The Smoke is Rising (12 page)

‘I mean, especially for senior citizens, it is like we don’t exist. We can’t cross these crazy roads, we can’t barge into queues like youngsters, we can’t endlessly ask people to do things without going mad,’ said Susheela.

The car was approaching Mahalakshmi Gardens, silent at this time of the afternoon.

Susheela laughed. ‘I’m sorry. You have been kind enough to give me a lift and here I am, turning into one of those crazy raving people. It’s right at the end of this road.’

‘Not at all. I think speaking one’s mind is one of the privileges of getting old. Let’s face it, there aren’t too many others,’ said Jaydev.

Susheela smiled. The
mali
had come running to open the gate and the car pulled in to the driveway. Susheela got out of the car and noticed that the driver was still not back. She began to wonder whether something serious had happened.

She leant into the car and said, ‘I really don’t know how to thank you. Please come inside for some coffee?’

‘No, thank you. Maybe some other time. I also need to get home.’

Susheela stood in the doorway, waving as Jaydev reversed out of the gates. As she turned to go inside the house, her throat felt inflamed and her head still ached. All she wanted to do was wash the grime off her body and lie down until the night air brought some relief.

Girish could hear the rasp of drawers being pulled open in the bedroom. There was a clang as the door of the metal cupboard swung open and hit the corner of a chair. The room fell silent for a
few moments before he heard the muffled sigh of something being lifted on to the bed. The cupboard door clicked back into place and the drawers were eased back with a jiggle. Mala emerged from the bedroom, a few loose strands of hair hanging limply by the sides of her face. Her forehead and nose glistened and a flush was forming on the skin between her collarbones, like a wet stain under a piece of muslin.

‘Some electricity man had come here to cut the supply. He said we hadn’t paid the bill,’ she said, leaning against the door.

‘I thought you said you had paid it.’

‘I did pay it. I told him that but I couldn’t find the receipt. That’s what I was looking for just now. He said he’s coming back later.’

‘That would be a great thing, no? The regional deputy chief of customer relations for electricity has not paid his own bill and so his current is cut.’

‘I told you, I
have
paid it. I just need to find the receipt. If they didn’t have such useless records, they would know that I have paid it.’

‘You better find it before he comes back.’

‘I know that.’

‘I am not going to bother calling someone up to sort all this out at the office, if that’s what you’re expecting.’

‘I was looking for it just now. I’ll find it.’

Mala sat down next to Girish and added as an afterthought: ‘If you are so worried about it all, maybe next time you should pay it yourself and not leave everything to me.’

Her hand lay on the waxy surface of the sofa, fingers curled upwards. Girish began to press down on them with his hand. He continued to look straight ahead; only a slight spasm in his jaw hinting at any effort. The heel of his hand crushed her fingers, a commanding force bearing down through the heft of his neck and shoulder.

Mala flinched.

‘No, stop it, please. That’s really hurting.’

Girish grabbed her hand and began to force it upwards. Mala’s fingers were trapped in a ridge of pain and her wrist began to tremble under the strain.

‘What are you doing? Stop it.’ Mala wrenched her hand away, pushing herself off the sofa.

Girish stood up.

The blow, when it came, was definitive. The impact of the slap loosened a tooth, rattled the glass cabinet doors, cracked the paving stones by the gate, split the trunk of an ancient tamarind tree in the lane outside, sent an alley dog skittering away in terror, collapsed the humpback bridge that led to the main road and caused a lone cold wave to begin rising over the surface of distant Tejasandra Lake.

T
HE senior executives of the Mysore Tourism Authority (MTA) were worried. Their critics in the local and trade press were becoming increasingly vocal.

‘We need dynamic individuals who will take resolute action to rescue our ailing tourism industry,’ thundered a front page article in the
Mysore Evening Sentinel.

A leading hotel owner, interviewed at a travel fair, had been more blunt: ‘This band of baboons simply moves around from one luxury hotel to another, enjoying free hospitality and talking nonsense at their good-for-nothing events. I can tell you one thing, they are most certainly not welcome at my hotel.’

The information from associations of tour operators, travel agents and hotel owners was not encouraging. A survey across Tier I and Tier II cities by a market analysis firm showed a disquieting ignorance of Mysore’s main attractions, coupled with a worrying lack of interest. There was no doubt that serious efforts would have to be made to enhance the city’s lustre. The momentum had to build since the beginning of construction at HeritageLand kept slipping every few months.

The MTA quickly rejected any kind of international onslaught. The focus quite clearly needed to be the Indian market, as large numbers of domestic tourists were travelling further and more frequently, with apparently ever-increasing holiday budgets. In any case, as far as overseas tourists were concerned, overtures could be made at a later stage for Mysore’s prominent inclusion in the Ministry of Tourism’s Incredible India campaign.

