The Smoke is Rising (19 page)

The next day was a Saturday and Girish had left the house early. The morning hours seemed to stretch indefinitely like acres of molten tar. Mala stood in the doorway, arms folded tightly against her chest. The hot air around her throbbed like a heartbeat and the leaves overhead were engaged in a sly susurration. It was sure to rain. She had brought the clothes in earlier and they now sat in neat ironed piles on their bed: Girish’s handkerchiefs, socks, short-sleeved casual shirts, short-sleeved formal shirts, long-sleeved casual shirts, long-sleeved formal shirts, work trousers, casual trousers, vests, underwear, long
kurtas
, short
kurtas
and pyjamas. Her own petticoats and saris she would do later. The sky gradually began to darken. An autorickshaw piled high with gas cylinders blocked one end of the narrow lane. Goats daintily stepped past
the vehicle, guided by the deep guttural ‘uhhhnnnhuh’ of their herder, a wiry young girl in a faded
salwar kameez
. As the goats approached, Mala became aware of the time and her pulse quickened. Girish would be home soon.

She went back into the house and the sudden darkness made her stop. The room only had two tiny windows covered in steel mesh, which both looked out on to their neighbour’s sagging brick wall. At times Mala thought that she was beginning to shrink into this carapace of a room, that one day her mother or her sister would arrive to find her lying in the dust outside, enclosed in this shell along with the Rexine sofa set and her mother-in-law’s Air India Maharajas. She turned the television on, thought better of it, switched it off, before turning it on and then off one more time. She sat down at the dining table and listened for sounds of Girish’s return.

She did not have long to wait before she heard the fading thrum of his motorbike in the lane. She stood up at once and went to the kitchen, where she listened for further sounds. Her relationship with her husband was increasingly managed by aural concentration, an association mediated by thumps, creaks and knocks. She was fiercely attentive to clues left by his footsteps, the pitch at which he cleared his throat, the rustling of newspapers and, in particular, the way in which he called out her name.

‘Maa-laa.’

Or ‘Ma-la
aa
,’ with a slight lilt at the end.

Or ‘
Mah-
la.’

Or ‘Ma-luh,’ quickly exhaled.

These divinations had become a vital mechanism of governance for her. Sometimes she would stand in the kitchen while Girish was asleep trying to foresee his mood when he woke up. Rasping snores, repeated creaks of the bed frame, a gentle wheeze followed by a whistle of breath: they were all drawn into her computations.
She had become an expert at eliminating the sounds of her own breathing lest she miss some vital sign from the man lying on the bed in his checked pyjama and white vest. Her strategy was simple. She had to adapt her conduct so that no part of it could be perceived as a brazen challenge. Yet she needed to gather information and this was provided by the wholly unremarkable soundtrack to Girish’s quotidian movements. Of course her prognoses were hardly foolproof. The sound of his shoes hitting the back of the cupboard was not always the sign of a gnarled frustration; his conversations with the Prabhakar boys, who were playing badminton in the lane, did not always mean that he would be charming for the rest of the evening. But generally a connoisseur could tell.

There were other subtle signs to look out for too. How long he spent in the bathroom shaving, whether he shut and bolted the door or not after he returned from work, the number of times he stepped into the backyard to answer calls on his mobile phone. Every day Mala added to her cache of intelligence. Sound administration required it of her and habit only served to reinforce the practice.

As Mala stood in the kitchen, she now listened for sounds from the bathroom. She heard the light being switched on and the slopping of water on the concrete floor as Girish washed his hands and feet. She began to get lunch ready, making sure there was no water on the steel plate and that the cabbage was piping hot. She laid the food on the table and waited by the window, her left heel automatically rubbing against her right ankle.

Girish walked into the kitchen and sat at the table. A crow had made its way on to the kitchen windowsill and was flapping against the frame:
tok tok.

‘Chase that thing away. It’ll shit all over the window as usual.’

Mala shooed away the bird, knocking on the window and
breathing a sigh, relieved that he had spoken. Her mood lifted and she shut the window with a smart click of the latch. Spots of rain had begun to appear on the glass.

She moved to the table and began to spoon rice on to Girish’s plate.

‘Stop.’

Girish surveyed the rice and looked up at Mala. Her hand hovered over the bowl as she stared at the rice, its steam unfurling upwards. Her eyes turned towards Girish.

