They walked hand in hand in the market, and Meerab surprisingly didn’t take her hand away. Murtasim had a déjà vu of a similar outing they had back in the beginning days of their marriage when he walked behind her, and she had turned and smiled her rare radiant smile at her. It was one of the best outings of his life.
They walked through the market looking for the rasmalai-wala. Still, they couldn’t find any trace of him, so they resorted to asking some other street vendors about him and were informed that he had gotten so big that he had a market in the city now, of which they didn’t know the address.
Once again, they had to return empty-handed, and Meerab was grumpy about it.
“At this point, I feel like if I don’t get this rasmalai, then coming to Islamabad was a waste,” she grumbled as they sat back in the boat, the rower starting to row them back to the other side of the shore.
“I’ll make sure we don’t leave this city without you having the rasmalai,” Murtasim soothed her, though he wasn’t sure how he would trace the shop owner.
“Pakka?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.
“Pakka”, he promised and then bent forward to put his hand on hers, resting on her lap.
________
It had been three days since they arrived in Islamabad and it had been quite a fun time away from Hyderabad for Meerab. She felt more at ease here, with just Murtasim around and no one else. She didn’t quite understand what it meant for their relationship but it had definitely been a bonding experience for both of them.
Today they had quite an adventurous day that involved lots of shopping for Meerab and running behind her in equal measures for Murtasim. After all the walking that they’d done, Meerab just needed to go sleep. So she wasted no time in getting ready for bed while Murtasim went out into the balcony with his phone in his hand, talking in hushed tone. Meerab without a care went to sleep.
‘Click’
Twice. She heard that noise twice. And it was enough to wake her up from her slumber. She sat up on the bed and looked around only to not find Murtasim in the room. She turned her gaze towards the wall clock showing 2:30 AM which made her wonder what he had gone out for at this hour. But since she was heavy on sleep, she went back to sleep without thinking much.
Next morning she woke up, and he still wasn’t back which made her quite worried. She thought of calling him but decided against it because it was irresponsible behaviour on his part. She freshened up and started packing since it was going to be their last night in Islamabad. Just then he entered the room, looking all worn out and dishevelled.
She didn’t react to him and continued packing. He let out a long sigh and sat on the couch, clearly tired after an all nighter. He looked at her all fresh and she was a sight for his sore eyes that he kept looking at her for a minute. Observing her stance he understood she had figured out his last night endeavour and was mad about it. Trying to figure out a way to ease the tension in the room he looked at her small hands swiftly folding the clothes and putting them in the trolley and remarked, “itne saare kapde, just for a four days trip?”
“Its almost like someone told me where we were going and for how many days”, she retorted, taking the bait.
“Well I didn’t say there was going to be an event, so why formals?”, he said observing her dresses.
“Did you tell me that?”, she was now getting angry and her hands were working faster and haphazardly.
“Arey why are you getting hyper, I was just kidding”, he said in a placating tone.
