The Campaign Strategist

“Let’s face it: We need a campaign strategist. A smart one. Someone who can completely out-think our enemy. And we need now. As you know, this morning’s poll, taken over the weekend, shows we are already trailing by three percentage points. If we wait any longer, we will fall further behind. Then it will be hard to catch up,” John, the senior campaign manager for the incumbent US Senator Megan Smith, remarked in their Monday morning steering committee meeting.

“Do you have anyone in mind?” Megan asked.

“My first choice would be Sandeep Khanna. He used to be with the Campaign Consultants in DC, but he recently opened his own consulting shop. He is only 33, but he has a razor sharp mind. Last year we briefly worked together in a campaign in Houston. I was really impressed with his outside-of-the-box thinking. He can be an asset here. If he is available, I can arrange a phone interview,” answered John.

“That’s a good idea. Before we slide further, we need to infuse some fresh blood immediately and re-energize the campaign. By the way, he has an unusual name. Is he an American?” Megan inquired with a laugh.

“He is an American – born and raised here, but his father is from India and mother is an American. As of last year, he was single. In fact, I doubt he has any time to date. He has a PhD from Columbia, though. He is a kind of person who would talk only in meetings. Even through his soft and delicate voice, he would bring in some of the most murderous strategies. I loved listening to him in meetings,” replied John. “Sounds like the missing piece,” remarked Megan on her way out.

Within a week Sandeep was hired to strategize Megan’s campaign. Megan was surprised to see how he crunched data to define challenges and suggest solutions. He did not show up in steering committee meetings; instead, he regularly met only with John and Megan to talk about strategies. From the campaign literature he learned that Megan lived in suburban New York City with her husband Curt, a successful lawyer and their two middle school daughters, Paula and Barbara. She studied and taught at Yale. Before running for the US Senate, Megan was a one-term Congresswoman. Megan’s father was a three-term US Senator.

In less than a month, her campaign came back strong and all polls showed a more or less dead-heat result. Before Sandeep came in, Megan had a sinking feeling. With the new poll results, Megan was ecstatic. In one meeting, she openly remarked, “Sandeep, you make better moves than some of the best chess players in the world. I am not sure I understand or agree with every move you make, but the results speak for themselves. You have brought it down to a science.” She noticed he had no reaction to her comments. He just indifferently said, “Thank you, Senator.” “Call me Megan,” she demanded.

As weeks went by, her campaign picked up further steam and stayed three to five points ahead in polls. She was friendlier with him. On number of occasions she asked him if he would like to join her in her new administration. He always answered, “I have to think about it.” On the other hand, she would tease him, “How much thinking do you need to do? You are still single.” He would simply laugh the conversation away. One night John had a family emergency, so he could not be present in their strategy meeting. She walked in and said, “Sandeep, thank you for saving my campaign. I wonder where I would be today if you did not come on board. Easily six to ten points down in polls. You have such a brilliant mind.” Without giving him a chance to respond, she continued, “I am starving. I have no dinner party to go to. Let’s have dinner together at Barciloni’s. It’s a nice, quiet place with excellent food. Not too far.”

Upon reaching the restaurant, they had to walk through the back door and were seated in a secluded private chamber. Before they ordered their food, the owners came and welcomed them. Sandeep realized she was a regular there. As the place became quieter, she asked, “Do you ever eat? I always see you working on your laptop.”

“I do. I just don’t make it a priority.”

She asked, “Do you ever feel tired or lonely in campaign trails? See, for me it comes every four or six years. For you, it is your living.”

“I have not been in the business long enough to feel that way, yet. I am sure there will be a point when I feel lonely and burnt out. Right now, I am struggling with my new business; I don’t have time to think about it.”

In her usual humorous way, she teased him, “I am sure you get to meet many beautiful women in campaign trails. You should not feel lonely.”

He indifferently said, “I am not thinking about beautiful women now. My primary objective is to get the business off the ground. I would hate to go back and work for a consulting firm, again.”

