The Smoke is Rising (27 page)

Jaydev and Susheela turned to each other and smiled awkwardly, as if hating to admit that they were really rather enjoying the film.

‘If we can’t compete economically, at least on the beauty queen front we have no challengers,’ said Jaydev.

‘She looks about fourteen,’ said Susheela. ‘And how is she going to pass her final year exams with all those public appearances she seems to be making?’

‘That will be revealed in the second half. Maybe that tycoon is secretly her tutor.’

At least half the balcony seats were empty but who knew what was happening in the rows below. There was certainly enough lewd whistling during the scenes involving the swimsuit competition.

‘Excuse me please, I need to visit the Gents,’ said Jaydev. ‘These days, it’s getting ridiculous, every couple of hours.’

Susheela smiled at the back of the seat in front of her.

‘Can I get you anything on my way back?’

‘No, thank you.’

A moment later she added: ‘Good luck,’ and then instantly wondered why she had said it.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘No, nothing.’

‘I thought you just wished me luck.’

‘Yes, I think I did. Well, you know the toilets are not always very clean.’

‘One must stiffen one’s resolve.’

‘You know, that is one of the saddest things about India.’

‘What is?’

‘The state of the toilets.’

A strange sound came from Jaydev, something between a snort and a sneeze. His legs grazed against her knees as he walked towards the aisle. Susheela was a little perplexed. She had been entirely serious.

When Uma got off the bus, a long line was slowly filing into the temple premises on the main road.

‘What’s happening?’ she asked a woman.

‘Free meals there twice a day for the next two weeks,’ she said. ‘Some big man has died and his family is making sure he does not rot in hell.’

There was no one she recognised in the queue so Uma stood there, watching the temple authorities maintain order.

The dead man had been widely respected for his philanthropic activities. Every year on Ganesha Habba he organised the distribution of plastic buckets to the needy and during Dasara a mass marriage for poor couples. His sons had chosen to mark his passing
in a manner appropriate to his renown, and food was being distributed at a number of temples in the city during the two-week mourning period.

The deceased’s colleagues at the Society of Mysore Pawnbrokers had taken a half-page advertisement in the
Mysore Evening Sentinel
to highlight his professional achievements. These included formulating the Society’s code of practice and ensuring improved focus on customer service in all member establishments. A full list of his charitable works was also being produced and copies would be bound in his memory at Shivaswamy Printers. A large number of the late gentleman’s clients were unable to express much regret, occupied as they were in the daily moil of trying to reclaim their possessions from his shops. But the man’s sons were determined to continue the public-spirited traditions, regardless of nod or favour.

The queue was shrinking. A photographer from the
Sentinel
arrived at the temple with one of the man’s sons to document the event for the next day’s edition. Inside the temple grounds, a speech ended to much applause.

Uma began walking down the slope. The mud had dried, leaving hard ridges of earth that resisted and then cracked under each step. Suddenly she caught sight of Shankar on the main road. He was standing at the edge of the slope, smoking. She understood why he would not call out to her but why was he watching her? She turned and climbed up the slope, her eardrums pounding. As she approached the top, she realised it was not Shankar, not even a man who looked like him. She spun round quickly and hurried back down the hill, looking in both directions. The sun was setting and there were too many phantoms stalking the pitted hillside that evening.

As the car headed home through the centre of the city, there was a ferocious show of lightning. An avalanche of blue and silver gave Amba Vilas Palace a fantastical silhouette. Inside the car, the ride felt secure and comfortable. There may have been thunder but they could not hear it over the sounds of the
sarod
that came from the car’s speakers.

‘Is this okay for you? I thought you had trouble driving at night,’ said Susheela.

‘Sometimes. There’s hardly any traffic now in the opposite direction, so it’s fine. It’s the oncoming glare that can get difficult.’

None of the traffic lights were working. Jaydev came to a complete stop at each one and then slowly headed forward. This was the hour that the drunks and the reckless chose to take the air of Mysore.

They approached Mahalakshmi Gardens in silence. In front of them the park gates loomed solid and forbidding, locked against tramps and miscreants. The car would be turning into Susheela’s road in less than a couple of minutes.

‘He is taking me home,’ thought Susheela. ‘This man is taking me home.’

As if it was the most normal thing in the world.

Slowly Mala lifted her legs off the bed. As she pushed herself up, she prayed that the bed’s ancient boards would not creak. Her toes touched the cool floor and she stood up. Her tendons began to uncoil. Girish had shut the windows earlier and drawn the flimsy nylon curtains but the room was not in complete darkness. She made her way into the corridor, leaning against the wall, and crept towards the bathroom, her palm brushing against the fissures and boils in the plaster. Once inside the bathroom, lips pursed, she gently closed the door. Her hand groped for the bolt and gradually
began to ease it into place. Without switching the light on, she moved to the washbasin and turned the cold water tap on. She turned to the tap in the wall and turned that on too.

