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1.
Faruq bhai smiles these days.
It's strange, thinking this seemingly ordinary thing about her brother should be noticeable to her. But Saba can't remember the last time she ever saw Faruq bhai glance at his phone quickly and shut it just as fast while smothering a smile on his face.
She'd caught it lingering for a second, lighting up her brother's features with a softness no one in their house can induce, before he'd caught sight of her and shoved it away.
It should be natural, she thinks. It should be so ordinary to see her brother smile and laugh that it happening shouldn't be something unique to her at all. But here she is, still thinking about it on her way to this stupid party.
She shouldn't be thinking about going either. She shouldn't be going, period.
But damn Veer Ahuja and damn the desperate softness in his voice, she was here anyway, shoving across a crowd of blissfully adrift people with a glass of punch that tasted too funny in her hand. It should worry her, she thinks, but the world is soft around the edges (like Faruq bhai's smile) and the lights are dancing around her and she really doesn't want to care.
And then Veer finds her, and oh. In front of his sparkling eyes, and sugar-sweet concern, she isn't in a condition to ponder anything at all.
It's beautiful. He's beautiful.
She feels like a butterfly caught in a slab of amber, immortalized by the wonder in his gaze. Over his shoulder, she catches sight of the doe-eyed boy from class, and there's curly hair in front of him. Hair that's familiar, and there's a nagging within Saba that says she should catch on to something rather obvious right now.
When the curly hair becomes clearer, Saba nearly laughs. What has this party done to her, that she sees people who aren't there? That she sees Dev or Dhruv or Dhawan and her brother with his star-bright smile so close to her.
Later, Doe-Eyes will ask Veer where he's going, and Veer will call him Dhruv. Saba will think giddily that oh, that's his name, and feel a mad urge to tell her brother about it before the thought floats away into the anti-gravitational swirl inside her head.
2.
Faruq bhai sells drugs. Faruq bhai likes boys.
It's like someone's taken the world Saba knows and spun it on its axis like she used to do with the globe in their Srinagar house as a child.
"Aise shauk math paaliye. Humari zindagi mein kam dikkate nai hai."
She flinches, thinking of the insensitivity of her words. Saba means it, even now. God, she can still see her Shabbir chachu being shoved out of their home into the town square, and the sounds of torture ringing through the streets. Her Abbu's terrified, shell-shocked face and her Ammi running to the door and turning away in horror.
Her chachu's body, bruised and bloody on the doorsteps hours later, not an inch of him devoid of mottled welts.
The way Faruq bhai had held so still in the centre of their house, flinching to every sound as if the lashes were on his own skin.
Shabbir chachu would buy her and Faruq bhai sweets every time he went out. Orange and yellow and green, sticky if you held on to them for too long. He would whisper terrible jokes to them during mealtimes and hold them close when the horrors of Srinagar became too much to bear. Saba had cried for days and begged her father to take them somewhere else after his funeral. She wonders if that incident was the one that drove the final nail into the coffin Abbu was building around his memories of their hometown.
A coffin she might as well start building for Faruq bhai, if he carried on like this. A coffin their father would certainly send his own son into if he found out what kind of a businessman he'd become.
"Tumhare jaise padhe-likhe log bhi ye sab sochthe hai, to doosro se kya hi umeed rakhne wala tha mein?"
He's a rebel, her brother. She knows this. Forever unable to sit in one place and do the books like he was supposed to. She'd tied it up to him missing Srinagar, being restless in a foreign city. But if this was the reason . . .
Saba loves him. She would not doubt that for a second, nor could she ever hate him. But god, they were just settling into Delhi. They had left a city of violence and strife to chase something better, to chase something more peaceful. And her brother was tossing caution to the wind for what? Amusement? Entertainment? Hadn't they all accepted those were luxuries not afforded to their family?
The ground beneath Saba's feet was already trembling under the pressure of Veer Ahuja and her godforsaken school, the remnants of the fire in her old school still scorched into it. Did Faruq bhai really have to pull it from beneath her?
Saba loved her family. She loved the shawls they made at home. She did not want to wrap her brother in one of them and send him six feet under.
They deserved happiness, of course. They deserved to be happy and at home. Happy and safe and protected from all that might harm them, that's what she wants for Faruq bhai. What she'd wanted for Shabbir chachu.
So lost in her thoughts, Saba didn't realize what her teacher was telling the class to do until he'd given an assignment of sorts and everyone was scrambling around, finding papers and pens and being busy with their work.
