, how they branched out to various families.

Even though most talks went on in old Kaeshir, she enjoyed being there and hearing it all.

Enjoyed seeing how wary fisher families slowly started to smile and talk more, enthuse more, how kids left their play and gathered behind the folds of their mothers’ pherans.

“Che kyothe bat?” Atharva asked the little kids, his eyes mischievous.

Because he asked this in a slow, sing-song voice, Iram understood what he had said — ‘Did you have lunch?’ One or two enthusiastic kids yelled in negative, while most shook their heads shyly.

Smiling conspiratorially, he reached into one of the many backpacks they carried and pulled out a bag of sweets.

The kids yelled in glee, many even leaving the hiding of their mothers’ clothes.

Then it was a storm, as some children ran towards him and he dropped to one knee, handing out fist-fulls of mixed chocolates.

The remaining followed suit too, seeing their friends dancing and hurraying with their hands full.

Some teenagers, sighting a sweet snack, joined the throng.

And Atharva kept on giving — laughing with them, ruffling their hair, teasing them about the scold they were going to get for their teeth.

A few parents came and tried to say something to him.

She surmised they were saying that they didn’t need the sweets.

Because Atharva finished handing out to all the kids, then got to his feet and said something in a soft, humble tone.

“What did you say to them?” Iram asked as they were settling back into the shikara later.

“I told them that if I was visiting my nieces and nephews I would’ve taken them chocolates. Wouldn’t they?”

She looked down, trying and failing to hide the tenderness that spread across her face.

“That’s the thing with us Kashmiris,” he continued without looking at her. “Our khuddari… we don’t like taking handouts. We don’t like freebies.”

“Isn’t that the thing with all good humans?”

He faced her, the wind ruffling the top of his wavy hair. His eyes sparkled in the sun’s direct rays as only with that gaze he agreed with her.

Their shikaras crossed floating markets, shikara drivers selling fresh winter vegetables, fruits, dry fruits and even ice cream. Iram bent out of her shikara to read the list of flavours — akhrot, kesar, anjeer, pista, chocolate.

“Careful,” Atharva pulled her by the arm just as an oar from a passing shikara missed her back.

“You haven’t seen ice cream in winter or what?” Fahad laughed.

“Not really,” she chuckled, still getting her breathing underway.

“It’s fucking insane,” he exclaimed. “One-way ticket to brain freeze! Want a cone?”

Before she could say anything, he had announced to the shikara behind them that they were all getting ice-creams. At 11 in the morning, on a cold winter day, when ice was still freezing the sides of small channels, and fog hadn’t lifted from Dal, KDP members shouted in unison for handmade ice cream in cones.

They didn’t just buy ice cream from him but chatted leisurely.

The ice cream man recognised Atharva and went out of his way, telling him about his district, describing what good KDP had done there, how some things were still the same — like the dirt that clogged their river.

Iram observed Atharva lean out, listen, respond and talk more; glorious in his alive, animated self.

She had zoned out of his conversation, mindlessly swiping at her cone of pista ice cream that had little of the real nuts and more of the green food colour.

Even so, it tasted like the best ice cream she had ever had.

———————————

As they were docking on the next village, she offered a twenty rupee note to Atharva. He frowned.

“For the ice cream.”

He ignored her and started to move.

“Please, take it. I… I can’t let you pay for my ice cream.”

“I paid for everybody’s ice cream.”

“Still,” she shrugged.

“You paid for my masale tchot that day.”

“You drove me around quite a few times.”

He stopped in his stride and sighed. “Listen, when we go out on tour there is no yours or mine. We all go like a team. Sometimes I pay, sometimes someone else pays. Ok?”

She blinked up, still hesitant, looking too uncomfortable for his liking. So he just took the note from her hand and pocketed it.

“There, happy now?”

She nodded.

They then toured three villages in a row, talked, listened, ate small meals that the locals offered.

Atharva distributed more sweets. And at the fourth village, where they knew there was a dearth of warm clothes, the KDP members gifted blankets.

Again the same tune was played by the people of the village — ‘We don’t want charity.

' So here, for the first time on this tour, Atharva stood tall between close to fifty locals, and gave a sort of speech.

“This is not charity,” he said in Kaeshir.

Iram kept Fahad close to get running translation.

“This is for my people here who haven’t had the privilege to go to the main town and shop through the winter.

I know how hard you work, I understand your time passes in seasons, not weeks or days.

And if you think someone is going to come here every winter and bring gifts then here’s the thing — We are not Santa Claus. ”

Laughs followed. Iram found the joke insensitive, but the way he said it made all the difference.

“My friends Shabana and Hasan Ali here will talk to you on how you can keep a part of your summer earnings in the bank, so that the interest on that can help you buy winter clothes. If you do that, next year you won’t need anyone to come with blankets.

In fact, if you put in more than the minimum amount in bank FDs then who knows…

maybe you will be gifting blankets next time I come here… ”

With laughs and smart retorts he opened the stage for his peers, one of whom was standing from this constituency.

Atharva melted into the background as the crowd gathered around Shabana and Hasan.

The KDP photographer took some candid portraits of him as he turned to the back of the wooden houses, while the video maker hovered around him with his phone. And then he disappeared.

It was some time later, that Iram found him again, directly under the afternoon sun.

Atharva was crouched on a pier beside two children, drawing the Indian flag with chalk on their slate.

He was colouring the top with pink because there was no orange.

He didn’t turn to notice her, but his next words made Iram realise how aware he was of his surroundings.

“She is much better at drawing than me,” he whispered to the little girl who had her arm on his shoulder as she stood leaning into him.

Iram blinked down at the cherub that looked up shyly at her.

She tried to smile. But she found herself a little out of depth.

So she waited while he finished his masterpiece.

As soon as he was done, the girl took a broken yellow chalk and drew a flower on the side.

They left the children to draw some more and walked to the end of the pier. Silent. Side by side.

“What?” He frowned.

“What?”

“You look like you have something to say to me.”

She shook her head. “You don’t look like someone who would be so comfortable with children. His brows rose, making her stumble, “I don’t mean to…”