"Statement made by my father's campaign," he said. He said it without flinching, which was interesting. "Not by me. I wasn't the candidate in 2019. But the association exists and the ward has a long memory and I understand why." He paused. "I've been doing direct visits. It's helping at the margin. Not enough."
"Have you apologised," she said, "directly? Not the careful political language. An actual apology."
"My team advised against it," he said. "Too much political risk. Could be used against me."
"Your team is wrong," she said. "Those voters have been waiting to hear the party take responsibility for years. If you go into Ward 3 and say clearly that what was said was wrong and you personally disagree with it, a percentage of those voters will respect that regardless of party affiliation." She paused. "It doesn't fix the deficit. But it reduces it. And it's also just the right thing to do."
He was quiet for a moment. "You're advising me on how to win votes against you."
"I'm advising you to apologise for something that deserved an apology," she said. "Whether it wins you votes is secondary."
He looked at her. The recalibration expression — she had a name for it now, in her head. "You do that," he said. "You separate the political calculation from the ethical one. And you do the ethical one even when it's not politically useful."
"I try," she said. "I'm not always successful."
"Most people in your position don't try at all," he said.
The quiet settled around them again. The city outside was the late-night city — reduced, the specific sounds of Lucknow at eleven PM, a distant azaan, a dog, traffic on the main road two blocks away. She had finished her chai. She should go to bed. She did not go to bed.
"Why did you come into politics?" she said. "You're intelligent enough for anything. You had choices."
He looked at his coffee cup. "My father groomed me for it from the beginning," he said. "When I was young that felt like direction. When I was older I understood it was expectation." He paused. "Then I understood why the expectation existed — what politics actually was, what it could actually do. Not for the party. For people. Districts where water infrastructure works, or doesn't. Schools built or not built. That's politics. And once you understand that the thing can either be used correctly or incorrectly, it becomes difficult to leave it to someone else."
"Even if the someone else is your father," she said.
"My father is a politician of his era," he said carefully. "I am attempting to be a politician of mine." He looked at her. "Why did you?"
