Chapter 31
Today was one of those days when a minute became an hour and every little task took an aeon to complete. The clock was racing, and I was straggling.
It started with clumsy. The milk carton slipped from my hand, and its contents were all over the floor instead of in my coffee mug. I had just about finished cleaning that mess when I dropped the only packet of biscuits I had in the house. In my hurry to retrieve it, I stepped on it.
I didn’t run today. It was the first time in a little over six months that I gave it a miss when in Mumbai. That must count as some record – Myra’s book of world records (most of them in the maladroit category).
As soon as I completed the story I was to write today, I decided to book my tickets for Bengaluru, most likely for tomorrow morning. It had been six weeks.
I was going to get that Wednesday breakfast with Chhaya. There was something about that day of the week, that hour, that place; it was like it was assembled for us. A coffee with le hero perhaps? I giggled again.
I arrived early to work, not early enough apparently.
I just couldn’t get going with the copy I needed to file by 6 p.m. I was struggling with everything, even stringing words together. It happens to me sometimes with stories that are out of my comfort zone, like data-related copies.
This wasn’t about numbers and aggregates but a hitch that slithered across the heart of the piece.
This was a story of four women aged between 22 and 25 years.
They were slum-dwellers, raised by their mothers.
Self-taught graduates who only saw the inside of a school or college when they turned up to write their exams. The three older girls, who had engineering diplomas, had been hired by a multinational.
The youngest of the four was back in her alma mater as a junior schoolteacher.
The mothers were widowed on the same night some 18 years ago. The slum lord, who had a powerful political nexus, apparently had the husbands bumped off in a police encounter.
The story idea came with a caveat, that no mention be made of the menfolk outside of ‘they were friends and had died in an accident’.
I couldn’t do justice to the piece without taking on the khadi-wearing, paan-chewing don, but the story of the four young professionals needed to be put out there, even if with a few cuts.
I finished my story, which was like balancing a human pyramid, just past 6 p.m. By the time the editor flagged it off and I completed captioning the pictures, it was almost seven.
When I finally sank into my seat, glad the day was almost over, I said a quick thank you to the digital platform that gave a feature writer more time to play.
A web reporter had to file at that moment – not that day by 10 p.m., like for print personnel – as soon as a result was out or a press conference was done.
You dare not stop to breathe. As a features person on a website, I could massage my copy until an hour before it was scheduled to go up on the site.
At Morning Herald, I was always rushing, hurtling to a deadline, which was at least eight hours before the piece or the page saw the light of day.
I was so grateful that I contemplated thanksgiving with some online retail therapy. Some five minutes into the drill, I lost interest and decided to buy my tickets instead. I was about to click on the 6.05 a.m. flight when I heard my colleague, who was at my side, peering into my computer.
‘Going home?’ asked Hima, who had joined the desk only a month ago but was obviously in with my ‘missing Bengaluru’ strain.
‘All okay? You need something?’ I asked.
Her face had tilted in a half-smile.
‘You have a visitor,’ she told me softly. ‘If you turn in your seat, you can see him.’
I turned involuntarily.
I was number two among the editorial staff of the website and I was obeying the commands of a curious 23-year-old.
‘Is he Andrew Brown?’
From the corner of my eye, I noted that a red tee on beige cargoes had filled the open spaces of the next room. He had his back to the door, and my heart was cartwheeling across the floor.
‘You know Andrew Brown?’ she persisted.
My eyes were smiling.
‘That man asked the receptionist for you. I asked him who he was. Just to make sure he wasn’t one of those annoying PR people.’
‘And?’
‘“Visitor” was all he said; that’s when I knew for sure.’
‘Oh!’
‘It’s the Bengaluru connection, is it?’ Hima’s question was addressed to my back.
I was out of the editorial and at the reception before I knew it. I took a gulp of that cocktail – cigarettes, lust and Davidoff – before saying, ‘Andrew.’
‘He smells divine.’ Hima was behind me.
‘Myraah,’ he said, turning around, fixing his gaze on me. The collared tee was new, but the face was old.
Andrew pulled out a chair and waited for me to settle into it before he walked around the circular table to his seat at the opposite end. We were dining at the Officers’ Club.