To her right, Dheeru and Balli were engaged in some kind of back and forth Saba didn't particularly want to get dragged into, which left . . .
Saba glanced to her other side. Dhruv Sanghvi was biting the tip of his pen, staring at his books with a furrow in his brow.
"Um, Sir ne kya bathaya?" She asks tentatively. He glances up, brows raised.
"Sorry?"
When she repeats, Dhruv nods along instead of heckling her, explaining the assignment in a tone neither mocking nor pitying that Saba appreciates beyond words.
3.
Hampton International has tried to crush Saba Manzoor in its over-expensive fist many a time since she entered its halls.
It has never succeeded as well as it does now, when Principal Vandana is speaking to Abbu in harsh tones Saba had hoped to never hear. God, her brother's one attempt at an escape and it turned out like this.
When the Principal tells her to stop dreaming about the Hampton Gold, its like someone has sucker-punched Saba right below the ribs, so that the air in her lungs goes whooshing out and Saba is drowning, choking on her words and the tears building behind her eyes.
No. She refuses to cry here. She's let Hampton take many things from her, she won't let her dignity be one of them. Besides, the thought of Veer seeing her cry makes Saba want to flay herself alive. She won't let Principal Vandana have the satisfaction of breaking her. She won't let Yashika have this, too.
Sitting through the meeting with her parents is terrible enough. Seeing her confident and swaggering brother be silenced and shamed is worse. The disappointment and shock in Abbu's eyes is smoke in Saba's throat making everything burn. Walking to the school's exit with not only Vandana's eyes, but the eyes of this whole school on her reminds her of the way her Quran tutors would talk about hellfire.
But hearing the sound of Abbu slapping Faruq bhai echo through the too-polished walls is a torture Saba isn't prepared for. Her beloved father, sweet in Urdu and Kashmiri whose words had dripped off of him like honey, whose hands had been able to soothe his children through anything now being raised against them in violence. Who had they turned him into?
She feels it - twice - like it's her cheek their father's hand makes contact with and can't help but desperately think 'no, not again, once with chachu was enough'.
She has to remind herself that Abbu is right. That all of this is Faruq bhai's fault and maybe hers too, but it's justified and maybe, just maybe the ground will open beneath her feet to swallow her whole so that Allah azawajal spares her from the pain of what comes next.
Her brother curves away from their father, touching his cheek like he can't quite process what's happening around him. Saba can't decide if she wants to put herself between him and the world and hold him tight or slap him once more and yell at him for his terrible life choices.
Were shawls that bad of a sale? Could her brother truly not have found anything that sold better than drugs?
No. Saba would not turn on him now. This was Suhani Ahuja, that rat-faced bitch's fault, for making Faruq bhai and her take the blame for something her entire school partook in. Would her classmates face this embarrassment? Would she be the only one complicit in this crime even though there were students who had brought drugs and been caught in the act by literal cameras?
Somehow, she doesn't think Suhani's parents would be brought into school. She doesn't think they would slap their daughter in full view of her classmates.
Oh god, her classmates. One glance towards the slim glass pane is enough to show the bunch has gathered to witness this spectacle.
Where were Dheeru and Balli, maybe the sole two people who could understand her plight? Instead, Saba saw Veer, in whose eyes she couldn't find the usual mockery, and instead realized that the pity felt worse. Instead, Saba found Dhruv Sanghvi staring at her parents and brother with a pain something akin to her own.
Good, she thought viciously. He was probably worried about what his Principal mother would suspect him for. Let him know a shred of her pain.
But Dhruv didn't deserve that. This was their mistake and their penance. Others would come later, she supposed, if at all. For now, Saba would take her brother's hand and hold her chin high.
4.
The week before his wedding, Faruq bhai comes into Saba's room with trembling hands and tear-tracks on his face. It's a jarring enough sight that she drops her phone and instantly scoots over to make room on her bed for him, the texts from Veer she was examining and the sting of his betrayal instantly forgotten.
He slumps next to her, face utterly devoid of any emotion, and stares blankly at the wall. Minutes pass before Saba leans over and gently touches his shoulder to ask, "Kya hua?"
Faruq bhai doesn't respond, not instantly at least. Another handful of minutes pass before he jerks and his breathing quickens fast enough for Saba to get worried and put her arms around him to pull him close, whispering soothing words into his ear.
She knows this marriage isn't what he wants. Far from it, if anything. But Zaira didi is a good girl, her sister Meher is one of the best people Saba knows. It might not be ideal, but Faruq bhai had nodded along to the initial meetings and festivities and Saba had thought he could learn to shoulder the burden of it with time.
