Chapter 15
Rajesh Soor was ubiquitous any time some tittle-tattle was in the air. Morning Herald’s resident gossip placed a cup of direly sweetened filter coffee before me and made himself comfortable in the spare chair. My cabin suddenly felt like the Majestic Bus Station. The odour and the order.
Soor flashed what he thought was a debonair smile, a cue for when he had something malicious to share. My eyes were on his oily curls; the perfumed grease would darken the stain on the backrest.
He slurped the syrupy concoction. I sighed.
Soor had no sense of personal space, physical or otherwise. He was happy to encroach, making it all about him. What he had detected, what he wanted to say. All words, no ear.
Had he seen me with Andrew last night? Was that what the smile was about? I inhaled, held my breath, exhaled. I returned the smile.
Andrew and I were colleagues. We were seated apart, not leaning into each other. The wind had blown between us. I had felt it more than once. In the guidebook of business etiquette, was that improper? Even when not in office?
‘I tell you,’ he said, slapping my desk, making me jump and grabbing my attention all at once.
I cast a quick glance around me, wondering who else had heard that clap of thunder.
The general desk was only just filling up; people were drifting in, dropping bags and turning on machines, enjoying the reprieve air conditioning gave them.
The afternoon sun was harsh in April. That’s when I noticed he had shut the door on his way into my cabin.
He was squiggling in his seat, trying to move forward.
He had spilled some of the coffee on himself.
‘If Brown doesn’t get the interview, he’ll be blacklisted,’ he said, pausing, waiting for me to applaud his pun.
I exhaled, relieved that he hadn’t spotted us, but that was not the reaction Soor was looking for.
He continued to wait as I replayed Andrew and me last evening, Andrew walking back to the car, a few steps behind me, jogging the last few yards to get ahead of me and open the car door, waiting for me to sit down, securing the door before walking around to the other side.
I thought I had smiled, but a laugh escaped my lips to the delight of the man seated before me.
My phone pinged. It was Sudha. What does the Boor want? This was our nickname for Soor, whose other areas of specialization included walking into people in near-empty spaces. He’d hurtle towards you with a doubt or question, and god forbid there was no furniture separating him from you.
‘Can you imagine the plight of the poor woman in bed with him?’ Sudha once raised the point as if it were a toast. Her eyes twinkled and her cheeks coloured. We laughed ourselves hoarse, pondering positions, reinventing some.
‘There’s no chance of him getting that interview. How is it possible? Tell me.’
I forced myself to focus on Soor. He was asking me a question, and I didn’t know what he was talking about. ‘Who?’ I asked lamely.
Soor was frothing. He had heard from his sources, who, please be warned, were as flaky as his smile was synthetic, that Andrew was desperately trying to interview Karnataka’s former chief minister, Hari Rao.
Why would Andrew chase Hari Rao? He, of all people, should know the man had stopped giving one-on-one interviews since the death of his son more than a decade ago. He had only recently started addressing press conferences.
‘He probably wants Hari Rao to address the media as a whole maybe.’
I wanted to take those words back, almost as soon as they were out of my mouth. It was possible Andrew thought he could get through to Hari Rao. Be the chosen one. Why wouldn’t someone of his standing not think he could bag that exclusive, the first interview since canned beer!
I leaned back in my seat as I came up with a counter in my head. Andrew was probably thinking of a select interaction, with a handful of journos perhaps, as a nudge for Hari Rao to be open with the media again.
The boor snorted. ‘What is the point in paying him all this money and bringing him here if he can’t deliver? He doesn’t even know the politics.’
My phone was pinging again. It was Chhaya. I had told her last night about my running into Andrew.
Just asking, did anything happen?
I excused myself to respond to Chhaya. It was a one-word, two-letter reply.
No sooner had I placed my phone on the table than it lit up again with a string of messages. The last one was from Sudha.
Kick him out! Let’s get that coffee. I have to tell you some Andrew Brown gossip.
My face must’ve sparked a serious note because Soor now wanted to know who was messaging me. ‘Is everything okay?’ he asked, but what he meant was, what have you heard? When I didn’t offer him information one way or the other, summoning up a smile instead, he pressed forward with his claims.
‘He calls himself a political analyst when he doesn’t even understand the climate.
It must be too hot for him,’ he said, laughing at his own joke.