A bruise had formed on her right upper arm like a map of an alien island. There was a clawing burn in her lower abdomen, thrusting up towards her lungs. She moved to the washbasin and rinsed out her mouth. She cupped her hands, repeatedly filled them with water and lowered her face into her palms. Leaving the water to drip down off her face on to her nightie, she switched on the dim light above the mirror but took care to avoid looking at her face.

She then poured water from a bucket into the toilet and brushed the sides of the bowl, making sure it was spotless. Then she flushed the toilet and switched off the light. She turned off the tap in the wall; the water shrank into a steady drip.

She moved to the bathroom door and leant against it. The windows were open and she could feel a breath of cooler air. Outside the cicadas were swallowing the night. She stood by the doors for some minutes. The drip from the tap in the wall was making a low, hollow sound like a distant knock. Beyond the window grill, inky slashes were swaying in the night air. She turned and began to unbolt the doors carefully. It was only then that she realised that her bottom lip was bleeding. She ran her tongue across the split, the metallic sting splicing its way to the back of her throat, wondering if it was Girish’s blood she could taste or her own.

She knew she was incapable of going back into the bedroom so she felt her way down the corridor and into the sitting room. Easing the doors shut, she cast about on the sofa for the remote control. She turned the television on, muting the sound.

It was time for a commercial break: sequinned cocktail dresses on long-limbed Eastern European models; salsa dancers striking poses
on a yacht; acres of hot bubbling cheese; jet skis leaving a trail of iridescent surf in their wake; confetti raining down in casinos; breakdancing teenagers in fluorescent vests; skateboarders on a suspension bridge; shopping trolleys filled with sunglasses; cricket players brandishing mobile phones in limousines; an electric guitar at the bottom of an aquarium; motor racers on a podium spraying champagne in slow motion; exploding MP3 players; enormous yellow peppers cascading over granite kitchen surfaces; candy-coloured shopping bags gliding by on conveyor belts; rows of empty sunloungers; strings of sapphires poised over shimmering clavicles; pretty girls in belted trench coats stepping on to bullet-nosed trains; a four-wheel drive steadily making its way through a war zone; bolts of crimson silk being hurled off skyscrapers; high heels striding across a luxury hotel lobby; a helicopter landing on a high-rise; a python coiling through tangles of jewellery; polo players signalling to each other; a smiling girl holding up a seashell.

The Promenade by Tejasandra Lake was blocked for general traffic in both directions. The only vehicles being allowed into the area belonged to organisers, performers, contractors or security staff involved in the Lake Utsava and the Mysore International Film Festival. The inspections being carried out at either end of the road added to the air of celebratory exclusivity as ID cards and wristbands were flaunted with enthusiasm. To the officious, the bureaucratic and the socially suspicious, it was a celestial gift.

Once the initial rancour and invective had been overcome, the organisation of the lakeside festivities took on an unfaltering momentum. The selection of the film festival jury had been surprisingly undemanding and the coordination of dates had been effortless. The organisers’ strategy of targeting artistic personalities who had not been publicly active for a while had paid rich dividends. The local media were also doing all they could to show their support. The
Mysore Evening Sentinel
was featuring a ‘Countdown to Celebration’ section, crammed with updates on festival highlights, behind-the-scenes exclusives and a tornado of small advertisements.

The Mysore Tourism Authority had been a model of productivity too. The ‘Geneva of the East’ campaign had been rolled out across a number of Tier I and Tier II cities, photographs of an inviting Tejasandra Lake, the Promenade twinkling in the distance, appearing in a variety of magazines. Due to budgetary considerations a television campaign had been rejected, but radio spots had been booked on dozens of stations across the country.

The organisers of the Lake Utsava were intent on projecting an image of Mysore as a centre of elite metropolitan accomplishment,
able to stand up to scrutiny by global trendsetters. The environs of Tejasandra Lake absolutely had to look the part. A phalanx of sweepers, carpenters, electricians and decorators had been drafted in to bring Geneva to South India. Paving stones were scrubbed, lamp posts were repainted and an exceptional sheen was brought to the barriers rising above the lake’s flood defences. A fashionable young artist had been commissioned to produce a mural outside the Museum of Folklore, an avant-garde crypto-tribal conceptualisation of the spirit of Mysore, designed to challenge and energise festivalgoers. The artist was well known for his chronic addiction to a range of illegal substances, and in certain quarters the prospect of his early demise only served to enhance the project’s artistic cachet.