Then she had stood outside the balcony as her brother had spoken softly to a boy in grief-stricken tones on her phone and Saba's heart had ached. Hadn't they come to Delhi for a chance at happiness? Why then, was her brother's buried on a balcony with no one but Saba to witness?
She'd held his hand through endless dawats and prayed it would be enough. It wasn't.
Now, Faruq bhai curled his head into her lap and gasped like it hurt him to breathe, and Saba could do nothing but run her hands through the curly mass of his hair and tell him to hold on.
He trembles hard enough to shake the whole bed, his tears being shoved out of him as he muffles his sobs into her skirt. Saba can feel her own eyes moisten and before she knows it, she's holding his falling-apart frame tight enough that she hopes it will hold him together as tears slip past both their cheeks.
The Manzoor children, grieving for their childhood. Grieving for a beautiful dream they'd each believed could be their reality.
When he finally settles, jagged breathing settling down, Saba finds the strength to ask him, "Do you want to talk to him?"
He shakes his head and forces himself up on one hand, eyes red and raw, to shift into a position that has him lying on Saba's bed. Saba lies down next to him, peering into his brown eyes.
A beat later, Saba asks, "Kaun tha woh? Jaanti hu mein use?"
Faruq bhai turns to face her, even that action appears to cost him. "Ha. Tere hi school ka tha."
Saba's brows raise.
Her brother parts his lips, then hesitates. "Dhruv," he says, like that one syllable was sacred and encompassed all his hopes, dreams, and emotions into one too-small sound. He chuckles, and then,
"Schoolboy," he breathes, and Saba's breath catches. The expression on her brother's face makes her want to turn away, stripped of all his cynicism to show a dream purer and more precious than anything the rangy walls of their apartment would allow him to have.
"Dhruv Sanghvi?"
Faruq swallows, nodding. His gaze is pinned to the ceiling, has been ever since he first spoke Dhruv's name, but now he looks Saba in the eyes.
"I'm sorry," he says. "I know, tumhe meri wajah se tum ko kitni sharmindagi sehni padi hogi school mein, ghar mein. Mein khud ke liye tumhare khaab kabi qurbaan nahi karna chahta tha."
"Nahi," Saba tells him, speaking her truth. "Mein pehle samjhi nahi thi, aap kyu karte the jo aap kare. Abh, mein wo ladki nahi rahi, jo mein Hampton se pehle thi, jo kuch mein bhi khush reh sakti thi. Agar aap ki khushi Dhruv ke saath hai, toh mein ladungi uske liye. Aap ke liye."
Faruq bhai laughs humorlessly again. "Ye jang ladne ki nahi hai, Saba. Bas sehne ki."
She jolts up suddenly, hovering above him. Saba had seen enough movies to know that unwanted marriages didn't end up well for anyone.
"Aur wo kyu? Agar aap usay chahte ho, uske saath hona chahte ho, toh koshish kyu nahi karte?"
"Shabbir chachu ne kiya tha koshish. Unka haal toh bhooli nahi ho na?" Faruq snaps back.
He's forgotten, it seems, that his sister is a debate champion.
"Aur aap ne hi bathaaya tha, woh Srinagar tha, Delhi nahi. Agar Delhi nahi tho bhi sahi. India aap jaiso ke liye khatra hai, jaanti hu, par puri duniya nahi."
At this, Faruq sits up straight, his eyes boring into his sister fiercely. "Bas, Saba. Ammi aur Abbu ke baare mein sochi ho? Charas ke liye hi itna peete the, ye baath jaankar dafan hi kardenge."
Saba bites her lip. He's not wrong. If not her parents, then it would be Rahim mamu, or someone else from their community that would force their parents to clip Faruq's wings and damn him eternally. But . . .
"Abbu aur Ammi jaante hai kaisi duniya hothi hai. Shabbir chachu ko kitna dulaar karte the. Par agar tum unko bataaoge nahi, tho kaise unki qubuliyat ki umeed rakhenge?"
Faruq bhai doesn't respond. The thrill of victory warps into a war drum beneath Saba's skin.
5.
Five months.
It had taken them five months to get here, to Saba setting the table as her brother bit his lip and paced in the living room. To Ammi masking her uncertainty by adjusting and readjusting furniture that was already as perfect as it could get. To Abbu staring out the window, standstill for the events to come.
