The Smoke is Rising (9 page)

According to Mohit Joshi’s profile he was now based in c, in charge of IT systems for a finance company. There he was posing in front of a fountain on Sentosa Island with his fat wife and lumpy kids. He had apparently decided that he was of American stock. His latest post began: ‘Hey wassup dudes! Howsit hanging?!’ This was from a man who had not left Firozabad until he was nineteen. Mohit’s friends on the website seemed to be similarly
deluded simpletons, fleshy calves emerging from khaki shorts at various recreational locales.

A few weeks ago, Girish had been surprised to discover that Abhijit Dutta was now some big-shot television producer in Delhi. In fact, Girish had only thought of looking him up online when his name had flashed up on the credits of a programme on Star One. In a bored moment Girish had wanted confirmation, and Abhijit had popped up in at least twenty-five pages of Google hits. He had certainly moved on from the affable but nondescript entity he had been at university.

Girish’s recollections of his time at university always fixed him at the centre of a charismatic group with a keen sense of purpose. He had chosen to go to a well-regarded college, part of Delhi University, wanting to escape the reach of his provincial background. But once settled in his cheerless shared room in the men’s hostel, surges of panic had begun to break over him. Faced by the adamant indifference of college cliques, sequestered in an alien city, for the first time he had cause to question his assumed route to success.

Some months later, a more senior student had come to Girish’s rescue, spotting him at a debating society meeting. A final year mathematician, active in student politics, he had begun shepherding Girish to meetings and rallies, gabbling into his face every time a local party bigwig made an appearance on campus. At first Girish had gratefully tailed his new mentor, hugely relieved at this turn of events. The appearance of energetic activity that marked out the student politicians gave him an identity that he craved, in the face of the wealthier and more confident undergraduates who snaked around the campus. They were able to procure first day, first show balcony tickets at any cinema and tease out knowing laughter from girls in bright
churidars
at the local eateries. Girish had come to take his academic excellence for granted and needed some other insignia in that unfamiliar new world.

In time, he had become more actively involved in student politics, persuaded by his new circle that his contribution would be essential. He knew he could speak well (or, as he preferred, ‘orate’) and it was the admiration and exhortations of his associates, rather than any natural ambition or ideology, that was the impetus to his political activities. He began by absorbing the methods of the student union apparatchiks. The murky patterns of patronage and intimidation practised by the mainstream parties were reflected within the student union factions, abetting the rise of a number of muscular political personalities on campus. A student organisation affiliated to a major party would identify particular colleges where block votes could easily be delivered. It would then attempt to manipulate admissions procedures there to ensure that efficient student campaigners would gain entry to the college.

The political causes espoused at these colleges were becoming increasingly circumscribed: agitation for the reversal of college disciplinary sanctions against a student union official; a forced boycott of lectures following the announcement of inopportune union election dates; and protests demanding the release of an election candidate, arrested for unlawful possession of firearms. Girish quickly came to understand the nature of these operations but was untroubled by their complexion or by the alternate voices within the student community calling for a union clean up. The practice of politics was dirty and there was little to be gained from being blind to that fact. Girish was now speaking eloquently before appreciative audiences, was involved in strategy meetings and writing speeches for campus heavyweights. This was the real draw.

In Girish’s final year, rumblings began to sound that the government was finally going to implement the recommendations of the Mandal Commission: the introduction of quotas for ‘backward’ classes for recruitment to public sector jobs and admission to government universities. The proposed extension of the state’s
affirmative action policies meant that almost half of all government jobs and university places were to be reserved for members of lower castes. It did not take long for the college student body’s position to become clear, dominated as it was by upper castes. The organisations on campus were, however, getting mixed signals from the major political parties, who were unsure where to nail their colours, still debating whether the proposals amounted only to inconsequential government bluster. In a change from the usual internal politicking, rival student organisations began to come together to protest against the Mandal recommendations, convinced that upper caste youth were being dispossessed of the opportunities that were available to them.

Girish suddenly found himself in a widening fissure, a situation that demanded action. His participation thus far had seemed almost abstract, his interests lying in the execution rather than in the achievement. Now as demonstrations and walk-outs began to gather momentum across North Indian universities, Girish and his peers were called upon to articulate a very specific opposition to this new wave of social reconstruction.

Girish had always known that as a Brahmin of limited means, he would have to be the product of his own diligence and resourcefulness. This had never been a concern as he was secure in his assessment of his academic abilities and had begun to believe in the mantra of merit and efficiency that would finally open doors in a secular, democratic India. Caste was not a factor that needed to feature in these calculations. Its natural habitat was the remote feudal dust plains and tribal thickets of a different modernity. For Girish, caste had become a personal matter, a private cultural identity bound up only with the desultory practice of rituals in the kitchen and the
pooja
room.

But the shifting configurations of state patronage meant that his caste identity had reared up in a public arena to make him feel
that his future was under assault. High levels of caste-based reservations had existed for years in South India but his awareness of them had been dim. It was only now that his consciousness snagged on the jagged tip of the protests erupting all around him. The student agitation in a number of North Indian cities was becoming increasingly violent. In Delhi a group of students from Girish’s college had tried to barricade parts of Race Course Road and Kemal Ataturk Road, both points a short distance from the Prime Minister’s official residence. Another group had attacked a police station in Moti Bagh, reports of arrests of students and custodial brutality having made their way back to the campus. This new realm of action was a jurisdiction too far for Girish, the supercilious wordsmith: he had never conceived of a reality beyond his finely crafted speeches.

