Chapter 26
I had to shut the door on Andrew Brown – lover, friend and colleague. All of it.
I miss you.
Thank you for letting me lean on you.
Both messages were punctuated, the second line with a red heart.
Independently, they meant nothing, but I’d be a fool to treat them in isolation. Pooja didn’t threaten me; she only reminded me of a wretched probability.
Meena Iyer. Past. Present. Future.
It was happening all over again.
I couldn’t be around him again. I needed time.
Months or years maybe. If we were in the same cloud space, I wouldn’t be able to keep him out of my life.
When around him, everything passes, the load lightens, and the road beckons.
I’d want to take walks, get coffee, go on campaign trails, road trips…
During the day, doubts hovered over me like a threatening nimbostratus. At night, it made for a hard pillow.
Who breaks up with the love of her life just because he had an affair? With her best friend? People mess around; it’s what they do. It was just once. It started with one woman, then there was a chain reaction.
I don’t know when that became ‘just’. I must’ve read it somewhere, in one of those pathetic self-help pieces, or I may’ve heard it in a song. A tune that stayed and words that stung. A magnitude of 9.5 on the Richter scale. Just?
I could flip it, too. Just because he had admitted to the transgression and apologized? Just because he regretted the affair with Meena. Those two messages shone the torch on all those questions that needed answers.
The toing-and-froing in my head had woken me up at the crack of dawn after two hours of sleep. Just two hours.
I had directed myself to stay in bed. That’s not much of a struggle usually, but this morning, I wanted to be out.
I was itching to run. When I run, I often race away from things that need to be dealt with.
Rejoice in the morning air, the early sun and the irregular carpet of flowers.
It’s a beautiful time of day. I hear the hum of traffic at a distance.
It reassures me that I’m still in the city and not kidnapped and locked up at some half-cooked resort they call one with nature.
I’ll look at it after another kilometre. It’s my favourite hiding place.
The time for dwelling on matters was over. I needed to commit.
There was a seed of an idea in my head. I rolled to my left, stayed in that position for a few minutes, then over to my right. It was almost 8 a.m. I could afford to go to work late. I had no assignments, and my diary was empty, too. No calls to make, no dots to connect.
I pulled myself up and sat square on the bed. My phone was charging on my overcrowded side table. I reached for it, dropping a couple of books in the process. I didn’t know how I was going to go about it, so I simply got started. People looked for jobs all the time.
Some folks get offers, but it’s not like they aren’t tapping sources. Sudha was constantly being romanced for jobs, but I’m sure she was laying it out there that she was looking for something more, a change. Maybe.
I’ve never been faced with the delightful dilemma of a job offer in all these years.
I don’t recall ever having got a mail or message, much less a phone call from whomsoever these folks are who cast the net for these mighty media houses.
It’s not like I’m not good at what I do.
I have a decent reputation, some 10,066 followers on Instagram (the last time I checked) despite sporadic effort.
You’d think people knew I existed, and someone would call and say, ‘Hey, Myra Rai, look out of your window; you’ll find a jet waiting to pick you up. We have an offer you can’t refuse.’
I’d love the jet.
Maybe it’s the business guys, political heavyweights, people like Sudha and Andrew, who are the ones in demand. Who’d be interested in storytellers in a culture steered by commerce?
The only place I’ve worked at is Morning Herald.
I was one of those odd journalists of my generation who didn’t jump jobs with the frequency of two-wheelers switching lanes on a Bengaluru road.
It wasn’t a case of landing the perfect job first up, if there’s any such thing as a perfect job, but living here, I couldn’t have asked for much more.
I made decent money; I got my raises and promotions even before I asked for them.
People with my capability in Delhi and Mumbai earned much more; I was aware of that. Not that I needed a heftier bank balance, but it would’ve been nice to take my father on a trip.
I was still to celebrate my 30th birthday, but I was already heading a department, which wasn’t common in traditional media houses.
I wasn’t a favourite, but I wasn’t disliked either.
I got by. What I liked about Morning Herald is that I had the freedom to function.
I had floated the crime column; yes, my editor did sit on it for a month or two, but he gave me all the support I needed once we were off the blocks.
It was the most-talked-about feature of the paper, and I got due credit.
So, where was I going to go looking for a suitable opening? Bengaluru wouldn’t do. I couldn’t live in the same city as Andrew. Persistence is powered by proximity. It would be too easy for him to knock on my door and for my treacherous heart to relent.
Sudha had told me a year or two ago that she had been asked if I was looking to switch jobs. People apparently thought I wasn’t willing to shift base because of my family situation.
‘Surely I’m not the only single woman with a parent to care for in journalism.’
‘No,’ she had agreed. ‘But sometimes, just by being ourselves, we lend to a reputation that precedes us.’
The patriarchy, maybe. Could be geography, too. A Bengaluru thing, a South thing.
I briefly considered one of MH’s bureau offices, perhaps in Mumbai or Delhi.
I dismissed the thought swiftly. If Andrew was editor, which he would be soon enough, I would have to deal with him on a daily basis.
Besides, the organization would do everything possible to talk me out of shifting cities.
I couldn’t leave the door half-open. I had to move out.
Did I want to live anywhere else?
I loved Bengaluru, all of it. It’s unruly traffic and pot-holed streets, lined by sturdy gulmohars.
The honking taxis and swerving two-wheelers, pedestrians who walked on roads and spat on pavements, the Kannadiga who’ll speak to an outsider in Hindi even if he couldn’t string two words in the language.
The city may have long traded its fair-weather charm of the eighties, yet, for me, there was no place quite its equal.
I loved the weather despite the wear of climate change.
The summer heat is sharp but never oppressive, maybe because of the gentle breeze that rustles through your hemline and wipes your face.
Home is where your family is, your best friend resides, the only place on the planet where the positives go over the negatives even if they outweigh them. I had to leave it, though; there was no other way.
I had to leave Dad. I had to leave Chhaya. I had to leave this bed.
I scrolled through my phone, up and down and back again. I looked at every outstation number I had on it. I considered the ones I thought were a possibility. Would they be safe to ping?
Over the years, I had made contacts all over the country – journalists whom I travelled with on assignments and junkets, bonds I had made over wine and dinner and cemented when I travelled to Mumbai or Delhi or the tier-two towns on work.
I made a list of seven people, all senior in the profession, whom I could reach out to, let them know I was in the market.
I would request them to be discreet. I couldn’t afford for Morning Herald to hear about this.
I shot each of the editors carefully worded messages, finishing with a request for a time to have a chat.
My head was in charge now. If I so much as asked myself how I would feel about leaving not just Morning Herald but Bengaluru, too, I couldn’t go through with it.