With a somewhat serious tone, she remarked, “I have an open offer for you. Come and join my administration. You name your own slot, including the chief of staff. I don’t understand why you have to take unnecessary pain and struggle.”

He smiled and replied, “Thank you for your generosity. I am really honored. It’s just that I have an entrepreneurial mind. I am not sure I am good at taking instructions. Anyway, your offer gives me a very viable alternative. When time comes, I will give it a due consideration. Meanwhile, I am truly honored.”

She again harped on the same tune and said, “I promise you will be taken care of. Again, your presence will make an enormous difference in my office. You are amazing in articulating real issues. Also, look at the alternative picture. If you spend six years with me, you will be groomed for your own political career. To learn the business, I worked as an intern for my father. It was a great experience. In fact, that internship helped me decide about a career in politics and public service.”

On the way back that night her limo dropped him in front of his apartment building. She was shocked to see he was staying at such a rundown building in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. She realized the financial struggle he was undergoing. The following night John could not attend the meeting. Once Sandeep was finished with his briefing, she asked, “Sandeep, why are you staying there?”

“That’s all I can afford now. After paying for my office and apartment rents and Gloria’s salary, I hardly have anything left. I am basically digging into my credit cards for other expenditures. You know, it takes a while for a small business to stand on its own and become profitable. When I went on my own, nobody knew me. Now I am building quality references and important connections that will pay off, perhaps in the not too distant future. Of course, your offer is an excellent alternative, too – helps me sleep comfortably!”

She felt terrible that he was going through such a financial ordeal, considering what a brilliant person he was. “For obvious reasons, I cannot change your contract. But let me lend you some money to ease your immediate woes. It’s a loan and it’s all my money. Nobody can ever question this transaction. You pay me back when your business becomes profitable. No rush. At least, you can concentrate on your work with a sounder mind. I hate to think that this financial thing looms over your shoulder.”

He was truly moved by her generosity. He had already worked with a number of important political personalities, but he never came across anyone as caring as Senator Megan. He knew he had to cut the conversation short, but he could not help thanking her for her extraordinary magnanimity, “Thanks for the offer. While I cannot accept it, I must say it really touched my heart.”

She laughed and said, “All my offers still stand. My husband was supposed to take me to a dinner, but he just cancelled. He is stuck somewhere. Let’s go for dinner. I enjoyed our last night’s dinner. You were kind enough not to talk about the campaign.”

They again went to the same restaurant. He knew the routine. After the food was served, the red light would be turned on outside their chamber door and they were left alone. Suddenly she asked, “Have you ever been in love, Sandeep?”

He was really surprised, but he knew he had to answer, “Once, for a year or so, when I was in grad school.”

“What happened? It didn’t work out?”

“Her parents didn’t like the idea that I came from an inter-racial parentage. Her folks were rich and famous. So we decided to call it quits. And we did it gracefully. Later I even attended her marriage. She is now happily married with a couple of children.”

“Do you still think of her? Does it still hurt?” she again asked.

“It did in the beginning. I am too busy to indulge into old romances!” he exclaimed with a laugh.

“You can look at my face and talk. I am not that ugly,” she teased.

“I am not used to having dinner with senators. I am a poor and unknown person. I just don’t know how to be comfortable with you. By the way, you are the smartest and most beautiful senator around.” He immediately realized that he should not have made such a personal remark; in an effort to minimize the damage, he added, “Senator, I am sorry. I should not have made such a personal remark.”

“Don’t worry about it. It was very sweet, anyway. Please call me Megan. I thought I have a nice name,” she comforted him by making things light and easy.

“Yes, I have always thought of Megan as a dreamy name,” he spontaneously replied.

“Why did you stop? I know you wanted to add a few more words to that sentence? Please go ahead,” she joked.

“Thank God, I stopped there. A few more words would have put me in serious trouble.”

“I thought you are quite cut and dry. Actually, you can be sweet and romantic. Honestly, I already enjoy spending time with you. I hope we have dinners quite often. By the way, I also sincerely hope you join my administration during my next term,” she whispered with a beautiful smile.