‘Look at the rice. Is this how you like it? Dry, like sand?’

Mala put the spoon down.

‘Tell me. Is this what you eat?’

The rain was falling much harder now, little eddies forming against the window.

‘Sit.’

Girish had stood up and pushed his chair back. Mala looked at him, her calculations thrown into confusion, her ciphers in disarray.

‘Sit. Why don’t you sit?’ Girish offered her his seat.

Mala sank into the chair and looked at the rice on the plate again. Three little mounds in a huddle, all more or less the same size.

Girish carefully rolled up his right sleeve and sank his fingers into the rice in the bowl. He scooped up some rice and smeared it across the top of Mala’s head, working it into her parting with his thumb. The hand returned with more rice, slapping it on to her crown, kneading it into her hair, daubing the sides of her head with yet more rice. Mala’s scalp tightened with fear. The heat from the rice made her face itch. Her eyes were firmly shut as she gripped the sides of the chair. Girish’s hand kept returning. She could feel its weight, its heat, its motion. Bile flooded her mouth as she felt the steely edge of his ring graze her forehead. She gasped when a hot surge spread in her lap and warm liquid began to trickle down
her legs and over her ankles. She heard Girish put the
sambar
pot down on the table and carefully wash his hands at the kitchen sink. There was a thud on the kitchen window before he walked out of the room.

Mala stared down at the puddle of
sambar
on the floor. There were little pieces of onion glistening in her lap like jewels. Somewhere a scooter wouldn’t start, the engine hawking repeatedly. A clod of rice fell to the floor over her shoulder and landed behind her chair. Her sari began to weigh down on her lap as the
sambar
cooled, the cotton clinging to the tops of her thighs. Outside, the rain had turned into a fine mizzle. Finally, after a couple of renewed efforts, the scooter started and roared away.

The editor of the
Mysore Evening Sentinel
was a quiet man. His face displayed a transcendental serenity, with eyes that seemed permanently half closed and a moustache that declared its maturity like a handsome banyan tree. His staff in the newspaper’s offices on MG Road read an array of subtle signals into his silences, and over time endowed him with the powers of a mind reader, a clairvoyant and a skilled agony aunt. While in private he would probably have admitted that he was deficient in all of these areas, there was no doubt that in one field he was a true master: leaning back, keeping his ears open and letting warring parties fling prodigious amounts of mud at each other in his presence.

In the course of his many years in the business of local news, he had observed an MLA threaten an Assembly colleague with a bicycle chain; seen the former chairman of the Mysore Regeneration Council slapped by his mistress in a branch of the Canara Bank; and been witness to a number of undignified scenes at the
tahsildar’s
office. A colourful version of these developments inevitably made it to the front page of the
Sentinel
. The editor’s finest hour had come a short while after the capture of notorious serial killer Ratpoison Revathi in a marriage hall in Hunsur. The
Sentinel
website broke the news as a world exclusive and that evening’s paper edition came with a pull-out supplement of India’s most feared lady mass murderers.

The latest public spat attracting the attention of the
Sentinel’s
journalists concerned the organisers of the first Mysore International Film Festival. The editor had first been alerted to some possible discord when he had noticed the tension between the artistic and programming directors of the festival at a publicity
event. As soon as the press conference was over, they each moved to a different section of the room and appeared to be trying to attract an audience of sympathetic supporters. The following morning, Faiza Jaleel was sent to wait outside the Sri Sri Srikantaiah Memorial Hall where the festival’s committee was meeting for further deliberations. While the reporters of the
Sentinel
had on occasion been accused of shoddy journalism, wanton sensationalism and poor grammar, they had never been known to shy away from the rigours of endless vigils in the corridors of public buildings.

The stated aim of the film festival’s committee was to broaden audience participation in non-commercial forms of cinema and to provide a holistic view of all aspects of the cinematic process. The programme would include the finest art-house offerings in English, Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Bengali and Odia. A special section on digital films and new media had been mooted but these ambitions were hurriedly thrust aside. It was decided that this particular festival did not aspire to screenings of trendy lesbian romps in Colaba apartments, shot on handheld cameras by returned NRIs trying to make a splash.