A ramp now led up to a giant platform at the central point of the Promenade. Here the vintage cars would ascend to dazzle in the sun. Giant stone torches were being placed at regular intervals along the lakeside; plants and trees had been hired from garden centres and nurseries across the city to infuse greater colour; and the Mysore Archaeology Museum was being painted a warm ecru. The Utsava’s dance stage was in place and already being filmed as part of a DVD release marking the grand success of the festival. A media enclosure had been set up opposite the front steps of the Anuraag Kalakshetra and technicians were conducting their final tests on the lighting rig that would illuminate the red carpet. Two outside screens had been erected on either end of the Promenade where, weather permitting, the entries in the ‘Panorama: India’s Rising Sun’ section would be shown.

Not far from the Anuraag Kalakshetra a fountain had been wheeled into place, the water spraying out from the apex of a structure resembling a steel samosa. Although not quite able to match Geneva’s Jet d’Eau, according to the Deputy Artistic Director of the Lake Utsava, the fountain added a structural fluidity to the psychology of the urban space.

Not all of the organisers were impressed.

‘Even my grandson can piss higher than that,’ one board member commented.

If these improvements were settling the costume of Tejasandra Lake, the necessary braids, spangles and flounces were being fastened with similar taste and care. A swathe of banners and logos stretched across the arches outside the museums, fell from the windows of the Galleria and fluttered over the rocks that dropped down to the edge of the water. The sponsors of the Lake Utsava and the film festival were naturally given priority in vantage and visibility in order to ensure optimum brand persuasion among the attendees.

Beyond these concerns, the organisers had entrusted the lakeside to G S Anand and his reputable aptitude at squeezing revenue from every square inch of outdoor space. Mr Anand’s company did not disappoint. Everything from plastic cups and paper napkins to the side panels of floats and the huge plasma screens along the Promenade offered up an opportunity to engage in the vibrant commercial hub of India’s eleventh fastest growing small city. Designers at Exospace Media had even managed to install in record speed two ‘time dilation pods’, essentially arcade games enclosed in a plastic sheath, which purported to conduct users on a journey through Mysore thirty years in the future. Those accustomed to G S Anand’s sleights of hand would recognise this for what it was: a tour of shimmering towers and sweeping walkways that served as an ideal backdrop for a flood of product placement.

Advertising was also alive in the mind of Venky Gowda, who had dropped in to have a look at the construction of the HeritageLand stand at the Utsava. As far as Venky was concerned, there was no such thing as premature merchandising and he had personally approved the colour of the HeritageLand dental floss that would be on sale at the festival, along with an exciting array of other HeritageLand products.

The festival organisers were all too aware that the security arrangements would need to be beyond reproach. Senior police personnel had authorised the relevant sub-divisional officers to round up known miscreants, rowdy-sheeters and other objectionable elements in anticipatory custody. A specially trained unit would be responsible for crowd control and the maintenance of law and order on the lake shore. Metal detectors had been installed at all the entry points to the Promenade and CCTV cameras would cover the majority of proceedings. City officials had also enlisted the assistance of the police in conducting background checks on those who had sought licences for stalls at the Utsava handicrafts bazaar. The question of who would bear the cost of the extra policing had yet to be finalised but the police department, commercial sponsors, festival organisers and civic authorities were each quietly confident that it would not be them.

There were only a few days of preparation left. The giant staff of anticipation drummed away steadily, marking time, focusing minds, making reputations. For those involved in the event, the world had shrunk to the size of a strip of asphalt that glittered across a few hundred metres at the edge of the dimpled waters of incomparable Tejasandra Lake.

They were to set off early. The dawn fog was still smothering the garden with its attentions, the lawn a murky opal and the giant bougainvillea smeared into obscurity. Susheela had suggested delaying their departure until the visibility improved but Jaydev had insisted that there would not be a problem. He was right. In less than a quarter of an hour a sluggish sun began to burn through the fog, creating clear channels around the waxen forms of the familiar surroundings. Bamboo Corner was silent, now only a banister of heavy mist curling up around the trees. The
corner house shaped like a violin emerged into the morning like a surrealist’s fantasy and the shapes on Gulmohar Road became distinct, walkers making their way home from the Gardens.

The trip had been Susheela’s idea. The drive would be easy except for perhaps the last fifteen kilometres up through the hills; there she knew Jaydev would take the bends slowly. At the summit there existed a place simply called Viewpoint. There was no temple, no market, no monument; only a handful of benches at the edge of a copse, facing the slope that led back down to the rumpled rug of paddy fields below. At times, on one side of the path that led up to Viewpoint, an old man sat next to a pile of tender coconuts. There was never any sign of how he had managed to get there with his stock or of how he proposed to leave; only his mirage-like presence in front of the eucalyptus trees.

