The Smoke is Rising (21 page)

The phone had hardly stopped ringing that afternoon. If it was not an irritating press officer trying to elicit a comment, it was an underling from the Superintending Engineer’s office seeking a definitive version of the morning’s events. Girish, in turn, had asked two members of his team to try to put together an accurate report but they appeared to be floundering in their usual inefficiency.

The only objectively verifiable piece of information was that at about eleven o’clock that morning, a group of unidentified persons had descended on the electricity supply company office at Neelam Layout, an unfortunate South Mysore locality that had only been supplied with sixteen hours of power in the last four days. It was from this very point that accounts began to differ. A manager at the Neelam Layout office stated that an angry mob had torn into the building, smashed windows, ransacked a filing cabinet, damaged computer equipment and stolen the caretaker’s bicycle. A bystander, on the other hand, told a news channel that the protestors had simply stood outside the building, chanting and holding placards, until the security guards had begun to taunt and insult their mothers, prompting a lengthy scuffle. One of Girish’s colleagues reported that he had received a call from someone who was sure that there had been an attempt to burn down the building.

Girish slammed the phone down, having just informed an officer at the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission that he would revert to her as soon as he was able to ascertain the precise nature and magnitude of the morning’s incidents.

‘This kind of thing would only happen somewhere like Neelam Layout,’ he spat.

‘I heard that they were accusing us of purposely not providing them with electricity because it is a Muslim area,’ said his colleague Ganesh.

‘Such fools. As if we can just disconnect Muslim areas even if we wanted to.’

‘When people are angry, they will believe anything.’

‘Anyway, they get more than their fair share of electricity. Who asked them all to have four wives and twenty children? Always first to start complaining about anything.’

Ganesh doubted that the consumption of electricity per household in Neelam Layout was higher than in any other fatigued and forsaken part of Mysore but was reluctant to feed Girish’s ill temper. It would only result in an afternoon of snide remarks and some petty retribution later in the week.

The story was destined to make it to the front page of the
Mysore Evening Sentinel
. Some of its readers were relieved to note that the accompanying editorial had decided to present the incident as the natural consequence of bureaucratic incompetence and poor governance rather than a clash of divided communities.

‘Our state government, in connivance with our electricity companies, has only now decided to close the stable door, by stating it will try to purchase additional power from other states,’ lamented the piece. ‘Unfortunately for the public, not only has the horse bolted, it has been found, sold off secretly through the good offices of a series of corrupt middlemen and the funds transferred via
hawala
brokers to a
benami
Swiss bank account. Such is the nature of official planning and foresight in Karnataka today.’

With that picturesque image, the editor of the
Mysore Evening Sentinel
managed to capture a number of societal ills in his forceful
conclusion. The editorial did little to improve Girish’s humour that afternoon.

‘Susheelaji? It’s Jaydev calling here.’

He always announced himself in a cautious way, as if still undecided as to whether he ought to be calling.

‘Hello, one minute, one minute … so how are you today?’

‘I’ve just come back from a long walk so feeling very relaxed and refreshed. And you?’

‘Oh fine, I’ve been meaning to visit an old friend for ages now but something keeps coming up. I was just wondering whether I should go today. It’s one of my days for the driver, you see.’

‘I’m sorry, am I delaying you?’

‘No no, not at all. It takes me an hour to get out of the house these days anyway. Making sure everything is locked, switched off, closed, bolted. It’s ridiculous.’

‘Sometimes I do wonder. Maybe you have things to do and then I call and take up so much of your time.’

‘Please Jaydevji, I am not Sunaina, rushing off to meetings every five minutes. I really don’t know how she does it. Even the thought of it makes me tired.’

‘Well, she’s younger, but it’s true, so much energy. She reminds me of a person I used to know, my senior at my first job in Calcutta. He was also always running around from one committee to another, pushing bundles of paper into an old
jhola
he used to carry everywhere.’

‘This was in Calcutta?’

‘Yes, in the fifties. In fact, he even had the same hairstyle as Sunaina.’

‘Now you are just being rude.’

‘No, really, I promise you. Poor fellow, he must be no more, but
if in those days he ever had a tendency to wear saris, he would have looked just like Sunaina. You know, us juniors always used to make fun of him. He had a habit of using long words even when he had no idea of the meaning. He must have just thought that it sounded impressive.’

‘I think that is a habit many of us Indians have. Also, why use one word when we can shower you with ten?’

‘No, but poor old Mr Mukherjee was really something. He would walk up to you and say: “I have a small piece of work for you. Very interesting. I am sure you will find it highly obstreperous.” Or else: “Such terrible weather we are having. Truly sybaritic.” After we had lost our initial nervousness in that place, my friend Shailendra and I would keep going up to him and using our own ridiculous words in conversation. I feel bad now; he must have thought we were just two such friendly chaps.’

‘You
should
feel bad! Poor old Mr Mukherjee. And I can imagine you and your friend laughing like hyenas the moment his back was turned.’

‘I wish I could deny that. But that is exactly what we did.’