“Senator, you are so kind and gracious. I cannot imagine that a senator could be so pleasant and down-to-earth,” he replied, as he started to feel more normal and comfortable with her.

“If you think Megan is a dreamy name, why are you still addressing me as Senator? Get used to calling me by my dreamy name.” 

“It will take me some time, but I will get there. I am truly honored that you have a good opinion of my work. Going forward, it will really help me. I am fortunate that this opportunity came along.”

“You have an exceptional mind. I am amazed how you derive “live” solutions from the data. Now I know why you didn’t stay back in teaching. Given your mind, I don’t think you would have enjoyed teaching some “frozen” case studies. During my last two campaigns, the campaign managers defined the strategy. John has been reminding me for a while that the landscape has drastically changed and I needed to hire a professional strategist; I was dilly dallying. Suddenly I lagged behind in polls and I started to panic. See, I am the incumbent, not the challenger. Given my first term record in the senate, the momentum should have been in my favor. I am so fortunate that you stepped in at the right time. You are absolutely God-sent,” she remarked with a deep sense of gratitude.

“Thank you. Your kind words mean a lot to me. I am going through the lowest time of my life. But your campaign is in the right direction. We just have to stay focused and execute right. We should follow the polls, but not get too carried away as we are just three or four points ahead – as you know, the statewide polls can easily have a higher margin of error than that. In fact, from now on I have to be more creative to widen the margin. Hopefully by the Labor Day we will be ahead by at least six points and get exponentially better thereafter,” he tried to define his vision for her campaign.

“You have to be more creative? Then, how would you rate your work thus far?” she wondered.

“So far I have been working on laying the foundation. Once a quality infrastructure is in place, I can experiment with more creative strategies. Of course, John’s team has been simply phenomenal in execution. I am really happy the chemistry is working. I am confident it is going to get better from here.”

“Sandeep, I will be taking a week’s vacation from the campaign trail in mid-August. We are vacationing in a resort in upstate New York; my family is going to be joined by John and his three assistants. I would like you to join us, if you can.” 

“Actually, I was thinking of taking a few days off to take care of some personal business. We will regroup once you are back from your vacation,” he replied with a wishful thinking.

“You will get enough time between the election day and the inaugural. Take care of all your personal and business matters during that period. Of course, I want you to be on my search committee, so you will stay in touch with me on a daily basis. If I let you go out of my sight, you can easily vanish. Anyway, you are coming. I am in charge and it’s an order,” she rebuked him with a mocking tone. As he was getting off the limo, she whispered in his ears, “I had a wonderful evening. I will be in DC tomorrow. I will call you.”

The next night, as he was working on some new ideas, suddenly an e-mail popped up. He knew it was Megan’s private e-mail address. The e-mail, sent from her wireless device, read, “I am so bored. Let’s have dinner tomorrow. Bye.” He was very happy to see the e-mail, but by the same token he started to wonder what he was getting into.

He woke up in the morning by a phone call from Megan’s office. She came on line and said, “From today we are going to have morning meetings too. You will brief me twice daily. Come down, ASAP.” In his drowsy voice, he replied, “Senator, I do not have enough material to cover two briefings a day. Please let John fill you in.” She softly said, “I don’t care. Just come down.”

As he came in, Megan’s secretary asked him to see her. With a big smile she said, “Good morning. I am so glad to see you. I cancelled all my morning meetings to make room for you. Let’s have some good time together. As I said, you will be meeting with me every morning between ten and eleven. We will have some good time. Since John will be attending the evening sessions, please do your presentation then. Did you miss me yesterday?”

He was completely baffled by her remarks. He replied, “I don’t know where to start. You are such a pleasant person; we all miss you when you are not here. Again, my work is research-based, so it will be difficult to fill you in twice daily.”

She laughed and said, “I asked you if you missed me. I didn’t want you to speak for the entire staff. Keep your research work for the evening meetings. The new morning meetings are for us to have some fun. I mean only the two of us. I was so bored yesterday. I didn’t feel like attending the evening session. I wanted to come back and have dinner with you. But my husband was with me, so I had to stay around.”

