Chapter 19 #2
I get Ravi. This is a difficult profession for anyone to understand, more so if you’ve never had a job. It was different from holding a position in a leadership team or simply signing papers. They may have assembled to a greater ideal, but the order was different.
Andrew pulled up at a weather-beaten stall in front of which tables and benches had been laid out haphazardly.
He told me they served thatte idlis besides tea and coffee.
It was, as the name suggested, idlis cooked in a different vessel, a flatter plate, giving it a sleeker texture.
It was popular in this region. There were no other options. I preferred dosas, but no one asked me.
Andrew picked up two glasses of filter coffee, handing me one, before engaging with the lorry drivers and cleaners who had parked alongside us. He had found a spot on the bench beside an older driver, who saw Hari Rao’s campaign as a last-ditch fight for regional expression in Karnataka.
Andrew’s full lips opened and closed, stretched and rounded as he spoke. His Kannada was flawless – not even a hint of a twang. ‘What do you think?’ he finished with a question.
‘We need a leader from here, who has partaken of this soil. We need it more than any other state in India,’ Shivanna, 54, pronounced while reclaiming the key to his vehicle with his left hand.
Shivanna went on to bestow the title of the most accommodative Indian on Kannadigas, who went out of their way to welcome everyone. ‘Not just that,’ he said, his saliva augmenting his argument, ‘we will speak to every migrant in their language, even if we barely know it.’
Andrew took the steel tumbler from me, replacing it with the empty one he had just finished, punctuating the act with a smile.
‘Sir, you and your wife,’ Shivanna said, ‘stopped your vehicle here at a time when there are Kannada-speaking drivers.’
Shivanna’s words had come like a theatrical cue.
I leaned into Andrew, who dropped his left hand on my denim-clad knee.
I felt a current spark through my spine.
Andrew’s eyes were on my cheeks. I made a conscious effort to breathe, shifting in my seat.
I didn’t quite know why at that point, but I understood that we were putting on a show for these people.
‘So, you think Hari Rao will win?’
There was a smile, a nod. A general waddle. ‘It is hard to predict what will happen in an election, sir. Nobody will say who they are voting for,’ Shivanna said.
Andrew nodded.
A little after, following another round of tea, the motley crowd dispersed.
The tea stall owner sidled up and informed us that this was the lull before the next lot of lorries arrived in an hour, or a few hours, depending on the weather, he said, looking up at the sky, which was without a dark cloud.
It was an open, brilliantly lit landscape that the tea stall owner stood against. A page that was waiting to be filled.
There was no telling how long they’d take, he continued.
Like Shivanna and the cleaners, who were on their way now, he expressed hope about Hari Rao’s return, saying that it would be good for Karnataka, but he wondered if Hari Rao would spend the money that swings elections these days. Like a good businessman, he gave some and asked for more.
‘What is your business, sir?’
What kind of a question is that? I wondered.
‘I’m working, but we are on our way to Mysuru to visit family.’
I ensured that my smile was all about familial contentment while I cheered Andrew on. He was prepared with his lines.
This was why we were posing as a couple. Lesson No. 1 on campaign duty: Do not disclose your identity. People, especially in the hinterland, are wary of media personnel.
‘IT?’
What else? Everyone in Bengaluru is a techie!
Andrew nodded.
‘Which office?’
What? Were we expected to write code now?
‘Wipro.’
I quickly gave my posture a techie order. A casual expression, a calculated stance.
Once we got back on the road, Andrew made a phone call to determine where exactly Hari Rao was.
After a couple of exchanges with the personal assistant, we learnt that they were only a little ahead of us, by a couple of kilometres perhaps.
I looked at my watch. We had spent more than an hour at the tea stall.
Just then, a television van overtook us, and Andrew decided to follow them. ‘They’ll be headed in the right direction,’ he said.
I nodded. I was still trying to read into the conversation at the stall. Would they vote for Hari Rao or not?
‘Your first time at an election campaign, Rai?’ Andrew asked. I nodded, determined not to be annoyed by his using my second name.
‘You did well out there at the stall.’
‘I’m glad I have your approval, Brown.’
This wasn’t anything like what I had seen in the movies.
An ocean of humanity moving in unison like waves that jostled for space to feel the sun.
