Chapter 1
A m a l D
“Amaal,” she emphasised. “Double A.” She turned the file of her resume in her hand and flashed it.
He nodded, taking another six seconds to backspace.
Amaal glanced around at the house. Was this a joke?
A political party in a house? There was no signage, no posters, no flag.
It was just a house. A house that was not lived in, thankfully.
She glanced at the only source of activity — the kitchen.
A man was milling around, bringing out a canister of water and placing it on a table between the rows of chairs occupied by the applicants.
Amaal looked at each of their faces one by one.
Three out of twenty chairs were occupied.
All three were men. And all three looked…
identical. Uninteresting. White shirts and black trousers, shirts that were either too loose or too tight, worn only for this interview.
She glanced down at herself. The warm Burnt Sienna-coloured velvet pheran, not richly beaded but locally embroidered.
A cream Pashmina shawl knotted around her neck.
Anything but straightjacketed. A Media Coordinator’s position was not black and white.
It required dealing with both black and white, but the dealing itself had to be coloured — a different hue for a different interaction — creative, mixing up the drink as per the customer’s face.
Or maybe she was expecting too much from a small regional Kashmiri party.
Amaal held her horses. Judging before experiencing was a taboo she had set for herself in the first year of media school.
Her eyes had opened to the world then. So much of what she had assumed had been rewritten when the veil of indifference had been lifted.
Kashmir. Her family’s home. Her childhood.
It’s skewed history. It’s misunderstood fabric.
It’s muddied politics. It had all been unravelled in front of her as she had gone on reading and researching her way through tough realities.
“Please take a seat, your name will be called.” The man on the laptop finally finished entering her details.
Amaal stepped back, walking towards the setting of chairs.
The first three were occupied in a line.
She picked the one at the back. It had a better view of the rest of the house, and the tall window that opened up outside to the front garden.
It was more than a garden, it could be a full golf course.
But it wasn’t in bloom. It was winter, and gloomy even at mid-morning, but Amaal recognised a drooped garden when she saw one.
The click of a door made her head turn. A man looking in his middle age stepped out of an alley, a file folder under his arm.
He wasn’t wearing white on black. Blue on black.
Some colour. For the sake of the interviewers, Amaal hoped he was an interviewee.
She discovered he was when he marched towards the coat rack, picked up his coat and walked out of the mansion, file and a portfolio held under his arm.
“Amal?” The man on the laptop announced.
“Amaal,” she corrected, getting to her feet just as the man in front of her did. “Oh,” she smiled. “Amal?”
“Yes.” He did not smile back. Amaal shrugged, sitting back down. Her BlackBerry buzzed. She popped the lock on the top and scrolled down the line of chats live on her BBM. Family Durrani, LSE 2008, Mean Girls XO, Shayla K…
She stopped scrolling. It seemed everybody was active at… she calculated the time difference, 6.30 am in London. But days started early in winter. She clicked open Family Durrani.
MOM
1 cartoon skimmed milk
2 cartoon whole fat milk
Cheese crackers
Dhaniwal
DAD
Carton
MOM
You got it now get it
Amaal snorted. Her parents were very atypical for their conservative community.
Two friends who were equals in a marriage inside their home.
Amaal had grown up seeing family and family friends where the women were always shown their place — a subservient corner that often came not second to their husbands but third to their sons, and fourth when they had grandsons.
In her home, her dad had always been subservient to her mom.
Not in a bad way. In a good way. He was the decision maker in some things, but the rest, he surrendered to her mother.
Shauqat Ali Durrani and Seema Durrani were accomplished dental surgeons, with a booming practice run in partnership for 14 years in Wembley.
They had migrated from Kashmir a few years after the Pundit exodus, sensing the rapidly depleting societal and cultural order of a land they had once celebrated as their home.
Amaal remembered being in school and confused, sad, angry at the thought of leaving home and her favourite hammock slung between two apple trees.