‘He doesn’t even know he can’t get the interview.
When you can’t get it, why commit to it in the contract?
There’s only so far an American degree can take you in this country. ’
American degree. Harvard. Hmm…
Getting interviews had little or nothing to do with being a political analyst. Apples and oranges.
But I suddenly found myself at odds with the situation, Andrew Brown in trouble?
Sudha’s message had pushed me on the defensive.
Morning Herald’s metro chief had caught onto something, a strain maybe.
Still, Andrew’s contract revolving around an interview sounded wildly discordant.
But why was my heart beating faster and harder than usual? It felt like alarm bells, a definite percussion. This had nothing to do with me; this was happening to my ex-boyfriend, who was now my colleague.
‘Maybe Andrew is just trying,’ I said tamely.
Soor shrugged, bouncing on his fleshy bottom. ‘That he should’ve thought about before taking the job,’ he said. ‘It’s normal that editors will ask him to deliver when he’s collecting a big pay cheque. He’s not delivering. Do you know how much he’s earning?’
I wanted to remind the man that Andrew was an editor already.
‘You don’t know?’
I don’t care. ‘Come on! They’ve hardly given him the job because he could cajole Hari Rao to give Morning Herald an interview.’ Why was I getting into this?
‘That’s what he told them. That’s how the deal was signt.’ Soor couldn’t pronounce signed. I’m not sure he could spell it either.
Soor reached for the steel tumbler he had placed in front of me before pulling himself up. ‘Since you’re not having it, I will,’ he said. ‘We must not waste.’
That was the only part of the conversation I agreed with him.
I waited for Soor to exit my cabin and only then got on my feet.
Sudha had messaged me to join her downstairs.
I caught a glimpse of her as she left the floor, draped in a crisp green sari.
Sudha rarely wore colours. I made a note to tell her that she should rest her black, white and beige saris.
I was so wrapped in Sudha’s sari that I almost stepped on the pleats of my own.
The women in Morning Herald had decided to drape the 100-day sari challenge (in a year) our way – all 101 women in the organization were in the six yards today.
Given our work schedules, the places our jobs took us to each day, it was pretty impossible to wear one every third or fourth day, but even this decidedly watered-down version took effort.
It was an annual affair, and in the last couple of years, we had done quite well.
I was wearing the only sari I had ever bought.
It was the exact replica, at least as far as I could tell, of my mother’s favourite maroon-and-mustard sari, which went with her.
I had no intention of buying a sari, but one day, on my way back from an assignment, I passed a sari shop where a mannequin was draped in this sari.
That was about a year or so after she passed away.
It was only recently, however, that I got a blouse made for it.
I was holding my pleats together and patting them down, and then suddenly, I knew I wasn’t alone in my space any more. I got a whiff of him.
‘I’m sorry! I forgot to knock,’ he said, moving his hands vaguely in my direction. I knew it was me in the sari that had numbed his tongue, but my face gave nothing away. Andrew stepped back and waited until I signalled for him to come in.
He walked towards me. I was still in my cabin, and I took a step back instinctively. The heel of my footwear found the border of my sari.
‘Careful,’ Andrew said, reaching out, his right hand on my left wrist in an effort to steady me. Double shot espresso. My pulse quickened – must’ve been hitting a 100 or a 1,000. I quickly held the table for support, and Andrew shoved his hand in the pocket of his denims.
This is why I don’t wear saris more often; there is just too much to it.
The pleats, the pallu, what you tuck into the skirt and where you pin it to the blouse, what you hold up and what you don’t…
give me a pair of jeans any day. But a sari is style on two legs, and when you’re done, it reflects in someone else’s eyes.
I didn’t need a mirror in my cabin today.
‘Saris really suit you, Myraah,’ Andrew said as he retreated.
‘I was going down to grab a coffee,’ I said, ignoring the compliment. ‘With Sudha,’ I added.
He had seen me in a sari once before when I was in college for Ethnic Day or some such celebration. He had used my father’s car to chauffeur me back and forth.
Andrew apologized and made way for me to exit the cabin.
‘Where have you been?’ Sudha asked. She had already picked up her second coffee from the vending machine. The empty, lipstick-stained mug by her side was her first.
I opted for an Americano and followed her to the corner of the executive lounge, open only to the senior staff.