Chapter 11
There was this sagging sensation in the pit of my stomach.
What had I forgotten? My coin pouch kept coming to mind.
I reached for it as soon as I got into the office, even though I had no use for it this day or most days.
I don’t know why I’ve employed this little pocket I’ve never quite committed to.
I stretched for it again later in the afternoon and felt it full and bulging, held together by a metal clasp.
That’s when I heard the knock. A firm rap. Just audible. My neck snapped back in recognition.
I had shut my cabin door. I only do that when I’m ‘breaking stones’, as Sudha and I call the writing process. It’s hard labour. The closed door was my DND sign, not that these hints work in a newspaper office where everything is about here and now. The deadline was yesterday.
It was Wednesday, and I had a full day. I had come in early to finish my story and start work on the pages.
That means going to war for advertisement positions, which, most of the time, is extreme, one way or the other.
No one taught these marketing chaps ‘balance’, not their neighbourhood schools and definitely not those institutions from where they secured those big-ticket degrees.
Editorial–ad department face-offs are as old as the caste system and as new as brand battles.
They don’t die. It’s all about the moolah for them.
Don’t get me wrong. We like money, we know how to enjoy it, we can run tutorials on that, but our world spins on an axis of mind over material.
We tolerate them; they wish we didn’t exist.
After that verbal tug-of-war played out across three floors, which could go on for hours, I had to sit with the paginators and plan the layout.
Andrew and the chief reporter, Dinesh Reddy, were at the door. I had no choice but to wave them in.
My coin pouch again.
Sometimes, an oversight or omission has the amygdala on overdrive. Inconsequential items I own keep popping up in my head until the mystery unravels. It was a tray cloth two weeks ago when I had left home with both sets of house keys.
‘Have you filed the piece?’ Andrew came straight to the point.
He had picked up newsroom etiquette quickly.
‘Hello, Andrew, Dinesh,’ I said, buying time.
‘Hello, Myraah.’ Andrew returned my smile. It wasn’t of the same cheesy genre that had popped on Pooja Patil’s page.
No one looked at me like Andrew Brown was doing now, like I was the only one even in an overcrowded, super-interesting radius. His eyes were light on my skin, like night cream.
I blinked and busted the duet. What was this about?
Andrew’s eyes were scanning my desk now. They fixed briefly on my open notebook, maybe because he wasn’t in a position to see what was on my computer screen.
This lip-smacking construction of a man was looking for something, and it wasn’t me.
‘Are you writing it?’ he asked, pointing at my desktop.
‘I’m writing it,’ I said.
He was in a round-neck FC Barcelona tee. It was a forever enthusiasm.
My coin purse flitted across my mind space. Something had flown over my head.
‘You’ve forgotten,’ Andrew decided.
There was an edge of desperation to Andrew this morning. It reflected in his manner. His hands were in the pockets of his jeans.
Andrew turned to Dinesh, who was inching forward in my direction. He was almost in line with my computer.
I liked Dinesh. For some reason, even though we’ve been working in Morning Herald for the same length of time, we haven’t gone beyond polite greetings and story briefs.
He was a poor writer, a great reporter and the sharpest dresser on our floor.
And he was chivalrous. Maybe that’s why I liked him. I have my faults.
‘Okay! She’s finishing it,’ Dinesh announced. The animation in his voice was marked.
Dinesh motioned to Andrew that they should leave me to it.
‘Finishing what?’ My piece was for my pages, which had nothing to do with Dinesh, much less with Andrew even in this to-be-editor mode.
The coin pouch. Again. That’s when the light bulb flickered to life.
An 86-year-old woman’s body was discovered in her home in a posh Bengaluru suburb last week. The death had been dismissed as a home-alone report in all the newspapers, which claimed the lady had no kith or kin.
A couple of days after the municipal authorities had performed the last rites, a neighbour called Dinesh to apprise him of the deceased Venkamma Achar’s story.
The octogenarian lived alone in a rundown home that stood at the centre of a massive 100x180 square-foot property. Her sister had passed away a year ago.