Previous discussions had focused on whether the international aspect of the festival should be dropped, given that participation from non-Indian film-makers appeared to be limited to a Maoist comedy from Nepal and a five-hour biopic made by an Iranian resident of Gokulam. Luckily there was one more foreign entry in due course: a Hungarian director’s retelling of the story of the Sirens.

In the offices of the
Sentinel
, a clearer picture of the Supervisory Committee’s difficulties was emerging. On strict condition of anonymity, a reliable source on the Committee had stated that the trouble began at a cocktail party when the artistic director had criticised the programming director’s approach as overly
commercial. Unfortunately the phrase used was ‘shameless Bollywood whore’ and it had been relayed, unmitigated, to the programming director. The injured gentleman had retaliated via a smear campaign accusing the artistic director of nepotism and corruption: the latter’s wife had written the script for one of the films in contention for the closing night gala. Naturally the artistic director, a film historian of some repute, was incensed and had immediately called on his allies on the various sub-committees for their unqualified support. Further accusations and insinuations emerged over the next few months, piquant accounts in the
Sentinel
marking their passage.

The timing of the current difficulties was calamitous as considerable progress had already been made. The Principal Secretary’s office at the Department of Culture had approved its participation some time ago and communications with the Directorate of Film Festivals were at an advanced stage. The chief sponsors had been confirmed as a mobile phone company and the state’s largest producers of metal casings for electronic equipment.

Matters would probably have deteriorated further without the lucky intervention of a Singapore-based private bank, which agreed to step in as an additional main sponsor. The unexpected availability of further funds seemed to achieve a sudden convergence in the artistic vision of the two camps. In a matter of days, email subject headings became more optimistic, the event’s organisers were given concrete instructions and a number of press events were hastily arranged.

It was decided that the festival opening gala would be held at the Anuraag Kalakshetra in December, at the height of the tourist season. The film chosen as the first screening was billed as a ‘futuristic
jehadi
chamber drama’ made by a prominent Malayali director who was apparently returning to form. As the festival took shape and publicity grew, a renaissance began to take place among
the city’s cultural stewards. Moribund projects were steered back to drawing boards, new funding applications were completed and a whole series of suggestions made themselves known on the letters page of the
Sentinel
. A novel exhilaration spread even to the Mysore Tourism Authority. Further soul-searching at Authority meetings had not yielded a fitting alternative to the ‘Geneva of the East’ theme; now the film festival’s celebration of cinema at the edge of Tejasandra Lake seemed a brilliant opportunity to showcase the whole of Mysore in a jubilant lakeside setting.

A few weeks later the Authority called a press conference of its own where, in rhapsodic association with its commercial partners, it announced that Mysore’s first Lake Utsava would take place on the Tejasandra Promenade, the day after the film festival’s opening gala. A fitting prelude to the construction of HeritageLand, the Utsava would present a diverse selection of the city’s talents along the lake shore, planting exhibitions of the work of local artists next to a Carnatic music tent, displays of street theatre alongside a parade of vintage cars. A dance stage featuring exponents of
bharatanatyam
and
kuchipudi
, a yoga fair, the obligatory food
mela
and a handicrafts bazaar would all be incorporated into the revelries.

The timetable was tight and the countdown had begun. Nominations to various new committees were finalised; site inspections were made; stakeholders, willing or not, were identified. The sap of a certain section of Mysore society began to spit and swirl through channels formerly clogged by indecision and civic torpor. HeritageLand or not, Mysore was preparing to face the world.

The first sprigs of intimacy revealed themselves in code, arrangements that both Jaydev and Susheela knew were crucial but which were never discussed. Susheela was taken aback to hear his voice
the first time that he called, her surprise feathered by an enigmatic thrill. In the course of that first phone call, Jaydev did not say how he had got her number or on what pretext. But she had no doubt that the enquiry would have been made with a stolid discretion. That phone call had led to a few others, all made and received with the ease of a casual friendship but, for Susheela at any rate, ringed with the shards of a jagged anticipation. They did not speak of why they did not meet, despite living only fifteen minutes away. Their conversations took form around roomy imagined recesses that could accommodate any number of quirks of conduct or confession.

As the conversations unspooled, Susheela was surprised to find herself the target of friendly accusations and the butt of the most obvious jokes. It was an attention that was new, distracting and delicious. When Jaydev called, Susheela went into her bedroom, shut the door and settled onto the divan facing the windows. She was sure that Uma was completely uninterested in her phone calls but why take a chance? It was, she knew, ridiculous to even be thinking of risks or chances; her conversations with a seventy-year-old retired lawyer should concern absolutely no one else.

