Chapter 19
‘Papa!’ I exhaled.
‘You’re early,’ he said, returning my ear-to-ear smile.
I arranged my paraphernalia on the dining table where he was seated. A half-filled whisky glass sat next to the can my father was holding.
As far as I knew, my father hadn’t had a drink in more than eight years. Each time he allowed himself an aerated treat, he laid out an extra glass, which I suspect he finished later.
I picked up the glass and joined him. I didn’t ask who it was for. I was breathing heavily.
‘Did you run?’ my father asked, pointing at my flash black trousers and my disquieted cast.
‘No!’ I said, forcing a smile.
I hadn’t told my father about Andrew joining Morning Herald. I had hardly spoken to my father about Andrew since he left for the United States. He asked me once, years ago, how Andrew was doing. I recounted his professional success, and that was that.
My father didn’t pry; he was a remarkably non-curious creature.
When he’d enquired about Andrew on Sunday, my answer was indefinite. I had deliberately let the question hang on a distant, disconnected peg.
My life with Andrew was in the past, and this most wonderful man sitting before me would find it hard to understand that.
All that my father knew about Ravi’s presence in my life was that of a good Samaritan, who was now my close friend. Blame that on the way we communicate with each other.
A little after he had questioned me about Andrew, he hesitantly enquired if I had a boyfriend, after which he broached the subject of marriage.
I mentioned Ravi then. It was a vague reference, something to the tune of, ‘I think he likes me, but I don’t know.’ It was an awkward conversation, and we were both glad it was over in less time than it took to make a cup of instant whatever.
I took a sip of the Coke and told my father about Morning Herald’s most high-profile hiring ever. I spoke for three minutes, giving him the details of Andrew Brown’s entry into No. 7 MG Road. His face was glowing with what I thought was pride. But it was hope, a ray of light.
My father was on his feet. He went to the fridge and brought out another can of soda, half of which he poured into the glass I was drinking from.
‘I knew it!’ he said. ‘I knew something was happening. You are dressing differently; your lipstick is darker.’
‘Poppy! My lipstick is old.’
He was shaking his head. He was right.
‘I’m so happy,’ he said when he finally found his voice, raising the can, ‘that he has returned. This is where he should be – by your side.’
Welcome back to the eighties. It floats around our home – sentences, songs, sentiments. The segue to Whitney Houston’s ‘Saving All My Love for You’.
Then he laughed, a whole-hearted sound that resonated through the late-evening air. It was ages since I had heard my father laugh.
My glass was on the table. I refused to respond. This was not a time for kindness.
‘No, no, Papa,’ I said. I couldn’t let him think we were a couple or were ever going to be a couple. ‘He’s going to be the editor of Morning Herald shortly, my boss. But yes, I guess we’ll always be friends.’
‘Yes,’ he said, still smiling and wiping a stray tear, ‘that’s one part of the story. The professional side.’
‘There is only the professional side, Papa.’
Shocked was a scarce summation of my father’s reaction.
His eyes were wide, and his mouth was half-open.
Understandable, coming as it did from a man who had known love and embraced it.
My father was sensitive enough to recognize that he couldn’t let the expression play for much longer and so compromised with a quick nod.
He wouldn’t allow himself the question of ‘what about all those days and months’, but it was plastered across his face.
‘Andrew is going on Hari Rao’s campaign trail on Monday and Tuesday.’ My father was still recovering from the body blow. ‘He asked me to go with him. I’m planning to go.’
The smile returned to his face quicker than it had disappeared. He was shuffling in his seat, and I heard the controlled strains of the laughter that had sung in my ears only minutes ago. ‘Is he married?’ he asked, as if he were checking my temperature.
‘No, Papa, he isn’t.’
He clamped his lips. He was trying to keep the laughter down, but he couldn’t help himself. He took a swig in a bid to hide the delight. ‘Of course, you will go with him. He will be there to take care of you,’ he said, his eyes on a photograph of Mummy on the mantlepiece.
‘Daddy!’
‘I know you don’t need him to take care of you and that you are a big girl, but it is always nice to have someone around. Someone to talk to,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You’ll be going to rural areas, and these places are not always safe for women to be on their own.’
I was shaking my head when I realized I hadn’t told Ravi about going on Hari Rao’s campaign trail with Andrew. He had surprised me with the offer. Andrew had come around to my desk and asked if I would go with him just as I was winding up for the day.
