**A Wattpad featured story**
Bekhudi || بیخودی
❝ He gently dragged his hand around the delicate skin of my neck, slowly caressing it under his stifling touch. I felt his breath curling against me, as a wave of sultriness rod...
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Allah ne insan ke haath mein sirf koshish di hai, kamyabi woh deta hai. اللہ نے انسان کے ہاتھ میں صرف کوشش دی ہے، کامیابی وہ دیتا ہے-
We are trapped in the amber of the moment. Time is an illusion, a facade. Once you lose hold of it, it slips from your hand like the fine grains of sand, never to be caught again. With each passing second the past increases and the future recedes. This week passed in a blur. But tomorrow was the day. The day that would decide the future of our family. The day that would decide the future of our country.
All week Aliyaar was busy preparing for the big day. Despite our limited interactions during the week, I was able to learn a great deal about him. He was a man of discipline and courage. He did have an insatiable hunger for power, but with that he also had great resilience and a burning passion to shoulder responsibility and bring a change in the system. Like me, my father too had seen his unmissable spark and had decided to endorse him, silently mobilising politicians, resources and party workers around him.
This week saw the formation of a close knit team. A team of able, loyal and experienced men, who would rally around Aliyaar when the time to assume political power would arrive. The group was small, consisting only of six men, with my father at the helm. I recognised three of the men. They were close friends of my father and loyal supporters of our party. They had all held high posts and had the experience to direct and execute policy at the highest level of the government. Another man was the ex-Governor of Punjab, Ahmed uncle's best friend, Aliyaar's mentor and my Dada Jaan's arch rival. Aliyaar's cousin, a bureaucrat and a foreign policy expert, was the last member of this team but possibly Aliyaar's closest aide.
Every day, these men would meet at our house to discuss matters of public policy, industries, foreign policy, economic governance and administrative issues. Every evening, they were joined by other well known politicians, notable industrialists and businessmen, foreign dignitaries, bureaucrats and sometimes even religious leaders to discuss matters of states and policies. Shehryar, Zayan and Ahmed Uncle would frequent the meetings, but were never regular fixtures.
The meetings would start promptly at 6:00 in the evening and would continue late till late in the night. Every night the kitchen staff would churn up a feast and the talks would continue over dinner as well.
For the first time in my life, I had the chance to observe this world so closely. Growing up in Laal Mahal, the women of the house were never allowed to involve themselves in matters of business, politics or the party. But unlike my family, Aliyaar never stopped me. While I never engaged myself in the discussions, I would silently lurk around in the shadows of the room trying to overhear the conversations. I thought Aliyaar hadn't noticed, but yesterday when he caught me in the library, holding an upside down book as I tried to catch onto the conversation in the adjacent room, his face lit up with amusement.
"Why don't you join us?"
"What would I possibly do there?" I asked, a little surprised at his offer.