A BBM pop made her phone vibrate. She held the phone between both hands and typed, her thumb already aching after the amount of messaging she had been doing since coming to India. She needed to stop typing so much but there was always a lag of time to catch up over call.
AMAAL
Good morning folks
Sun shinin brighter today?
MOM
Are you at your interview
AMAAL
Yep
DAD
Good luck :D :D :D
Amaal rolled her eyes. Her dad was being his funny, satirical self. If anything, he was wishing her all the bad luck right now, hoping she would crash this interview and come back on the scheduled flight next week because — ‘You can’t settle in Kashmir again, there is nothing there.’
AMAAL
Thanks, dad
Baap ki dua always works[15]
DAD
:/
She barked out a laugh.
“Amaal Durrani?”
She glanced up. The three applicants in front of her were all gone. Had that much time passed so quickly? She glanced down at the clock on her phone. Twenty minutes. Nineteen, if she counted the last change of a minute. Had three applicants finished in such a short time frame?
“That way.” The man at the laptop pointed, opening an arm towards the alley.
Amaal got to her feet. The silent winter air was still as she strode to the alley.
The windows were all bolted, but the sun streamed through the glass, lighting up the way.
She power walked, gathering momentum, counting rooms that were all closed.
The architecture was ancient, the interior too.
Both were well-maintained. A door at the end of the alley stood ajar, soft conversation filtering out. It felt louder in the thick air.
Amaal used her forefinger to push her sleek, ironed hair behind her shoulder and came to a stop outside the door. She raised the same finger and knocked. The conversation died.
“Come in.”
She pushed the door open and brilliant bright sunlight flooded her eyes before two figures did. Two men. Sitting side by side behind a bare, wide desk. Amaal took it all in. The three floor-to-ceiling glass windows that made up the walls behind the men, looking out into the drooping garden.
She stepped inside, bringing her eyes to the men. Young men. She had seen their photos during her research. In person, they looked larger, even when seated. And when they rose to their feet at her entrance, they looked massive. Ex-military men, impeccable manners.
“Hello, my name is Amaal Durrani,” she pulled a smile to her mouth, practising what she had learnt in the soft skills cell during her finishing school.
Enter a room with a straight face, smile when you meet somebody’s eyes to express that your pleasure is at seeing them, not a facade cultivated before you even enter their space.
“Atharva Singh Kaul.” The man wearing a crisp cobalt shirt held his hand out.
He was tall, well-built, and his smile bloomed just when hers did.
A scar cut across his cheek, marring the charm of his face.
But there was something in the way he smiled.
Something welcoming in his grey eyes, even when his body looked like it was a weapon.
Amaal took his hand and his grip was firm, his stance warm with one quick pump.
“Hello,” Amaal left his hand and took it to the other man.
The one in a lean, black, body-hugging T-shirt, half sleeves moulded to his biceps.
No other coverage, even in this winter. He hadn’t extended his hand yet.
Amaal held her smile, keeping her arm out.
He looked at her for a long second. He was taller.
Leaner than his partner. And even though there was no scar on his face, he looked more wronged than Atharva Singh Kaul did, with an impervious expression in his black eyes.
Amaal blinked and widened her smile. And his hand fell into hers. Cold.
“Dr. Samar Dixit.”
“I know.”
The imperviousness of his face broke. His eyebrows rose, only slightly.
“Not you, as in personally. I know about you,” she clarified. “You wouldn’t think I’d walk in here to handle media coordination without doing my due diligence on who I am going to be working with, right?”
“Then let’s hear it, Ms. Durrani.” Atharva Singh Kaul nodded, holding out an arm to the lone chair in front of their desk. She smoothed the back of her pheran and lowered herself to the chair. The men took their seats and looked at her, expectant.
“Oh?” Her eyes widened. “You are serious? No questions?”
“You opened a thread, let’s see where it goes,” Atharva Singh Kaul asserted. “Tell us about ourselves from your research.”
“Did you do the same with the other applicants?”