‘Mr Kumar mentioned that you might be interested,’ he’d said.
I had told my editor well before we hired Andrew Brown that I would be interested in writing a colour piece on the canvassing leading elections. I was happy to go with any of the beat reporters, feel the pulse and note the nuances.
I think I nodded. My mouth was dry, and I was out of words.
He would drive, and a photographer might or might not join us for part of the journey.
We were going to Malavalli, Maddur, Mandya and then on to Mysuru, which was Hari Rao’s constituency, from where he last contested and won more than a decade ago.
He wasn’t sure if we would be returning to Bengaluru for the night and asked me to carry an extra set of clothes and toiletries in case we decided to stay back.
My heart was in a race with Usain Bolt. An overnight road trip, with Andrew driving.
‘Are you up for it?’ he asked. He was leaning against my desk.
I nodded. ‘Are we leaving in the morning or the day after?’
‘No, early Monday.’
‘Should I prepare an extra breakfast for Andrew?’ my father asked.
I took a deep breath as I got up from my chair and stood next to my father. I dropped a kiss on his balding pate. Someone had to be a responsible adult.
‘Andrew and I are not dating any more, Papa, and no, you don’t need to make breakfast for him or me.’
‘You both will have breakfast together then.’
‘We’re on assignment, Papa. This is not a road trip.’ I said it because I needed to hear it more than my old man.
His eyes were on my mother’s photograph, and he was smiling.
A sweet, shitty mess.
We were cruising. Andrew’s fragrance filled the vehicle, and I inhaled it. It was like sitting in an oxygen cylinder. I felt the stain of healthy colour each time I took a breath.
He was shifting between speeds of 60 and 100 kmph, which was fast for NH 275 with its patches of civilization every 10–20 kilometres.
Back-breakers posing as speed checks forced drivers to pause before they hit the accelerator again.
A sprinkling of shops and stalls dotted the highway.
For the rest, it was great expanses of green paddy fields, sugarcane cultivations and sunflowers eyeing the rising sun.
Karnataka had suffered a drought for the second successive year, but who could tell.
Outside of ‘Good morning’ and ‘All set?’, Andrew hadn’t said much since he picked me up from home at the crack of dawn. I replied but didn’t ask any questions myself.
I had offered to take the wheel any time he wanted a break.
He’d nodded.
This time of day wasn’t for words, even in the best of times. More so when he was driving, eyes on the road and focus on the assembly election.
Karnataka was going to polls next month, and six months later, India would vote, because of which this exercise assumed greater significance.
It was all about Rao, Karnataka’s longest-serving chief minister, who was in office for three successive terms before he walked away from politics. The 74-year-old had decided to roll the political dice again, returning to lead his party, KANNADA, in the upcoming fixture.
Theories, fuelled by rumours, were doing the rounds as to why Rao had decided to re-enter the cauldron.
Since his reign, which was a game changer for the state economically, his party had been all but wiped out from the region in the last decade.
Late last year, when Rao took to public life again, making appearances at social gatherings, the party headquarters in Bengaluru came alive suddenly.
A three-line announcement of Rao’s return to politics followed shortly after.
It said the party would contest all 224 seats after contesting in under 50 in the last two elections, bagging just a handful of victories.
It was believed, even if it wasn’t definitively reported, that Rao was reviving the party to hand it over to Ravi, who was apparently developing an appetite for politics.
There was talk of Rao’s yearning for a national role.
He had made a few trips to Delhi since November.
I had been meaning to ask Ravi if the national role was for him, but he had shown no political curiosity whatsoever.
Not even when I had raised the topic of Rao’s return to the stage.
If anything, Ravi wasn’t pleased by the move.
The first thing I had done when I left my father on Friday evening was to call Ravi and tell him that I was joining Andrew on Hari Rao’s campaign trail.
‘Why Andrew?’ Ravi asked. ‘I can take you if you want.’
‘I want to go as a journalist, not as your girlfriend.’
Ravi laughed. He wasn’t happy. ‘You are my girlfriend, and you are a journalist, but you don’t cover politics.’
‘No! But I’m a writer, Ravi, and we don’t have boundaries.’
He might’ve nodded, but he wasn’t convinced.