"Yes," the voice squeaked at the other end. "I have been dying to meet you, pun unintended."
"11 a m tomorrow, my residence. We'll have a long discussion over tea," M said and abruptly disconnected.
He chuckled and turned to her. "So finally I will be parleying on equal terms with him, dear," he mused. "How true it sounds now: 'First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win'."
She winced. It had been a painful journey, one of false starts, then euphoric highs followed by precipitous crashes. The acrimony, the charges, pernicious attempts to divide and conquer - every trick had been tried. But he had held steadfast, firm in his self-belief and his methods, convinced that truth was on his side.
In hindsight, the resignation of his government had been a blunder. It had weakened the movement politically as even he briefly found himself behind bars. The leadership vacuum had created space for communal polarisation and a new political order to emerge, much to his dismay. The stakes were high and the expectations of a sea of impoverished humanity now rested on his puny shoulders. Much needed to be done. He was now not just a leader but a messiah of the poor and the unwashed.
***
The stakes were high for M as well. He, a rank outsider, had still not come to grips with the durbari politics of Delhi. And time was running out. If he did not deliver in time, the powder keg of hopes and aspirations he had kindled in the hearts of Indians would blow up in his face. Cataclysmic upheavals would shatter the fragile social fabric that held the country together. He had to rein in extremists from his side as well.
And so, M calculated, the meeting had to go well, the chemistry had to be just right. He had to make an ally out of his canny opponent, one who had brought the establishment to its knees with his unique brand of politics. If his self-righteousness annoyed M and his party, his power to agitate the masses terrified them. One false step and he would get back to dharnas. Order would give way to anarchy, whose reverberations would shake the very ground beneath the feet of the permanent Lutyens establishment that had ruled the country for so long.
They were a study in contrasts. One, fragile, mousy in appearance, a member of a mercantile trading community; the other, macho in appearance, robust in approach, a rank outsider now at the apex of the ruling establishment. The former, preferring to present himself as the representative of the destitute, clothed in clothes of the common man of India; the latter, enveloped in garish designer suits, conveying authority and pomp, determined to showcase India in a new light to the rest of the world.
Dot at 11, M spotted the bespectacled, diminutive figure of his implacable foe at the doorstep. If he was awed by the elegance of his imperial surroundings, he did not show it as he proceeded gingerly to meet M.
A liveried attendant in ostentatious headgear rushed in with a tray of crockery and fine Darjeeling tea.
"Will you have it with a spot of milk?" M politely inquired.
"No, thank you," he said in that trademark shrill voice with which he had swayed the masses and launched many a movement. "I am an aam aadmi, after all, one without any aukaaat. I have made my own arrangements."
And saying so, Mahatma Gandhi laid out his spare meal: a glass of lemon juice, goat's milk and some shrivelled dates. "Goat's milk is very good for the health, you know. Would you care for some?"
"No thank you," Lord Mountbatten demurred. "I am in for the ride of my life," he thought to himself.
C S Krishna is the co-author of Unreal Elections