“I have emailed the Employee Equipment Agreement. Sign it.”
“I’ll do it right away.” She turned and began to push her hand inside her bag for her mobile. Then froze. She never kept her mobile inside her bag. It was always in her hand or in her pocket. Her hand went to her back pocket but she knew it even before she reached there that it wasn't there.
“Fuck!” She gasped. “My cell!” She looked at Samar. “My cell! That rickshaw. I left it in the rickshaw…” Amaal panicked, patting at her bag, her jeans pockets, fluttering her shawl in hopes it would drop, hoping against hope it was here. “Did you see it?” She asked Fahad. “Did you see me carrying it when I came in? Shit, fuck, fuck! It had my net banking and didn’t even have a password…”
A white body of a BlackBerry came in front of her eyes. She pounced on it. “Yes, it was just like this!” She turned it and it lit up her wallpaper. Daisies on a yellow sky. “Oh thank fuck!” She straightened from her hunch, about to thank Fahad. But what confronted her was the leather jacket. She looked up and he was staring at her with ill-concealed disdain.
“You had it?” She sneered, still working to bring her hyperventilated breath under control.
“You forgot it on the rickshaw. He returned to deliver it.”
“Bless him!” Her eyes fell shut. “Is he outside? I’ll gift him some money…”
“Gone.”
Amaal stopped herself from reaching for her wallet. She gaped at Samar Dixit. She expected another cutting remark. But he just walked past her and down the alley towards Atharva’s office.
————————————————————
Her first month working at KDP was the fastest month ever. The place that had felt isolated at first glance became a tight ball of solitude with a chosen few. The office that had broken chairs and no coffee machine turned out to be the best place to amble around, raid Shiva’s kitchen to trouble him like children and get fresh food and beverages at any hour of any day. The founding members who had looked larger than life on her first day became friends.Almostfriends, since they were also her bosses. All three, except Samar Dixit. Amaal didn’t give it much thought. He was nobody’s friend. If she were to rate them all on a scale of friendship, Atharva and Adil would feature at the hottest end, Qureshi somewhere in the middle, and Samar falling off the cold end of the scale.
But, she wasn’t here to make friends. She was here to establish herself. In this society, in this city and in this industry now.
“Amaal!” Ehsaan found her just outside the kitchen, pouring coffee from one mug to another because Shiva always got it scalding hot and she was a lukewarm drinker. Even in this biting cold.
“Did you get it?” She asked, not even looking up from her mindful pouring. By now, she was an expert like the roadside tea sellers.
“No. They rejected our barter. Event sponsorship for Kashmir Times’ Lit Fest won’t get us the interview. They have sent a separate quote for the interview.”
“Hmm.” She brought her mug to her lips and tipped it. Still hot. She began pouring again.
“Did you listen?” He asked.
“I did. They are taking a feel of how small we are.”
“Huh?”
“They are gauging us. If we give in, they will bully us again for the next quarter’s ads and op-eds.”
“If we don’t, we have wasted the money we shelled out for sponsorship. Our core target voter is not even going to come there.”
“Why not?”
“Srinagar’s literature fests attract two kinds of people — local pseudo liberals who are already coloured in a separatist ideology and professing it through their literature and poetry, or visitors from the rest of India, who don’t matter to us anyway.”
“They also have a separate section for under-15 readers.”
“So?”
“In three years, they will be eligible to vote.”
He went silent. Amaal tested her coffee. Tepid. Perfect. She turned, and Ehsaan was still silent.
“When KDP steps inside the election ring for the first time, the under 15 would be 18…” he murmured to himself.
“And we will find them again in their colleges and universities.” Amaal held her mug up in a salute. “Shift our sponsorship to the under-15 camps.”
“What about the interview space?”