He had arrived in Mumbai earlier in the afternoon for a story that would take him to Nagpur tomorrow and then on to Aurangabad, from where he would fly back home.
This colonial-style construction with its massive arched windows, wooden floors, glittering chandeliers and a dozen executive suites was where Andrew was staying for the night.
This was not far from where I lived. In fact, I had walked past it several times but hadn’t noticed the white building. It was hidden behind tall walls and towering palms.
The waiter was prompt with the menu, mercifully. I had subsisted on a couple of coffees to meet the 6 p.m. deadline. I’d been chewing on the mood since.
Andrew ordered our drinks and pointed at me for the entrées.
‘Chicken satay skewers and fish fingers?’
‘And.’
‘Tandoori prawns?’
‘And.’
‘I’m starving, yes, but I think that should do for now.’
‘And?’ The question came with that lopsided grin. It was accompanied by a tender glint I recognized from ages ago.
‘Onion rings?’ I asked and burst out laughing as realization struck.
‘And.’
‘Masala peanuts?’
‘And?’
‘Will ma’am have dinner?’ the waiter enquired. He was not amused.
We were laughing, much to the confusion of the liveried steward, before Andrew nodded. ‘I’m not so sure,’ he said.
‘I’m pretty sure I will. I haven’t eaten all day.’
‘Make that two plates of tandoori prawns,’ Andrew said of the most expensive plate on the menu. ‘And please go easy on the spice.’
‘Room number please, sir?’
‘112.’
‘You are a guest with us, sir?’ He was making sure, just in case these two in streetwear made a dash for the door after cleaning out the kitchen.
Andrew nodded.
This is how we had wanted to order in our student days – all the starters in the house. We didn’t have the money back then, but we had decided that when we were rich – it was never if, always when – this was exactly how we’d do it. More trays than a table can hold.
This was not the first time we were at a place that was beyond our student days’ budget.
From railway station stalls to Perky Grace and the five-star we had stayed at in Coonoor, we’d been places in the last 18 months and we’d been there with time to spare, like this evening.
But this was the first time we had turned the clock back, done something we had planned to do.
It was as if an old connection had been restored.
I turned away into the settling darkness of the evening. I was too scared to even consider if we were us again.
A shiver ran down my core, and a warm wave lifted my spirits.
At that moment, I knew I didn’t need an apology.
It was never an apology; it was an understanding I was seeking.
We might’ve had the bucks now, but I certainly wasn’t dressed for the place.
I don’t think Andrew noticed or cared. I was wearing jeans, with a fitted salmon pink tee and a matching denim jacket.
I was, fortunately, carrying a jacket because the aircon was on full blast here, more radical than even the office.
I was on the edge of my seat, and my eyes were all over the room.
‘Are you okay?’ Andrew asked.
That’s when I realized that he was the only man around without a blazer. In fact, we were the only people here in casual clothing.
‘Are you sure they won’t throw us out of here?’
‘Why would they do that?’
‘There’s a dress code, I think.’
‘I was told I couldn’t wear chappals, shorts and tees without collars, but everything else is okay in the dining area.’
I had ditched my slippers for ballet pumps that morning. The one thing I had got right in the day.
Andrew had stayed at the Officers’ Club the last time he was in the city, too. Morning Herald had finally put to use the corporate membership they had availed with an affiliate set-up in Bengaluru.
I noticed a few people, some elegantly dressed older women among them, looking at Andrew.
He was aware of it but didn’t let his gaze stray.
People were beginning to recognize him, which wasn’t the case when he first returned to India.
He was a gorgeous hunk of a man who grabbed eyeballs effortlessly everywhere he went, but this was different.
He was being identified. He had done a couple of television interviews before the Karnataka elections, which gave the name a face. And what a face.
‘Nice perfume,’ Andrew had said as soon as we were in the taxi.
I had doused myself with my new fragrance before I left for work. It was a Davidoff. I had lunged for the bottle as I was strolling around Kemps Corner one afternoon, a little after I had returned from Bengaluru. I was missing him.
Andrew and I talked work for the rest of the ride; it was mostly me doing the talking.
The more I verbalized to him, the more I realized how much I was enjoying the digital space.
It was what was keeping me in Mumbai when all I wanted to do was pack up and return home, especially after my father’s accident.