What was most surprising to Susheela was the number of conversations that they unlocked. She had not realised that she had that much to say. But the anecdotes and observations plunged out, a spontaneous flow that at first embarrassed her and then invigorated her. She found herself talking about Sridhar with an aching avidity, realising that some need to give voice to their life together had come fizzing up to the surface. Jaydev seemed genuinely interested in a man he would never meet and long-forgotten events began to lodge themselves in Susheela’s ken from a distant space.

‘After so many years of being together, I never thought about what it would be like to live without him. Even when he was very
ill and we knew he would not survive, I didn’t think about what it would be like. I was just too busy, there was always something to organise or I felt that I had to try and keep his spirits up.’

‘And then it hits you weeks or months after they have gone.’

‘Exactly. But I should have tried to be more mentally prepared; it’s my own fault in a way. My daughter Priyanka always says that I have no imagination and she’s probably right.’

‘But how can you imagine loss, I mean
real
loss, until you experience it?’

‘I don’t know. But I just can’t get away from the feeling that there must have been something I could have done to be better prepared.’

On another occasion she described to Jaydev those first tentative moments in her married life when she and Sridhar were still trying to map each other’s emotional contours. Two months after their marriage, Sridhar had been transferred to Bhopal, the first in a series of moves that would eventually lead him to the position of Director of Finance for the whole of House of Govind. They had arrived at the staff quarters, only to be informed by the caretaker that part of the ceiling had collapsed in the bungalow assigned to them. They had been quite prepared to spend a few weeks in the company guesthouse until the house was rendered habitable again. But Mr Mishra, Sridhar’s new boss, had been adamant that he would not commission such an injustice. A bulky man with glistening hair that looked like it had been squeezed out of a tube in little curlicues on to his head, he had insisted that the couple stay with him and his wife; otherwise he would never be able to forgive himself. Mrs Mishra had been less welcoming. A tall, joyless woman, like a length of driftwood wrapped in a silk sari, she had coldly fixed her gaze on the fragments of ceiling plaster while her husband put his arm around Sridhar’s shoulder and ushered him towards a waiting Ambassador.

Sridhar and Susheela reluctantly spent six weeks staying with the Mishras. Any attempt at negotiating a passage to the company guesthouse was met by a jovial but solid admonishment from Mr Mishra and a disbelieving snort from his wife. It was a strange and unexpected beginning to their married life. Susheela’s mornings were spent trying unsuccessfully to engage Mrs Mishra in conversation or following the cook around the enormous kitchen while he tried to shake her off.

In the afternoons Mrs Mishra went to her kitty parties, to which Susheela was pointedly not invited. She would lie on the bed in the spare room, under the hypnotic rotations of the ceiling fan, looking at the Constable print on the wall and listening to the sounds of Mrs Mishra’s departure: sharp instructions to the maid, the turn of the lock in the fridge, the padlock being clipped into the telephone dial, the drawing of the curtains in the sitting room against the afternoon glare and the clicking of her heels on the mosaic floor towards the front door.

The evenings were only slightly better. The two couples would engage in a disjointed quadrille on the veranda, Mr Mishra encouraging Sridhar to join him in ‘a bit of one’s favourite poison’ while Mrs Mishra stared grimly at the receding level of whiskey in the bottle. In between frenetic periods of warding off mosquitoes, Susheela would disappear into long reveries that drew her into reassuring tableaux of life as a normal newly married couple. Sridhar would end the evening lavishly drunk, having attempted to keep up with Mr Mishra in his enthusiastic consumption and unintelligible career advice. As the darkness around them grew into a star-strewn shroud, the boy would bring plate after plate of snacks that went untouched.

After the couples had retired for the night, Sridhar would apologise for their predicament, promising that if the ceiling was not fixed in a week, he would quit his job and they would leave
Bhopal for good. Susheela would nod distractedly, listening to the telltale pitch of the voices that could be heard on the other side of the bedroom wall: Mr Mishra’s wheezing explanations that sounded like a broken harmonium and the snapping of sun-baked twigs that could only be Mrs Mishra’s clipped retorts.