He felt more baffled and remarked, “I really missed you. I don’t know why. You are a senator. You are happily married. Honestly, I shouldn’t. I don’t know why I am encouraging myself into a mess. I never dreamt of having an affair with a married woman, let alone one of the most powerful married senators. By the way, did you send me the e-mail while you were with your husband?”

She smiled and replied, “First of all, I am delighted you missed me. Secondly, just think of me as dreamy Megan. And finally, I sent the e-mail from the ladies room. Barbara was with us. She is very nosy. She would try to read my e-mail if I were writing in front of her. Again, I am really happy that you started missing me too. Tonight we are going to a different restaurant. It is very quiet and very romantic.”

That night after the presentation session, they took a ride down to a fancy Japanese restaurant. Apparently they were expected there. They were taken to a beautifully-appointed romantic room and seated on a magnificent silk carpet on the floor. The table in front of them was so narrow that they could almost feel each other’s breathing. As they waited for their food to arrive, Megan said, “This is a lovers’ paradise. My husband loves Japanese food. So after we got married, we used to come here often. I don’t care much about the food here, but I love the setting. I find this place extremely romantic.”

He concurred, “This is an unbelievably beautiful place. I really love the way they have taken advantage of the moonlight here; as if we are sitting in a garden on a moonlit night. Under this bright moonlight you look like an angel and your matching white outfit makes you look even so incredibly beautiful. Honestly, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I hope your husband worships you. To me, you are one in a billion, perhaps rarer.”

With her beautiful smile she said, “Now you are making me blush. I already feel I’m sixteen again, just getting the first taste of a magical love. Did you say all this beautiful things to your ex-girlfriend?”

“I don’t know how we even fell in love. We had such different personalities that we hardly saw eye to eye on anything. We spent most of our time adjusting to each other. She came from a very well-to-do family; I came from a very modest background. While walking around in midtown Manhattan, her eyes would be on expensive diamond ear-rings; I would be looking around for a burger joint where I could get a full meal for under five dollars. But she never made fun of my modest outlook. In hindsight, I am glad we didn’t get married. It would have been very unfair to her.”

After having listened to his story, she remarked, “I am glad it did not work out. At least, I am having the time of my life. With you, I feel young and alive. I know you always mean what you say. And you say the wonderful things that a woman wants to hear. Sooner or later you will be with another woman. I don’t know how I will feel to see you with another woman. I know it will break my heart.”

While he was happy to hear all the kind words from her, he sounded equally sad, “I already feel that way when I see you with your husband. When you are not around I feel more miserable. Even the idea that you are with him, makes me depressed now. I never thought I would feel that way about anyone. I always thought I was a pretty cut and dry person. If I were married and having an affair, I would just feel guilty. Now, I not only feel guilty, but I also feel deprived. For you, you just have to feel guilty. I know all good things come to an end, perhaps sooner than we want. In order to lower my expectations and prepare myself for the inevitability, I am constantly reminding myself that I am having an affair with a happily married woman. Eventually, when that day comes, hopefully I will be better prepared to absorb the shock. Then again, I am fooling myself; I know I will never be prepared for that day. I know this memory is going to haunt me for the rest of my life.”

As he finished his emotional breakout, she came over and sat on him and whispered, “Kiss me.”

He was spellbound for a moment and then asked, “Are you sure? I am nobody. You are a senator. You have too much to lose. People here can easily find out.”

She passionately said, “Please!”

On the way back while seated in the limo facing him, she took out her electronic pad and wrote on the screen, “Be careful of the limo driver. He is very close to my husband. By the way, I love the way you kiss. I could not have gone home with swollen lips.”

He read and wrote back on his pad, “I love you. I have no reason to be rough. I want to preserve you.”

She replied, “I don’t know how I am going to sleep tonight. I am going to think about the evening all night.”

