By the end of the first semester she spent on campus, Anjali had attracted a small following, four or five girls and one young man named Sanjeev. When Sanjeev had first seen Anjali talking with students on the quad, he had been immediately smitten. The way her black ponytail swung behind her confident gate, the passion in her dark, dark eyes - it had swept him out of his senses in an instant, and he had walked straight up to her afterward, as if disembodied.
"Ms. Batra," he said, looking up several inches into her face from behind his round glasses, "I'm Sanjeev," and he held out his hand. She took it politely and said she was glad to meet him. "I'm with you all the way."
She smiled, like she might smile at a precocious five-year-old. "Well thank you, Sanjeev," she said. For some reason it disappointed him.
"I'm a philosophy major," he continued.
"Well, we've got a lot of work to do, so stick around and tell all your philosopher friends what we're doing, ok?"
"I will!" he said, a little more eager than felt appropriate. Then, as she turned to go: "Do you like philosophy?"
She turned back. "What?" she asked it politely, but the awkwardness hurt.
"Do you like philosophy?"
"Can't say I know much about it."
"I could tell you about it..." he offered.
"Oh, that sounds nice, but I really feel I should spend all of my time on this issue, so..."
Sanjeev nodded.
"But thanks..." she said.
"No, I agree!" he blurted as she turned again. She shot back one more polite smile and left.
Over the next two years, Sanjeev was always by Anjali's side at every protest and stump speech. The movement grew, so that by the end of the fifth semester, there were 30 or 40 regular supporters and more than that many occasional sympathizers - enough to organize protests that were noticed. That's when Anjali was invited to meet Prime Minister Patel. (It's also when she lost her job at the insurance company.)
"Ms. Batra!" said the prime minister, grinning as he emerged from his office to approach her, hand extended. She rose from the couch she had been sitting on and shook his hand. He invited her into his office and shut the door.
"You are a remarkable woman, Ms Batra," he began. "You were born in the provinces, and were even a slave not long ago, and now... here you are!"
"I have one purpose," she shrugged. "Nothing else matters to me, so I succeed."
"And I wish you great success in finishing your mission!"
"Thank you." She was polite, but not warm.
"Now," he fiddled with something on his desk, deliberately changing the tone, "I would like to offer some advice. You want to abolish impalement as a legal punishment, which is admirable, of course. But you're going about it in a very confrontational way. The fact is, life as we have created it here in the cities would be impossible without the support of the provincial chieftains. Think about this: as a citizen of Chakrabesh, you receive subsidized healthcare. But almost two thirds of the funding for our healthcare comes from the provinces. This is just one example. If you make enemies of the chieftains, you bring our own world down around us."
"They have made themselves my enemies, Sir. I am asking them to stop and to be instead my friends."
Mr. Patel smiled uncomfortably. "Yes, well... obviously they won't see it that way. And the fact is, our estimates of how many women are impaled each year are in the single digits."
"Your estimates are wrong."
"Ms. Batra, please..."
"I lived there, Sir! They impaled my mother! I know what life is like in the provinces."
"Ms. Batra -" he held out his hand, pleading for calm. "I just want you to think about this: maybe we could do more good for he women of the provinces by improving their lives economically, or even making it easier for them to come to the cities. Yes?" Anjali was not in a mood to respond. "Think about it," he said, reaching across his desk to pat her hands. "Oh - and I've authorized a donation to your organization of 1,000 bentis from the party. This is confidential, of course..."
When Anjali met up with Sanjeev on campus afterward, she was in a stormy mood, even though she knew Mr. Patel's donation was the only thing keeping her off the streets for the next few months. "They don't believe us," she said. "We have to show them!"