Her brother, a hoodlum in his youth, was fighting for the property, which was estimated in excess of ?20 crore.
The house had been willed to the spinster sisters by their parents with a clause that if it survived the duo, it would go to their only other sibling.
The brother, who had squandered his own considerable inheritance, was eyeballing his sisters’ property.
His family had prevented the sale of the house even when his ageing sisters had approached him with an agreement that would benefit all of them equally.
Venkamma had never worked; she had no friends or cash reserves.
Her sister had been a teacher, and for as long as she’d been around, they’d got by on her pension.
After her demise, Venkamma subsisted on her neighbours’ generosity.
She hadn’t disclosed her dire situation to anyone.
The condition of the house, the state of total disrepair it was in, hadn’t gone unnoticed, especially after the older, more social sibling passed away.
People, however, attributed it to her age rather than her finances or the lack of it.
Things had gotten so bad that even the water supply and electricity had been cut.
She had been dead for a week when her body was discovered.
Dinesh had told me that it would be a good story for ‘Crime 3.0’ at a later date. He had even given me the telephone number of his contact. This was two days ago.
Andrew, who was privy to the conversation, had cut into the exchange. He had said, ‘In interesting or unresolved cases, after sufficient time, say a week or 10 days, has elapsed, the story should be laid out with as many details as possible.’
Stories that our reporters miss could be fleshed out and retold. Not reported but articulated comprehensively.
He was clear that it wasn’t for the column, just yet at least, nor could it be dismissed in brief. He was looking at a 600-word story, a nice connect between daily reporting and ‘Crime 3.0’ that would appear on the feature pages.
At no point was I told to write the story. I hadn’t forgotten; I relegated the obsequious coin pouch from my mind.
I had agreed with Andrew’s argument; it was a line of reportage that wasn’t followed to the full.
Not just Morning Herald, but most media platforms were guilty of that.
Readers are interested in people stories more than infrastructure or boardroom politics.
They want to know what happened; often, it is curiosity, sometimes concern.
In the case of Venkamma, was there no one she could turn to for help in this city of some eight million people?
No other daily had the full story, it was our exclusive – Dinesh or his team’s exclusive. I thought they were ascertaining facts before filing the story, that’s why it was taking time.
‘You are writing the Venkamma Achar piece, right?’ Dinesh asked a little uncertainly.
‘No.’ Dinesh’s shoulders fell like a penny stock.
‘Why not?’ Andrew asked. The tone was frosty.
I shrugged. ‘I’m not the crime reporter.’
Andrew’s eyes were playing darts on me. Not in admiration. I wanted to giggle. I liked where this was going.
‘Yeah, but Dinesh gave you the contacts last week and asked you to follow it up for your column.’
‘Column? The column isn’t scheduled for this week. Next month’s piece is ready,’ I said, meeting Andrew’s gaze.
Dinesh was nodding. He had done the math; he understood what was happening.
Andrew’s discomfort was uproarious.
‘What’s the confusion? You were supposed to write the piece.’
Andrew and I could always talk. We spent hours in verbal combat – an idea, a political stand, a cappuccino – only to agree to disagree.
We emptied ourselves. I’m a good listener.
He’s not bad most times, but he tends to cut in every now and then, questioning, asking for clarification and throwing you off your thought process.
Those chats mostly ended with a dry ‘yeah’.
An Andrew special. His occasional bullshit.
Today, he just couldn’t find the right words.
I had boxed him into a corner without meaning to, and he was beginning to see it.
Andrew was still a newbie in newsroom delivery.
Normally, I would’ve explained this to a new recruit, perhaps during that exchange two days ago when he joined Dinesh and me, but I had stuff on my mind.
And Morning Herald had never hired someone who was just cutting their teeth in this business right at the very top.
‘I wasn’t aware of having to write the piece for the daily. It was supposed to be for my column–’
‘Yeah,’ Andrew cut in.
Meet the bullshit listener of the new millennium; he won’t let you finish a sentence.
I was going to say, ‘Down the line, as you pointed out.’ This business of butting in might work brilliantly on another turf, when he’s interviewing hard-nosed politicians, going at them from all directions, but with a colleague, it’s off-putting.
