The formal debate was arranged by DD Lucknow — sixty minutes, both candidates, live broadcast, the kind of thing that the election commission encouraged and the parties agreed to because refusing looked worse than the debate itself. She had been preparing for it since Day One. He had, she assumed, been preparing since before Day One, because he was the kind of person who prepared for things before the things were scheduled.
They had barely spoken at the flat that morning. The day of the debate had a specific quality in both of their routines — she had seen it without meaning to see it, the heightened focus, the way each of them moved through the morning with the contained energy of people who were saving something for later. Her campaign manager, Faiza, had come early. His campaign manager had come early. The flat had been full of last-minute preparation on both sides, separated by the invisible line down the middle that had developed over twelve days.
She had been in the car for ten minutes before she realised his convoy was behind hers on the same road, heading to the same studio. The thought had produced a feeling she did not immediately classify and which she classified, after three minutes of consideration, as anticipation. The word sat uncomfortably in her head. She reclassified it as professional preparation and moved on.
The green room at DD Lucknow was divided by a temporary partition — she had not expected this, it was thoughtful production design, giving each candidate their own pre-debate space. She was in the left half. Faiza was going through the key data points one more time. Through the thin partition she could hear his campaign manager doing the same thing in a lower voice, and she could hear him responding with the minimal responses of someone who had prepared so thoroughly that the pre-debate review was more affirmation than information.