Picture perfect. And then the din, where voices were heard but not the words.
It was into that setting that the politician, invariably cast as the villain, arrived, stepping on a carpet of slogan shouting before the speeches took over.
As removed as reel is from real, I could tell it was beginning to boil, going by the chase Andrew was involved in.
Another press vehicle was honking annoyingly behind us, but Andrew wasn’t relenting.
I was not sure he should be driving. I thought he’d have been better off taking notes, planning his moves or whatever it was political reporters do at such times.
We should’ve taken the office car. Anonymity be damned.
‘Do you want me to drive?’ I heard the squeaky trill in my voice.
‘No. Why?’ A smile punctuated his question.
I shrugged. I just asked. A different why was playing on my mind though.
Why had Andrew asked me to join him on this campaign trail?
It was the editor’s nudge obviously, but he could’ve shrugged aside the suggestion.
Was it because of the pressure he was supposedly under to get the Hari Rao interview?
I could hardly ask my almost-fiancé for a favour for my ex-lover.
Not only did Andrew know me better than that, but he was also a thorough professional. He took the direct approach; going through someone or everyone was not his style. If there was a way, he’d find it himself.
So why had Andrew knocked on my door then?
Why had he shown me that diary, belonging to whoever this Bhumika Velu was – his great-grandmother’s friend maybe – after all these years?
It’s not something he had chanced upon last week; he’d had it before he left for the United States. I had meant to ask, but we were caught in a different tango in the aftermath.
I had spent a sleepless night wondering why he had read it out to me. But there was something more; those notes just didn’t fold. They were filed away but only momentarily. They kept coming back to me like some sort of endless hide-and-seek game.
My mind was ticking in myriad directions, and my emotions were all over the place.
There was Andrew and there was Ravi. I couldn’t have one, and I didn’t want the other, not in the way he wanted me in his life at least. That was why my heart was tap dancing when Andrew asked me if I wanted to join him.
I told my father it was an opportunity for me.
Bollocks, as Chhaya would’ve said.
Andrew parked just around the corner from the village temple in Malavalli and walked in the direction of an open estate truck that was carrying Hari Rao. He was smiling and waving at the crowds, but he looked old and frail.
‘Rao’s PA told me he’s expecting me. So when he gets off the truck and walks to the car, I could approach him for an interview,’ Andrew whispered in my ear. Not that anyone would’ve heard, even if he shouted.
The entire village had gathered, it appeared.
There were children as young as two and three years of age, screaming and dancing alongside the youth.
Then there were the middle-aged and old folks, who were finding it difficult to put one foot in front of the other but standing there resolute.
If this was a show of solidarity, it resonated serious muscle.
I wondered how Andrew could get close enough to Hari Rao given the number of people around the man. It was far more civilized in the world of feature writing; we didn’t accost people. We set up interviews and sat down for them with a cuppa maybe.
‘The whole village is here’, the PA told me after we had somehow managed to fall behind the truck that carried the mountain of a politician. We were moseying with the crowd. ‘We go this way for two kilometres,’ he said, pointing at the mud road, ‘and then stop at every house.’
I watched as Hari Rao descended from the vehicle. He looked a little fuller than from a distance. Andrew approached him as he headed towards a waiting SUV.
There was an exchange of greetings, I think, and as I moved closer, I heard Hari Rao tell Andrew, ‘I know who you are, Mr Brown.’ Both men smiled at each other. Andrew’s expression was a little forced.
After Hari Rao got into his four-wheel drive, Andrew tried to extricate himself from the crowd. Oily-haired boys and girls tugged at his arm, asking if he was a ‘fillam actor’. Andrew lowered his frame down to their little lengths and held court before he came around and found me.
‘What happened?’
‘He didn’t want to speak to me,’ he said as we got back into the car and followed Hari Rao’s cavalcade.
I chewed on Andrew’s response until he stopped in front of a house Hari Rao had just entered.
‘You can try again,’ I told Andrew, whose eyes were fixed on the elderly man’s back.
As Hari Rao exited the house, Andrew got out of the car and walked behind the politician, who repeated the exercise in 15 such thatched dwellings. He spoke to the men and women, asking for their trust to finish the work he had started in taking Karnataka forward.