“So he has not asked either of you.”
“What?” Adil pushed.
“He has gotten Aamir Haider’s daughter as his speech writer and given her the attic to stay in!”
“We didn’t know she was his daughter until this morning.”
“Bullshit. Atharva knows Aamir Haider’s background just as well as I do. Did you know?” Samar pointed at Qureshi.
“I was informed just now when I came.”
“And you are ok with this?”
He looked lost for an argument. But then, Qureshi had no personal stakes in what had happened. He had not been a part of their platoon. He had not seen, experienced, or been massacred there.
“We are four founders,” Samar declared. “We veto when one of us goes mental. Veto her appointment and send her packing.”
“Samar.” Adil walked around his desk.
“No.” He held up his finger. “Don’t tell me you agree with Atharva.”
“Samar.” Adil kept advancing until his hands were on his shoulders. Samar stared into his friend’s eyes. “Years have passed. And I ran background personally. One more round is ongoing. She is clean. She was a child when that happened…”
Samar wanted to punch Adil’s face too.
“Chaturvedi was brutalised.” He said instead. And the way Adil’s face reared, itwasa punch. “Bhaskara, Jasbir Singh, Yadav.” Samar reminded him, landing punch after punch of the men who had been brutalised, then killed.
“She did not do it.”
“And what guarantee is it that she is not working for her father’s party? Sayyid Butt is cunning enough to create a clean background before sending her in.”
Adil’s head hung, and he stepped back. “Samar, she was really good at what she did yesterday. I spoke to her. Really, she is… normal. Regular. And she has something in her. We are desperately in need of a good speech writer. Let’s see what happens. Let’s give it a month. If she is a spy as you say, then she will start digging around sooner rather than later. And then… think, we can use her against her own masters.”
Samar glanced at Qureshi behind Adil’s back. He stood there — neutral. Quiet. Samar’s teeth ground. He had come here to turn 3-1 on Atharva. They had all turned on him for that girl instead.
He turned around, opened the door and stormed out. He wouldn't take this defeat lying down.
16. A new day is equal to a new beginning…
A new day is equal to a new beginning. Amaal blazed into the Media Room the next morning with that same mantra that she had held tight after every long night.
“Good morning!”
The work was in full force. Music on high. Nobody heard her, just as she liked it. At the onset of her time here, she had been the one to open this very room. Now, as the KDP Media Head, she had the luxury of timings but not time. She was taking calls even in the middle of the night, meeting prospective media contacts for entire days to woo them, carrying the weight of this party’s and its four mule-headed leaders’ images on her shoulders.
“These five images of Atharva Bhai for KDP Twitter today.” Their graphic editor, Rehana, swiped through her iPad.
“All good, except, pick the best four. The Twitter grid will automatically arrange them in a window, as opposed to five, where one would look weird and get cut. We want anybody who scrolls past this tweet to at least have the image of Atharva on the podium or behind the mic at KU, even if they don’t stop to read.”
“Waiting for the tweet copy.”
Amaal sighed, approving the ten other things that needed her approval on the side. Once she was done, she turned to Rehana. “Atharva Singh Kaul taking Kashmir University by storm. Quote-unquote — I do not tell you what you should think. I can only show you the facts. How to think, what to think, to vote or not to vote for me, the decision should be yours and yours alone.”
“Not under 200 characters.”
“Then get it under. Use some editing power, Rehana.”
“Oye, you are here!” Adil’s voice startled her. She turned, and he was sitting in the corner, plate in hand. Iram, the new writer, stood beside him while Noora snuck food from his plate. Amaal wasn’t even surprised at half the things that went on in this room, in this party.