He wrote back, “I am going to think about this evening for the rest of my life. Truly the greatest evening…”

As he was exiting the limo, he read on her screen, “Next time we should explore a little more.”

The next morning he did not show up for their ten o’clock session. Megan tried to contact him, but his cell was off. John was also looking for him, but he could not track Sandeep down either. Around eleven, she asked John to cancel her plans for DC. John was totally surprised, as it was an important vote in Senate. She rationalized to John, “I am still undecided on this issue. I wanted to get Sandeep’s perspective before I voted.” Around 1pm Sandeep showed up in her office. She was relieved to see him, “Where have you been? I was worried to death. I started having all kinds of terrible thoughts. I even cancelled my important Senate vote. Next time before you vanish suddenly, please call my office and keep them informed of your whereabouts. You don’t know how worried I was. I started feeling so sick. I kept crying inside.”

He was quietly listening to her. As she finished, he said, “I didn’t feel like coming to work today. Since last night I am so confused. I was sitting in the park and trying to sort things out. You are a senator. You have a wonderful life around you. Once the campaign is over, you will move on. I am nobody. I am alone and lonely. I will be stuck with the memories. They will slowly eat me up and I will drown further. Then again, I missed you so much I had to come and see you.”

She felt terrible to hear his emotional account, but to cheer him up she again reminded him, “Sandeep, it does not have to be that way. Please join my administration and we can be together. You will have all the flexibility you need and you can still continue your consulting work. You can do whatever makes you happy. I just want you to be with me. You don’t know how much I love you. I keep thinking of you all day and night. Last night I could hardly sleep. I was sitting in the porch and thinking about the wonderful evening we had together. With you, I feel young and joyful at heart. Please don’t let it end so soon. I don’t know how I can handle it.”

She was delighted to see Sandeep at their vacation resort. For security reasons, one end of the resort was assigned to Megan’s family and her campaign staff. They earmarked one building as their campaign office for their daily meetings. Paula and Barbara were ecstatic that their grandparents came along and Megan was also happy that her daughters had their loving grandparents to spend time with them. Although it was a vacation, Megan knew that her campaign was going into the final phase and thus she would be spending a lot of time with her campaign staff. After the morning meetings and briefings, she was able to spend some time with her daughters in taking advantage of the available resort amenities like horseback riding, canoeing and riding the aerial cars and roller coasters. Since her husband invited some of his friends along, she was upset that during the first two evenings she was not able to spend any time with Sandeep.

The third evening was however quieter for her. After having dinner with her family, she came down to the office to have a pretentious briefing from Sandeep. Both John and Sandeep were working. She had a quick chat with both and then said to Sandeep, “I am not feeling well. Do you mind briefing me while taking a stroll down the hill?” He got the hint and came along. They took the back dirt road which was used for horseback riding only and hence densely dark. After walking down the hill for a few minutes, they looked back at the buildings and realized they were away from all human contacts. She pulled him against a big tree and started kissing him. She whispered, “I missed you so badly. I felt choked the last two nights.” He whispered back, “I felt the same way. I didn’t know how to pass time. At night I sat outside and kept watching your building and hoped you would come out for a few minutes. I feel so good now. I am so glad you came down today. Even thinking about the rest of the night without you makes me depressed.” She then asked him to sit down and she sat on him spreading her legs around him. As his passion was overflowing, he looked in her eyes and said, “Are you sure?”

On the way back he asked, “Megan, when am I going to brief you again in the dark?” She laughed and said, “I was getting worried that you didn’t have a good time. Every night. Creatively.” He also laughed and said, “While you look dreamy, you feel heavenly. By the way, I love when you bite my lips. It’s so cute.” She fondly scolded him and said, “Sandeep, please don’t remind me what I did on the spur of my passionate moments.”