(It's almost ironic, how in this house that so many potentials had walked through for Faruq bhai, the one that already had his heart in whole would be the one that made his parents nervous.)
Five months.
Five months of constant arguments, of splitting headaches and more tears than Saba thinks her family has ever shed, even in Srinagar. Five months of giving Shabbir chachu's soul some kind of peace, or satisfaction.
Five months of the betrayed sting in Zaira's eyes soothed by the smiles that were more frequent on her brother's face. Five months of worrying they had disappointed their parents but living honestly anyway.
Five months that began with that fateful day in Saba's room, when she'd convinced her brother to stand his damn ground and face the world the way his beloved was willing to, the way chachu was willing to. Five months of sneaking Faruq bhai out of her window and onto a cycle to Ismail Khan's tomb. Five months that seemed far too long and far too short for this kind of momentum in her parents' minds.
When it came down to it, Saba supposed, they had loved Shabbir chachu. And they loved Faruq bhai.
So when the doorbell rang at last, and Faruq bhai nearly ripped it off its hinges in his haste, Saba supposed five months were worth it all to see Dhruv Sanghvi shyly standing in the doorway, a box of sweets in hand as he stepped into Faruq bhai's embrace. Worth it all to see the way Ammi smiled despite herself and Abbu glanced at the sky to mouth his brother's name.
Worth it all to see Faruq bhai smile.
+1
Life is beautiful. Life is kind.
If she were someone else, Saba thinks she could come up with something more poetic than that. Her brother certainly would. But here, in Veer Ahuja's embrace in the bedroom they can now call their own, knowing the other half of her soul is doing something similar miles away, all words fail her.
Poetry be damned, this moment was beautiful enough. It would do.
It's a drowsy morning that day, just like the two of them. They've fought enough battles to make it here. This, Saba supposes, would be the epilogue of their life.
But oh, wasn't it just the beginning?
A prologue, then.
But as the silence of their room is ripped apart by her ringtone, and Veer groans into their pillows, Saba laughs. Prologues aren't this interesting at all.
She leans over her beloved to catch her phone, and recieves the call she's been expecting.
"Saba!" her brother-in-law crows delightedly. Veer pushes himself upright at the sound of his best friend's voice to grumpily poke his face into the screen.
"Oi, I'm here too," he pouts, and Dhruv laughs.
"Ha, par Saba's more important," he says with a rascal's grin she knows her brother loves. Speaking of which . . .
"Where is he, my useless brother?" she asks, waving away Veer's fake injured noises.
"Behenji, kise useless keh rahi ho?" Faruq bhai demands, grabbing the phone from Dhruv only to collapse next to him on their couch, which like the rest of their thrifted furniture is equal parts tacky and new. Saba would know, she's helped them through multiple thrift store trips and flea markets and what not.
"He's right, you know," Dhruv adds. "I've done absolutely nothing today," he declares delightedly. Faruq bhai leans over to press a quick kiss on his forehead.
"Don't worry, jaan. You're still the breadwinner," Faruq bhai consoles, as Dhruv nods along
"Anyway, how are things on your end?" he asks. "Has my best friend given you enough headaches to make you question this?"
Veer's muffled protests make all three of them cackle. "Your best friend is a headache, but lucky for him, I kind of like this headache," Saba says, and is rewarded by the arm Veer wraps around her to pull her close.
It would be almost funny to think that if something had gone differently five years ago, then this moment wouldn't exist at all. Would she and Veer have found themselves if not for that fateful fire? Would Dhruv have come lighting up her brother's life otherwise?
There are too many factors, but Saba is thankful to every single one of them if it means she can see her brother gaze so lovingly at the man next to him. Love that only a few years ago she'd thought her brother wasn't even capable of.
She loves them, both her brothers. She doesn't want to think of what would come of Faruq bhai if not for Dhruv, but she is grateful to have him here.
Grateful to stumble in on them dancing in the kitchen to their father's old radio. Grateful to have his quiet determination bring her restless brother home. Grateful to have him charm Abbu by learning Urdu, and Ammi by bringing something delicious to the table every time for their once-weekly dinners. Grateful to have him wait at the other end of the aisle Saba had walked her brother down. Grateful to have him trust her enough to tell her about his parents, and what their ignorance had cost him. Grateful to be able to buy him kulfi in return and have a partner to tease Veer with.
Knowing the ends, Saba would justify all the means it had taken them to get here. Five months or five years, the comfort of Veer's embrace and a brother's smile that was now so frequent she couldn't keep count were the constants Saba would remain eternally grateful for.