Not long after he had spoken at a debating society meeting, the publication of an image in newspapers and magazines sent a devastating charge through the arteries of the urban elite. In one horrifying instant, a young man in a pale blue T-shirt, his upper body consumed by flames, faced the camera’s lens with an ossified grimace. The student was a commerce undergraduate who had walked into a busy junction outside his South Delhi college, doused his body with kerosene and set himself on fire in protest at the government’s decision to implement the Mandal recommendations. A number of self-immolations followed in other cities, each appalling incident polarising positions further. The serial debater, however, became curiously silent, fading into the dim hallways of his student hostel. His absence was noted but not acted upon in the frenzy of those eventful days.

Girish put an end to all his political activities and distanced himself from anyone who was likely to seek an explanation for his desertion. Instead he focused his energies on his studies, reaping an impressive number of gold medals by the time he graduated the
following year. His activist days were never to return. They left only a hard certainty, like a cyst under his skin, that the world into which he was about to launch himself was one where, at the stroke of a pen, the meritorious could be ousted and their rewards expropriated. Girish returned to Mysore, the gait of a martyr already assimilated.

A distant rumble grew into a more discernible pattern of shouts and hand-clapping. At first it sounded like crowd noises from a radio but it was soon clear that this was something quite different. Susheela looked up from the book that she was holding.

‘What’s happening?’ she asked.

At that moment Ashok’s mobile phone rang and he apologetically put his hand up to Susheela as he answered it. She watched him as he murmured into the phone. The clamour seemed to be getting louder.

‘Madam, that was my son. Seems there is some agitation in the city. Those theme park farmers.’

‘What theme park farmers?’

‘They are having a
dharna
in the city today and I think there has been some trouble.’

Ashok looked grave and walked towards the door, beyond which the street seemed unusually forsaken. His mobile phone rang again and he answered it standing in the doorway, looking in both directions.

Susheela put her book down and moved to the window. Through the gaps in the wooden shelving she could see only a few pedestrians, a trickle of two-wheelers grumbling past and no autorickshaws at all.

The theme park farmers. There had been something in the paper about them, but with the endless reporting on the progress of
HeritageLand, Susheela found it difficult to recall exactly who was aggrieved and for what reason.

‘Madam, I think I am going to have to shut the shop. They have closed both sides of MG Road and I think there has been a
lathi
charge.’

Susheela reached into her handbag for her mobile phone. She looked in every compartment, a hot rush spreading over her neck and chest. Then she searched again through the bag, tearing at zips and plunging her hand into linty corners, and then looked up at Ashok. There was a ghostly lull in the street outside but layered with invisible waves of ferment, an upheaval that did not give many clues as to its complexion.

‘I don’t have my phone with me. I must have left it in the car. I don’t know how to reach the driver,’ said Susheela.

‘Where is your driver?’

‘I don’t know. If there is no parking, he normally just goes round the block a few times but today, I don’t know, he must be stuck somewhere on the other side. And I don’t have his number here.’

Ashok’s phone rang again and he began nodding as he walked back towards his desk.

A police siren began to sound a couple of streets away: a grudging, plaintive noise. Moments later another siren joined the first, the loops of discordant caution appearing to surround the shop. The sound of the protest rose and fell like the swash of a distant ocean. As Susheela listened, a roar went up, followed quickly by a blast of whistles.

Ashok looked up for a moment and then continued talking quietly into his phone. Susheela looked out into the street again but there was no further indication of events unfolding a few blocks away. She chewed on the inside of her mouth. She was furious with herself for having left her phone in the car, furious at the driver for not noticing and furious at this ridiculous
predicament where law-abiding members of society could not go about their business because of a bunch of disaffected thugs looking to cause trouble.

The crash of a shutter coming down next door sounded much louder than it ought to have done.

Ashok finished his call.

‘They have burnt a bus near KR Circle. I think the police have sealed off most of the area.’

‘What are we going to do?’

‘Madam, I’m very sorry but I have to close the shop. These
goondas
will start throwing stones through the windows any minute now. They don’t need an excuse.’

Susheela stared blankly at him.

‘Don’t worry, madam, I have my scooter here. I only live about twenty minutes away. You can come home with me and call someone to pick you up. My wife is at home. Please don’t worry, everything will be fine. I just don’t think we should stay here any longer, you know; anything can happen.’

‘You’re going to so much trouble. But you’re right, we can’t stay here. I think … thank you so much.’

Ashok took all the notes out of the cash register, snapped a rubber band around them and tucked them into his pocket. He locked the door to the stock room and switched the lights and fan off.

‘Okay madam, we can go now.’

They left the shop and Ashok locked the main door and quickly wound down and secured the shutter. More than half of the shops in the street were closed and no vehicles were moving. The trouble sounded more distinct now. A body of shouts, police whistles, a strange drumming and occasional loud bursts that sounded like fireworks. The empty pavement glistened in the noon glare.