After they came back from the vacation, one morning John informed Megan that Sandeep had to take an emergency trip down to DC, “His secretary left. He is also closing his office down there. He was behind in rent, so I offered him an advance. He wouldn’t accept.” She felt terrible that he was going through this ordeal and murmured, “We squeezed him so badly in his contract. Sometimes I feel we wrote the contract with his blood.” John tried to comfort her by putting a different spin, “I knew he was good. But this was his first major campaign. We didn’t anticipate he would rise so far above the occasion. Honestly, I feel terrible too. But he is not the kind who would accept any favor now.” She, however, saw a silver lining in this event, “Now that he is closing his shop in DC, we can put more pressure on him to join us full-time. He has such a brilliant mind. We cannot afford to lose him. Let’s offer him his fair market price and keep him. If we lose him, most probably our competition will grab him, anyway. It’ll be a lose-lose situation.”

A few days later during a briefing session John asked Sandeep, “We really admire what you have done for us so far. We would love to have you on board as a full-time member of our team. As Megan has already indicated, you will have all the flexibility you want; on top of that, we will try to beat the best offer you may have. In fact, she has even informally mentioned to me that, if necessary, she would be digging into her personal resources. After her next term, she is considering returning to her teaching profession. By then, you will be a known commodity around the world and it will be easier for you to return to your consulting world. Now, we just need an assurance from you that you are sincerely considering us as one your top choices. We can work with the rest.” All this time Megan was quietly listening to John’s plea. As John left, she looked at Sandeep and remarked with a heavy voice, “If you leave, you will break my heart. This is however my final appeal to you.” He finally said, “I already feel heart-broken. Do I want to sink further?”

One night after the briefing, she asked him, “Sandeep, you never told me what you think of me as a senator. Please be honest. I can take constructive criticism.” He replied, “Even before I knew you, I thought you are a natural. I have a very high opinion of your leadership. See, you are not a lawyer. You were a professor of economics at a top university. You are able to understand and articulate issues naturally. You listen to your advisors, but at the end of the day you take your own decisions. You are in it with a mission. When a lawyer becomes a politician, most likely he or she decides to spend the life in politics. That’s the problem I have with the lawyer-led politics. Their contribution is marginal and because of their know-all attitude their thinking is often tangential and their issues are generally misguided and non-strategic; whereas, I bet you will quit politics the day your contribution starts to decline.” She remarked with a laugh, “I love to listen to your lies, Sandeep. But they are very sweet, thoughtful and intelligent, though. I wish I was married to you. I could listen to your lies all day and night.”

By the middle of October they had a fifteen point advantage in polls. Most major newspapers started to predict a landslide victory for the incumbent. Sandeep realized his work for this campaign was coming to a close. While the campaign management was busy preparing for the victory speech and the inaugural party, he was busy exploring other options. He knew nothing would be available for him until the next summer, so he decided to look into other countries as well. He could not however disclose his intentions to Megan or John, as they almost took for granted that he would be back as a full-timer. One day Megan even mentioned, “Sandeep, during my next term I want you to define and prioritize the issues and I will work on bringing the bills to the floor.” He remained speechless.

One evening after the briefing she whispered to him, “Let’s go out and celebrate our new poll numbers. It’s a full-moon night. The Japanese restaurant will be a very romantic place to spend some quiet time together.” As soon as they were seated in their private moon-lit room in the restaurant, she said to the waitress, “Turn the lights off. The natural light should be enough.” The waitress was a bit surprised, but she turned the lights off and left the room. Megan didn’t waste any time; she got immediately active with him. As the waitress came back with the trays, Megan bribed her by quickly putting a few big dollar bills in her hand and said, “I am not feeling well. I need to go out for some fresh air. I will take the side door. Don’t let my limo driver know.” She knew the paparazzi would be around, so they took a narrow dirt road down the hill to the river. They found a relatively dark spot under a tree. As she was lying down on him, he whispered, “You look like a magnificent sculpture from the ancient Ajanta-Ellora caves.” She replied, “I read about those wonderful ancient caves and shrines. By the way, do you consider yourself white? You look white, but you have dark black hair. Actually, I love your naturally wavy hair. I know you don’t dye or curl your hair.” He laughed and said, “As a teenager I did have an identity crisis. Not anymore. I have been told I am a hyphenated American and I have accepted it. Now I have a survival issue, so I don’t pay any attention to my heritage. My parents always left the issue up to me to sort out. But my mom is very sympathetic to the girls who are also from mixed Indo-American parentage. Whenever she comes across someone from a similar background, she would immediately call me and try to do some match-making.” Megan again asked, “Would you prefer someone like that?” He replied, “Call me if you ever get divorced. I can wait.” She instantly sat up and warmly scolded him, “Don’t tell me you are planning to fly off. I have to tie your wings down, somehow.”