The MTA, not known for its radical promotional strategies, had at first decided to play it safe. It seemed that the most logical step would be to recruit a popular Hindi film personality to become Mysore’s brand ambassador. An immediate issue had been the inability to identify a high- or medium-profile star with any connection to Mysore or its environs. A number of board members also began to question whether a close association with a major star would really capture the appeal of Brand Mysore. After all, if remunerated adequately, these luminaries were willing to lend their faces to everything from prickly heat powder to motorcycle engine oil.

The next suggestion was to approach reformed rowdy-sheeter and rising Kannada cine star, Nuclear Thimma, to represent Mysore. His hit songs were causing a sensation among the key youth demographic in South India and he had lived for many years opposite a mutton stall just yards from Mysore Junction. But he simply did not have the required national allure and his unfortunate past was an insurmountable obstacle. The idea was scrapped.

The board of executives decided that specialist assistance was required and set up a number of meetings with advertising agencies and brand consultants. A full briefing was sent out to the relevant representatives, pitches were prepared and the business of illuminating Mysore began in earnest. The ideas put forward by the various creative departments ranged from the inane to the fantastical, a fact that did little to achieve consensus among the members of the MTA’s board of executives. The elephant in the room was of course the many delays in the development of HeritageLand, a subject that was taboo in this sensitive congregation, many of whom felt faint at the mere thought of offending Venky Gowda.

After another round of meetings at various heritage properties, it was agreed that the proposal that offended the least number of
people was the ‘Geneva of the East’ campaign. A team of consultants had drawn on Tejasandra Lake for inspiration and found that it had the potential to transform Mysore into a simulacrum of the Swiss city. The campaign would centre on the great range of attractions around the lake, from the Anuraag Kalakshetra and the museums at one end of the lake’s shore to the Galleria’s upmarket shops and restaurants at the other. Given the enduring affection for Switzerland among the Indian middle classes, brought up on a surfeit of films featuring chiffon-clad heroines on Alpine slopes, the campaign was certain to evoke the perfect melange of old-world sophistication and a suitably aspirational aesthetic. City officials on the board assured their colleagues that there would be a rapid improvement in basic services around the lake, including drainage and waste collection, in order to give credence to the key aims of the campaign.

Support for the ‘Geneva of the East’ campaign at the MTA was far from universal. A number of board members expressed their reservations in bald terms. One of the more pessimistic views was that it would simply invite ridicule and contempt, succeeding only in singling Mysore out as a city of deluded imbeciles. Another detractor felt that the campaign reeked of colonial sycophancy. He was later compelled to add that he was perfectly aware that Switzerland had not been in possession of any colonies and that he was gravely disappointed that some of his colleagues could not grasp simple critical concepts.

A further series of meetings were called in an attempt to make a final decision. As discussions continued, one fact became clear: the pulsing need for HeritageLand was being felt more keenly than ever.

The jets of water from the sprinklers at the Mysore Regency Hotel shot up like silver streamers on the expansive front lawn. The sprinklers were fed by an enormous reserve tank, which in turn
drew upon one of two bore wells on the property. A third had run dry a few years ago. Mysore’s public water supply was somewhat unreliable even at the height of the rainy season, so this year, after five dry months, expectations were not great. In any case, Mysore’s custodians of luxe were accustomed to navigating their way around the shortcomings of the municipal authorities. The hotel often purchased water from private suppliers and the results were more than satisfactory. A healthy thicket of palms by the main gate provided the security guards with some shade. On the borders below the wide verandas the camellias were flourishing, and despite the prolonged summer their leaves had retained their imperial gloss.

The driveway curved around the front lawn and stopped at the grand Indo-Saracenic foyer. A turbaned doorman opened car doors to allow visitors to walk up the mosaic steps towards the front desk, burnished with furniture wax and the best hospitality training. The mahogany writing desk in a corner of the room was said to be a replica of the one owned by Sethu Lakshmi Bayi, Maharani of Travancore. The windows next to the reception hardly let in any light as they were almost covered by a lunatic cascade of allamanda vines that dropped to the ground outside. The reception area was lit by the amber cups of a Hyderabadi chandelier, their glow reflected in the shards of mirror that studded the occasional tables. On the other side of the front desk, a set of brass doors led to the veranda bar, the Burra Peg.