‘Well, I won’t tell Sunaina that she reminds you of some poor man that you all used to laugh at years ago. It reminds me of my uncle who also had a very particular way with words. He was a professor of history at Mysore University. If any of the women in the family had put on weight he would smile and say: “You are looking nice and robust, much better than the last time I saw you. Then you were looking very inadequate.” The thing was, he really meant it in a nice way.’

‘But he never said it to any of the men?’

‘No, but I think the men always looked more than adequate.’

‘No doubt. So, what time are you going to see your friend?’

‘I don’t know. I’m not even sure if she’s here or with her daughter. I need to phone and check. I feel very bad for her, you know. She
has a very nasty daughter-in-law so she tries to spend as little time in Mysore as possible. But what to do? She has to come from time to time to see her son.’

‘The usual
saas-bahu
story?’

‘Who knows what exactly goes on? But the daughter-in-law seems to really hate her coming so goes out of her way to make things difficult. Jaya, my friend, doesn’t eat brinjal, and she was saying that the last time she stayed there, this girl was making brinjal day and night.’

A swallowed gurgle from Jaydev stopped Susheela.

‘It may be funny for you because you are not the one being ill-treated. I hope
your
daughter-in-law treats you well.’

‘Actually, when I visit she is more considerate than my son, even. But anyway, please continue with your story.’

‘Jaya has to use a special foot cream. She used to keep it in the bathroom when she was staying with her son but she is convinced that her daughter-in-law kept hiding it.’

‘She was hiding the foot cream?’

‘Well, it kept disappearing and who else would take it? So now she has to keep it locked in her suitcase. I mean, is it right, that she has to hide her foot cream in her own son’s house?’

‘I think the best thing would be for you not to delay seeing her. She needs your support.’

‘It really is very upsetting for her. A while back her daughter-in-law dropped a wet grinder and it almost fell on Jaya’s foot. She is convinced that it was deliberate.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, she mentioned it again yesterday: “Susheela, do you remember when that girl tried to murder me with the wet grinder?”’

‘Do
you
think it was deliberate?’

‘Well, the girl is most insensitive but I don’t think she is a
psychopath. Although I suppose it is difficult to tell with young women these days, they all seem so confident.’

‘Poor Jaya.’

‘Let me tell you one thing, Mr Jaydev: we should be pleased with what we have and not demand too much. My son-in-law may be messy and moody but at least he has never tried to kill me. Anyway, enough for today; I am going now. Just thank God for all your blessings.’

A young doctor emerged from the front of SG Hospital, trailed by a group of nervous, pleading relatives hoping for a second’s reassurance before he disappeared behind a closed door again. The doctor walked quickly towards his motorbike and sped off through the gates, his face inscrutable. The hospital was located on a busy road near Tilak Nagar, a squat, desecrated building, once a soft pink, now the colour of wet ash. At the back of the hospital, a series of puddles held their daily consignments of used syringes and soiled bandages.

The reception area was crammed with people. Every seat was taken, weary shapes leant against the walls or squatted on the floor, and a large crush surrounded the receptionists. The room smelt of close bodies, damp cloth and something sulphurous that was making its way in through the open doors. On the wall behind the receptionists, a picture of Mahatma Gandhi hung askew, his eyes decorously avoiding the scene below him.

Uma had not been able to speak to either of the receptionists. She asked a porter to point out the way to the ladies’ general wards and followed the direction of his disinterested thumb. The corridor light blinked on and off, sousing the walls with a pale green glow. Through the first open doorway Uma glimpsed the dingy ward, mysterious smears and streaks on the floor, filthy sheets trailing off
the beds. A young girl seated at the entrance to the ward stared up at her with enormous eyes. She walked past the girl, looking at the inhabitants of the beds, seeking out Bhargavi. Torpid gazes, inert forms, sapped spirits: Uma took in the desolate parade of patients, trying to draw as little attention to herself as possible, a woman with good health and an upright bearing.

She walked across to the next ward and saw more faces, degraded and decaying, but not the one she was seeking. At the end of the corridor a dark stairway led to the wards on the upper floors. A ghostly form brushed against her legs as she walked up the stairs, making her cry out. In the near darkness she could make out a family of skeletal cats that seemed to have colonised this part of the hospital. She hurried up the stairs, two at a time, not wanting to touch the banister.

The second floor passage was in darkness too. Grimy rubber mats were strewn across the floor and a number of bodies huddled against the walls. Uma shut her eyes for a few seconds to try to accustom herself to the gloom. She turned into the next ward where, unexpectedly, all the fluorescent lights were working. As she stood uncomfortably between the rows of beds, someone grabbed her wrist.

‘Uma, isn’t it? How did you know she’s here?’

It was the distant cousin for whom Bhargavi had found work in Mahalakshmi Gardens, days after starting there herself. Uma had only met her once and had forgotten her name.

‘She hasn’t been to work for three days and I found out from
amma
that there had been an accident and she was in hospital,’ said Uma.

‘Accident? Accident, my foot,’ said the cousin angrily, still holding on to Uma’s wrist. ‘Come see what those animals have done to her.’

Uma let herself be pulled along the length of the ward. Bhargavi
was in a bed near the far end, her leg in a cast. A bandage covered most of her head and her right eye was a shattered purple bulb.