Samar Khan ♦ Cis Man (he/him) ♦ Thirty-Seven ♦ Government ♦ Policy Advisor for Luis Espino
A revolution that is close-by is not close enough for change.
London was meant to be the fresh start the Khans needed, but there is an old saying that transcends continents, transcends cultures, transcends languages: you can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy. The boy in question happened to be Samar's father, more of a man than boy, only if age was the deciding factor. His son wouldn't have a chance to be birthed under the same philosophy, taking his pregnant wife away from India to the promise land they knew from a picture-perfect lens.
It's not as romantic as it sounds, nor half as noble. The story of a father building a future for his growing family sounds so much more endearing than fleeing the reach of Punjab's mafia. Samar was blessed with ignorance in his childhood, a bubble of protection from the truth, until it evaporated with age. Nights alone with his mother and newborn brother, wondering where his father was, became too frequent to sweep under the rug. The attention the man threw at every game blaring on the television, slamming his hand atop the set when the opposing team scored, was more than competitive spirit.
Malik Khan had moved thousands of miles to bring with him all the baggage he swore to leave behind in Punjab. Gambling debts crept up, multiplying, deepening a hole to the size of an abyss as his repayment plan included more than what mere pounds could smooth over. A favor here and a favor there sounded harmless. Stash these guns in the back of the store you work at. Drive this car to Blackpool, leave it there close to the water. Deliver these packages across the border, don't open them. Malik didn't need to be told twice; he may have owed one of London's largest gangs, but he had no intention in joining them. He did what he was told, complied as they wished, feeding the addiction he cycled over and over again until one day he simply never made it back home.
He remembers how his mother cried while holding his brother Naveen, a boy of fourteen, two years younger than Samar. They weren't the tears of grief; Malik wasn't dead. If he had been, the gang would have been satisfied with the debt left behind in his wake. This was pure abandonment. Another trip away; this time without family. It left their small apartment turned upside down, members of the gang looking for anything and everything that would lead to the right direction to follow after him, but they were left as empty-handed as the remaining Khans felt when they saw the mess.
For months afterwards, nothing happened. It was calm. Samar's mother found work to support them, Samar following suit while cracking down into his studies, leaving Naveen free from prying eyes. Those months of peace were not by coincidence. The Khans can owe their streak of relaxation to the youngest of their own group pitching in the most behind their backs.
While Samar was getting top marks, eyes on college in the near future, Naveen had taken up the tasks his father had started and never finished. It began as a way to protect his family, but like father like son, Naveen began to stray in his alliances. The gang became more family than flesh and blood. Distribution became his specialty, selling to the streets that he used to walk to school on, only to wind up dropping out of his studies altogether. It was the final hint that led not his mother but his brother to confront him.
He was the older brother, the man of the household that was meant to step up and protect when their father had failed them. Naveen was never destined for this life, and to Samar's surprise, Naveen agreed with him, just not in the way he had hoped for. He echoed the sentiment back to his face: it was your fault, you could never do what needed to be done. The words were spoken without shame, without the feeling he was the one that needed to explain. Naveen had found his path in life, and Samar had benefited from it. Everything else was just him whining about it, as if he had missed his chance to be the hero he had never asked for.
The family was cracking apart, fracturing in three distinctive pieces with a fourth being accepted as lost. Naveen had left the house; Samar had sought out the police for help; and their mother was too burdened with guilt and humiliation that she returned to India without either one of them. In exchange for the heartache, for Samar's efforts to keep the pieces together, to pull a family back from the edges, the police did nothing but the bare minimum, just enough to solidify Naveen's resentment.
He hasn't seen his younger brother since. He's heard he still runs for them and keeps his senses open for any signs of trouble, but Samar knows there's a bigger problem at hand. His trip to the authorities was not to get his brother in prison; it was to get those that had taken advantage of a young kid in a tough spot put to an end. It would take real change for it to happen, real change that going to King's College could hopefully prepare him for.
In a time of utter personal destruction, he found brief respite on the campus. He studied sociology, a mind that demanded answers as much as solutions, dedicated to every class he took. If he had invested half as much time in his social life as he had in studying, maybe his relationship with Astrid would have stuck. It wasn't for a lack of feelings, something more psychological, something more to do with divine intervention perhaps, an almost love that hadn't been scheduled right in the chaotic ruins of his life.
By the time things were beginning to finally settle, grabbing an internship in the House of Commons, that one part of his life was already gone, crossing the ocean to America. Fate had a funny way of repeating itself, a common thread of distance from those closest to him reemerging like an old wound.
Today, through extensive work and dedication, Samar has found his position beside the mayor of London as his Policy Advisor. It's where he must belong. Everything has led him here, a place where change can truly happen, a step closer to cleaning the very city that had corrupted his brother. An article on corruption can only strengthen that feeling, and only question it if the change he's been looking for all this time is not found in the office he serves.
+/-: disillusioned, optimistic, frustrated, passionate, forward-thinking, moral
Samar's apartment is telling of his beliefs. History books that focus on revolutions litter the bookshelves; a Guy Fawkes mask adorns a wall; a deck of Revolutionnaires playing cards from the old French Republic lies in a drawer, a gift given to him. Not often are people invited in.
Because of Samar's family, he's fluent in Hindi.
He's not a big dater or real romantic in general. Expressing feelings of love are not the easiest for him, and often will remain bottled up, even sometimes against his own interests.
He was a bit of a nerd in school, a believer in a system that was flawed but not broken, only to be enlightened on its true state overtime.
FC: Dev Patel