The hotel had always been popular with British and French tourists, and these days select Russian and Chinese guests too. Security had recently been tightened and cars were inspected with particular care when the occupants were young men displaying an unnatural intensity. On most Saturday evenings during auspicious months a white marquee would be hoisted up over the lawn, strings of milky lights looped between its poles. A happy couple would accept the assembled company’s best wishes, drifting
around the tables covered in stiff alabaster damask and strewn with miniature candles and champagne roses. At a given moment, the band would start up in a riot of congratulatory blasts, and a few moments later the hotel switchboard would be jammed with calls from furious hotel guests.

A few discreetly placed paving stones skirted around the edges of the front lawn to the staff entrance, located at the back of the hotel and screened off by an imposing bamboo. Here the ravages of the summer were more apparent. Ashen tufts on the ground in front of the laundry had been abandoned to their fate. The hydrangeas lining the unloading bay were globes of mauve dust waiting for a rare gust to blow them apart.

Mala looked at her watch as she approached the staff entrance. She was slightly early so she stood in the shade of the bamboo for a few seconds, wiping the back of her neck with a handkerchief.

Inside the hotel, in a small office behind the front desk, the other two employees of the accounts department were already at work. Mr Tanveer was the ‘in-charge’, a responsibility he bore with all due solemnity. Given to bouts of pronounced anxiety, his predisposition was given away by the habitual expression on his face, that of a man who had just fallen down a well. He tried, at least at the outset, to take a generous view of his friends and colleagues but found that his confidence was seldom rewarded, a fact that often instigated a theological enquiry: why had God created man, if not to disappoint Mr Tanveer? Apart from his unyielding commitment to his duties, he was also known for the startling array of items he carried in the pockets of his trousers. A hole punch, a self-help book, an unripe mango and a spanner had all been produced, at one time or another, from those seemingly bottomless repositories.

Opposite Mr Tanveer sat Shipra, originally from Mumbai, noted at work for her large hands, which she liked to adorn with numerous turquoise rings.

‘Shipraji, did you check those figures from yesterday? What had that girl done?’ asked Mr Tanveer, his head suddenly shooting up.

‘No idea, sir. Here, I have redone part of the report but should I finish the whole thing?’

‘No, can you speak to her when she comes in and kindly do the needful? Try and make her understand again what has to be done and ask her to finish it by business close.’

‘Okay sir, surely I’ll do that.’

Mr Tanveer sighed, his expression tightening into even greater distress.

‘You know, this is what happens when people get jobs through influence. After that they can just make merry but it all falls on someone else’s head,’ he said.

‘Is she from some big-shot family?’

‘No no, she is from some small, godforsaken place, but her brother-in-law is that Anand.’

‘Which Anand?’

‘G S Anand.’

‘Which Anand?’

‘What which-Anand which-Anand, I’m telling you, no? That fellow who owns Exospace.’

‘Oh I see.’ Shipra still looked blank.

‘Yes. So he asked our big man to give this girl a position and now they have put her here. Our misfortune.’

‘There are so many capable people, sir, with no hope of getting a job and look here.’

‘I know. What can you do?’

Shipra adjusted one of her rings.

‘But sir, maybe she’ll learn. You never know.’

Mr Tanveer’s head shot up again: ‘Shipraji, she will not learn. That much I know.’

Mala’s parents had always agreed that the important thing was for her to graduate. The field of study was not of great importance as, it had to be admitted, she had never shown a strong aptitude in any particular area. The point was that a degree was essential for any kind of economic independence, and of course, even married women needed to be economically independent these days. A modest donation had enabled her to secure a place at the private RMV College. Rather surprisingly, a marriage proposal had arrived while she was still in the second year of her commerce degree. The young man in question was, however, a translator at a small publishing house and probably did not earn enough to support himself, let alone a family.

Rukmini had refused to even consider the offer. As far as possible, she was determined not to condemn her daughters to a life of the constant mental arithmetic that came with paring and pruning the budget. Babu had reached the same conclusion too, although perhaps swayed by a different consideration: the output of the publishing house in question seemed limited mainly to a tawdry range of detective novels set in the red-light districts of Chennai. In any case, Mala needed to complete her degree; then the quest for a husband could begin in earnest.

Mala’s days at RMV College seemed to sound a knell towards an indeterminate future. She would wake each morning at half past five, bathe, light the two small
ghee
lamps in front of the picture of Ganesh and pray solidly for half an hour. Before leaving for college she would engage in a couple of hours of consolidation, going over the previous day’s lectures and diligently asterisking key points with an encircled ‘NB’. Later she would arrive at the wrought-iron gates of the college, her rucksack crammed with texts on corporate accounting and marketing principles, her notebooks colour-coded and covered with the incontinent loops of her handwriting. In the last month before examinations she would sit on the back steps of
the house in the tawny haze of early morning, her lips mouthing the knowledge that had to be jammed into her brain, a bowl of almonds soaked in milk cradled in her lap.