“Amaal must have emailed or left them on my desk.” Atharva pushed him down the alley. They walked down to their office. Atharva’s office now. He was the Chief Ministerial candidate of KDP, and the busiest with this set of teams. Somebody had made a cartoon about it and stuck it outside his door.
Jeeve jeeve Kasheera
Jeeve jeeve A-thar-va
“Who even writes this stuff?” Samar peeled the paper off.
“I thought Noora, but it makes some sense. So no idea.” Atharva opened the door and strode inside, switching on the lights.
“If they spent some of this effort in writing your speeches…”
“I write good speeches on my own,” Atharva turned, offended.
Samar smirked and closed the door. “Ready for today?”
“I am getting started on the speech now. I barely got two hours in last night. Did you sleep?”
“Same.” Samar pulled out the visitor’s chair and sat down. “The route has been cleared for today’s road show.”
“All night I kept thinking, should we cancel it?” Atharva sat down on the chair behind his desk. “There were casualties yesterday and the DGP is not ready to even budge with security…” He grabbed the packet in front of him and held it up. “Amaal has left it here before leaving.”
“Where has she gone?”
“Wooing the Star guy. She knows him from London.”
“She knows half of Delhi from London.”
“Are we complaining?”
“Hmm. So she won’t be there for the road show?”
“She will be back by this afternoon, but she has dinner plans with him again. So maybe not.”
“Won’t you need her at Kashmir University?”
“We’ll manage. Fahad can take care of everything.”
Samar extended his hand for the packet. Atharva passed it, starting his mad double-tasking of taking calls and typing his speech. Samar didn’t know what bullshit he wrote and how it got him the clout it did if he wrote it like that. But it worked for him.
“I am officially resigning from this party.” Adil barged into the office. Samar adjusted his specs on his nose and began scanning the reports.
“Close the door,” Atharva pointed. He banged it shut — “I am done! This is the crazy. It wasn’t even a serious kidnapping but how could this happen? This is not safe… aren’t you concerned what this can do with our members, our staff…”
“We got you back safe and…” Samar eyed him. “Almost sound.”
Adil kicked this chair, making it fly a few metres before Samar pressed his feet to secure it. He smirked, going back to his reports as Adil fought with Atharva. He tuned them out for the reports in his hand. They were as meticulous as the woman who had arranged them. He pored over them, scanning for common points. KDP had not sent out any press release, nor had the authorities, to the best of his knowledge. That meant that if there was a common thread in all the reports, then somebody had sent out a silent press release.
And if a press release had been sent, then it was Awaami that had carried out the attack, not Haq or another militant group. They were pedestrian in their ways. They did not care about political points or press reportage. Samar stopped scanning when he saw Amaal’s notations. She was clearly thinking what he was. He sat back, reading her notes, highlights, asterisks.
“Atharva.”
“What?”
“Did a child from Kupwara die in our rally yesterday?”
“No, but your partner got kidnapped.” Adil retorted, rubbing his forehead.
Samar wasn't one to soften, but something about Adil seemed off. He had been kidnapped by some teenagers out to prove a point for the militants. Adil hadn’t even been twitching when he came home last night. He would have handled them on his own. But as was the case with him, he came with his rant once a month. The monthly had come.