The Saturday afternoon before the election Sandeep suddenly got a call from John, “Megan is in DC. Tomorrow morning she is scheduled to appear in a number of national Sunday morning shows. Since these are her final national appearances before the election, she doesn’t want to take any chances. She wants you down there immediately to go over her scripts and prepare her for the interviews. She is staying at her townhouse. Your charter flight leaves in an hour from LaGuardia and you are booked at the Downtown Miramar Suites. I will meet her at the CBC Studio in the morning.” Sandeep realized the urgency and rushed to the airport.

He called her as soon as he got there. Megan said, “Just leave your luggage at the hotel and come over.” While walking into her place, he remarked, “You are one of the best in tackling these interviews. Why do you need me?” She replied, “I have a big surprise for you. Go, relax in the bedroom.” In about ten minutes she showed up in a spectacular bridal gown. He was astounded to see her in that dress, “You look dazzling, but I don’t understand why chose a bridal gown?” She sat by him and whispered, “We are getting married tonight.” He was about to laugh her remarks away, while she suddenly turned the lights off and continued, “Whether we are ever together or not, every year on this night I am your bride. You will belong to me for one night every year. You will remember me as the love of your life and kiss me from your heart. Today, our love is forbidden, perhaps illicit; hopefully, fifty years from now, a parallel story will immortalize our love and liberate us.” He just asked, “Are you sure you want to do this?” Having completely ignored his question, she simply took out a beautiful wedding ring and asked him to put it on her finger, “Tonight, our marriage is ordained by the moon and witnessed by the stars. You may kiss your bride now.” They hugged, kissed and danced all night and asked for His forgiveness. As they watched the sunrise together, they smiled and wiped each other’s tears like two content lovers!

As expected, by ten o’clock on the election night, most news channels predicted a landslide victory for Megan, by a margin between eighteen to twenty points. Her campaign staffs were ecstatic. She was not very happy with the first draft of the victory speech, so she asked Sandeep to revise it. As she was going over the revised speech, she was shocked to read the lone sentence on the final page, “Please consider me again for your presidential campaign.” She called John to find out where Sandeep was. John said, “Sandeep accepted an offer in Europe. He took a flight early this evening. I did everything possible to change his mind. I didn’t want to upset you by letting you know before the speech.” As John left, she sat there like a century-old wrecked ship sitting motionlessly at the ocean-bed.

Barbara walked in, “Mom, you did it again. Congrats. You look gorgeous.” As Megan tried to hide her tears, Barbara asked, “Why are you crying?”      

Megan said, “Sandeep quit. I won because of him. He is not going to be part of our celebration.”

Barbara remarked, “I was thinking of asking you if I could go out with him. He is kind of cute. I like…”

Megan stopped her, “You are only twelve. You should concentrate on your studies.”

Barbara tried to tease her mother, “Now I get it. The article in the New York Sun was actually right.”

Megan had to stop her again, “Barb, please. You give me too much stress.”

Barbara wouldn’t quit, “I was just trying to cheer you up. Did you try to contact him?”

Megan replied, “John did. Sandeep is not the kind who would enjoy being caged. He needs to fly. He is like those birds that live by the storm and die by the storm. When a storm comes, while most birds are busy finding their shelters, some birds suddenly fly off to have fun in the storm. When the storm is over, you will find most of them dead. Those who survive wait for the next storm. They are always different. They are God’s unsheltered and unwanted ones. Perhaps they are sent down to earth by mistake. Somehow, they never become part of the system.”

Let him fly!