“They were not staring at me!”
He stared at her face, unblinking.
“Were they?” She suddenly sounded unsure. She had not spared them a glance after entering. But she wasn’t wearing anything out of the usual… Amaal glanced down at herself. Her T-shirt was hugging her, as were her leggings. But this was… perfectly normal. People wore bralettes and crop tops with short shorts to gyms nowadays. This was tame.
“Come at 5.30 while I am here.” Samar’s voice broke through her thoughts. She glanced up. His chest was slowly hyperventilating, the lean muscles under his T-shirt suddenly too visible. She quickly looked up at his face. His jaw was covered in dark stubble, heavier than usual, his mouth slightly open as he took deep breaths to relax after that run. She raised her eyes higher, but his eyes were away, on the clock above the dock station.
Amaal bit into the inside of her cheek — “Ok.”
His eyes cut to hers. And she had to swallow the urge to… what? Hold her breath at how he looked? Her heartbeat quickened. She had walked at a fast pace for half an hour, andthiswas making her breathless?
As Samar reached down, picked up his bag and walked away, Amaal stood there wondering what was happening to her. She turned in time and took in the back of his head, his shoulders, his gait. Why was she feeling dizzy?
9. Jammu was bad for her…
Jammu was bad for her. Bad for her skin. Bad for her health. Bad for her sanity. Amaal stared fixedly ahead as Dr. Samar Dixit stood in the middle of the atrium of their headquarters, explaining their House-Call Drive. In shuddh, Jammu Jatt lingo. It was the most pedestrian Hindi/ Punjabi she had heard in her life. She understood it. But she couldn’t stop staring. Into space, not at him, even as her newest iPhone 4 was pointed at him to record the speech. This was the best HD video recording camera in the handheld world and she was psyched about the stuff she would do with it. Now, only if she could convince Samar to purchase the entire editing suite off App Store for KDP…Atharva, she corrected herself. He was the media boss.Atharva.
She was going crazy in this heat.
“…assi ghar-ghar jaavange te lokan nu ik gall saaf taur te samjhaavange. Sadak, paani, bijli di kami — haan, eh assa zimmedari hai, eh assi kar ke dikhavange. Par eh sab ton vaddi gall izzat di hai. Aaj JMC office ch jo lokan naal ho riha hai, assi ohna nu dasange. Lokan nu dhakke milde ne, beizzati hundi hai, poora din bithaya jaanda hai te paani tak nahi puchya jaanda. Assi kehange KDP eh sab badalange. Assi har nagrik nu rabb samaan maanange. JMC office ch aunda har banda assa vaaste mehmaan hovega, bhagwan hovega. Assi eh vaada karange ki Jammu da har nagrik assa layi Janardhan hovega, te assi ohdi izzat hamesha sab ton upar rakhange.”[37]
Samar Dixit did not have the aura of Atharva Singh Kaul. But he had the clarity of an eagle. The things he spoke, he could convince an angel of committing murder. But his voice did not modulate well; he did not leave pauses in between for words to drain and breathe. He went in a stream, as if needing to end this and get on with what’s next. He did not galvanise those seated in the atrium — 150 odd grassroots members who were going to be taking each constituency in pairs of two for their propaganda drive.
What Samar Dixit managed, though, was to get his point across.
“Samar Bhaiya, is vaar assi hi jeetange, is gall ch koi shakk hi nahi![38]” Varun Singh cried at the top of his voice. And many voices joined him in a chant of ‘KDP jeetange!’
Amaal observed from her vantage, seated in the front row, how the rows behind her stood up and began to applaud, chant, borderline ready to rattle into battle. She started a new video recording and stood up, taking in the entire panoramic view.
She glanced at Samar, catching his eye. He didn’t even smile or open himself up to the crowd. He just nodded and walked down the makeshift podium to come and stand down beside her as the drive material distribution started. KDP scarves, house lists, stationery, caps, party badges. Amaal hit pause on her recording and turned to him.
“Je baat![39]” She joked.
No smile. Not even a grunt.
————————————————————
Her days in Jammu were long, spent managing local press coverage across tight lanes, tailing Varun Singh as he campaigned across the length and breadth of the city, making mobile phone videos for Twitter and Facebook, and coordinating with Srinagar if anything urgent cropped up on that side. Her evenings were spent sorting, editing and polishing videos and photos for social media, giving herself foot-rubs after a dip in hot salted water, and reporting to Atharva about any shortcomings on the Jammu side.
She would eat dinner in the dining hall set up downstairs, and was heavily approving of the stupendous Jammu/ Dogri/ Punjabi food and the growing company of women members being added to the party. The gender disparity continued to shrink as KDP recruited more and more women, with the campaign picking up speed. Amaal even got a few of them running with her for press, creating her own little team of young interns. They were college undergrads and would often help with recording, as well as talking to locals about issues in areas where she couldn’t be present all at once.
It was a first for her, being so hands-on and at the grassroots. None of this was textbook knowledge. The base of core strategies, sure. But she evolved her media strategy as she went. Amaal did not know of a job where a 24-year-old would get to run an entire election’s press singlehandedly and make decisions at the drop of a hat. She was blessed with a boss who let her.
Atharva, not Samar.
Her distance from Samar had resurrected with a vengeance. She would see him when she needed anything specific from him — work-wise, or if she was touring with him, which was rare. The only regular collisions they had were at the gym at 5.30 every morning, or at dinner time if he came back for dinner. His bag was stored in one of the half-finished rooms in the building, but Amaal had noted Samar barely came back at nights. He was at the gym every morning, though. Maybe he came in very late to sleep.
She stopped herself from venturing into his thoughts. She had done good work in the last two months. Growing Jammu’s media team and shrinking any thoughts about Samar. He made it easier by being his gruff, silent self, away from her as if she carried the plague.
Amaal swung her gym bag as she pushed open the heavy, metallic garage door to the gym. As usual, at 5.30, the space was pumping with loud Punjabi pop and only one man on the machine. She could never figure this out about him. His music changed every day. What was he into, the schizophrenic.
Amaal found her eyes going to him as he held on to a dead hang on a protruding rusted beam of the ceiling. The maniac. She tore her eyes off the skin pulled taut over his lower back muscles as his T-shirt rode up with him, and his shorts clung to his waist. She walked across to the other side and began her warmup on the treadmill. There was no cycle or elliptical here to break the boredom. Only the treadmill for cardio. She walked, jogged, then ran for ten minutes and decided to get some chest weights.
When she reached the bench, Samar was setting a 50 kg weight down. He did not even glance at her, just grabbed the napkin he had draped over the bench and moved away.
Amaal had never been petty. And yet she found herself reaching for the two 10 kg dumbbells in both her hands. She had ended her chest workout with 10 kg last time; surely she could start with it.
She lay down on the bench and positioned the dumbbells in front of her chest. The first push went perfectly. She preened. The second went halfway and began to wobble. She gritted her teeth and pushed for a third. Her chest began to vibrate. The weights began to slip. And then two fingers came and touched her elbows. “Grip tight.”