He knows (or at least he thinks he knows) what you’re about to say and is bursting forth with a counter because he has long gone past what you have to say.
‘I told you it would be a better follow-up piece.’
‘Yeah, you said that.’
Even God in a beige tee better mind his manners if he wants more from me.
‘Then what’s the problem?’
‘You should be asking the crime department that because they are the ones who write follow-ups.’
I had turned and was facing my computer.
Dinesh had exited the cabin. Like a good reporter, he understood there was no point hanging around haranguing when there was a story to be written.
‘Myraah,’ Andrew said. His fingers were gripping my table; they were white from the exertion. ‘Dinesh had given you the details.’
‘Yes,’ I said sweetly, even smiling for effect. I could see his chest.
‘I know initially he had asked you to write it for the crime column,’ he said.
I wanted to butt in here to say, ‘Because that was all Dinesh was allowed to do – make suggestions.’ What appeared in the feature pages was outside that nice man’s jurisdiction, but I let it slide.
Meanwhile, Andrew continued without pausing for breath. ‘So, when I said it could go as a follow-up, I meant for you to write it. I was looking at you, speaking to you.’
‘I’m not contesting what you said, what you might’ve meant or not meant.’ And I was looking at you, too.
‘I was addressing you,’ he said in classic Andrew Brown style.
‘So? I have no idea what’s going on in that head of yours,’ I said, spreading out my hands for effect.
‘You knew what I meant.’
‘Are you accusing me of shirking work?’ My voice was dripping sugar.
‘This is such bullshit,’ Andrew growled. ‘I can’t understand why you couldn’t have told me earlier that you aren’t writing the piece. That you can’t write the piece.’
Can’t or won’t? I cocked an eyebrow, letting the unasked question stoke his depleting reserves.
‘As far as I know…’
‘What you know is not important; it’s what you had to do.’
I smiled, not for effect.
If there was an emoji for interrupting, it should look like Andrew Brown. I’m raising a public interest petition.
‘The only reason I’m not writing the follow-up or whatever it is that you want to call this piece is because I wasn’t asked to write it.’
‘I asked you to write it, ba… Myraah.’ His hand was on his chest, and his eyes were burning bright.
‘Nobody asked me to write it, Brown. You only said it should be written.’
‘If you had a question, you should’ve asked me.’
We were friends, we always were. Even when the two of you were dating.
Andrew closed in on my space and rested his hands on my desk. ‘This is the problem with you,’ he said. ‘Your communication skills are zero.’
I looked up from my computer screen and let the laugh out of me. It started as a bark and finished on a hysterical note.
‘Touché!’ I exclaimed. ‘Only that it’s what I do for a living.’
‘I mean it, you can’t answer a telephone call or get back to a text. You don’t want to tell people where they stand in your life. You don’t want to communicate.’
‘Excuse me!’
‘Why can’t you just pick up the phone and call? Or message? Why can’t you ask a question, clear your doubts? If there was any confusion, and you thought…’
I was wearing my bored expression now. I had worn it well, I could tell by the look in his eyes.
Andrew Brown doesn’t do shows, but he was so lost and splashing about that it was ridiculously funny.
A grown man in polka dots. ‘I didn’t think I had to do the piece. In my mind, there was no doubt at all.’
‘I don’t understand,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘How can you do this all the time?’
This wasn’t about Venkamma Achar. May her soul rest in peace.
A man caught in dense weeds. A part of me felt for him. But the other me was angry. Livid at the lies and hidden truths. Livid that he had the audacity to demand explanations when he never gave one.
‘Next time,’ he said, ‘don’t assume or think… Don’t give me the “I thought this” or “I thought that” excuse.’
‘I didn’t think,’ I said. ‘That’s you, Andrew Brown. Entirely you.’
‘I’m not the one who hasn’t written the story I was assigned because “I thought”.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I wouldn’t ever confuse who you are.’
Andrew flinched. His palms were off my desk.
I hope I was smiling. I couldn’t feel my face.