Before dawn Susheela had packed some sandwiches and made a flask of coffee. She had put some extra sachets of sweetener into her handbag. In the basket there went a pack of paper napkins, two plastic cups and stirrers, two apples and a packet of butter biscuits. Jaydev no longer sounded the horn at Susheela’s gates. He preferred to call her mobile and let it ring a couple of times. It was yet another adjustment to the structure of unspoken arrangements that governed their meetings. The rather casual enquiries as to the presence of maids and drivers; the knowing references to crowded places that simply got on one’s nerves; the pointed avoidance of their own neighbourhoods; the search for distant entertainments that would satisfy their apparent craving for a change from the staid routines of their social set. There had been further visits to cinemas in unfamiliar localities. One overcast afternoon they had had coffee at the canteen in the Akaash Astronomical Observatory, a place frequented only by the occasional foreign tourist or visiting academic. Perhaps the oddest rendezvous had been a sudden late-night trip to the twenty-four-hour pharmacy at the J S Desai Hospital.

Jaydev had called Susheela just as the ten o’clock bulletin was ending.

‘Did I disturb you? I’m sorry, I only just realised how late it is.’

‘Not at all. I’m still downstairs.’

‘You will think I’m mad but I wanted to ask you something.’

‘Yes?’

‘I need to go to the medical shop. I’ve run out of some pills that I need to take in the morning.’

‘You’re going there now?’

‘The all-night one at J S Desai. And I was wondering, if it’s not too late for you, if you felt like coming on the drive.’

‘What,
now
?’

‘No, of course you’re right. Please, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what comes into my head sometimes.’

‘No, wait. I’ll come. Can you leave in maybe ten minutes?’

‘You’ll come?’

‘Yes. Why not? Just give me a missed call when you get here.’

‘Of course. I’ll do that.’

They had driven through the silent streets of Mysore, the only other movement being silver dogs streaking into the shadows. The lights had been dim at eye level: a pale yellow bulb hanging over the entrance to a government building; the waning neon sign over a shuttered supermarket; a hint of lustre as the car turned at a junction, its lights reflected in a shop window. But far above their heads the hoardings glowed like gems. White teeth, gleaming car bonnets and gold screens lit up the sky, sending shapeless searchlights into the heart of the city.

‘Is this what it has come to for us? A drive to the medical shop is now an outing?’ Susheela had asked.

‘Aren’t you excited about your sudden tour of Mysore by night? When was the last time you saw the roads this quiet?’

‘Probably that day. The day we first met.’

‘We had met before that day. You just don’t remember.’

‘No, I don’t. Which is a surprise to me. I am normally very good at remembering things like that.’

In the hospital car park, while Jaydev was at the pharmacy, Susheela had looked up at the building’s dark windows. This was the place where Sridhar had spent his last days, endless hours when she had waited, sometimes with her daughters, sometimes alone. The heel had come off her sandal when walking up the entrance ramp that last morning. She had given a ward boy some money to go and find her daughter on the fourth floor. A few hours later her husband had died. But when Jaydev returned to the car, of course, there had been no need to bring all that up.

This morning they were on a proper outing. Susheela opened her window just a fraction and, her crimson shawl tucked snugly around her, narrowed her eyes against the whip of wind on her face. In recent years she had only worn the shawl once. It was what she would normally have termed a bold choice for a woman of her age. But Susheela’s nerve seemed to be firming up these days in matters beyond the merely sartorial.

In less than two hours Jaydev was shifting gears as they negotiated the steep rise to Viewpoint. There were no cars impatiently tailing them and nothing hurtling down in the opposite direction.

The road ended at the top of the hill, in a clearing marked by a faded white line. Jaydev got out of the car and walked around to Susheela’s side. He held the door open for her, the expression on his face deliberately purposeless. As Susheela stood up, the wind picked up, ruckling her sari and sending a plastic bag careening through the trees and over the edge.

‘See, in any beauty spot, even if there is not a soul about, you will still find some filth,’ she said. ‘That is what people here do.’

Jaydev shut the door, took the basket from Susheela and looked around. There was no sign of the coconut seller. The only other vehicle was a dirty motorbike a few feet away.

‘Which way?’ he asked.

‘If we go down this small path, there are some benches that face the valley.’

Susheela walked into the shade of the copse, where the light dimmed to the green of old bottles and the chill escaped out of the grooves in the bark. The path led through clumps of sweet violets and dense bushes of angel’s trumpets, hanging their heads in some unknowable shame. The ground was uneven so she stepped carefully, hearing the similarly cautious tread of Jaydev behind her. Above their heads there was an occasional whisper, caught only by the woody shoots on the highest boughs. Neither of them spoke until the trees had thinned out and they were back on the open hilltop, the sun bold again. In front of them five benches stood in an arc facing the glorious drop.