The Smoke is Rising (26 page)

She got dressed.

A couple of short hoots sounded. He was here. Susheela picked up her handbag, took a quick look inside and then opened the front door. Jaydev was turning the car around in the road. She locked the door and walked towards the gates. A cordon of dark clouds moved over the garden, momentarily turning the world monochrome. Jaydev stepped out of the car and raised his hand. He looked like he was trying to hail a taxi. Susheela waved back. She thought she must look like a six-year-old at the start of the first day of school. There was no one else in the road.

A strangeness seeped into the scene. They had not seen each other for more than two months but had spoken almost every
other day, sometimes for hours. It was a little like listening to her own voice on the answering machine, a startled recognition mingled with a prickly discomfiture. Jaydev appeared a little thinner to Susheela, his face more defined, altogether a more compact person. She lifted the latch, pulled open the gate and then closed it behind her. Jaydev walked around to the passenger side of the car, opened the door and then, perhaps thinking this was too pointed a gesture, left it wide open and returned to the driver’s side.

‘Right on time,’ smiled Susheela, getting into the car quickly.

The inside of the car smelled like an after dinner mint.

‘You are looking well,’ said Jaydev.

‘Thank you; so are you.’

She shut the door, put her seat belt on and settled her handbag in her lap.

‘Ready?’ he asked, as if they were on a motorbike.

‘Ready,’ she replied, as if she had settled her arms around his waist.

The car moved silently down 7
^th
Main, the windows closed. At the junction, a stray dog barked at it long after it had gone.

Mini and Mohan Madhavan were celebrating their fifteenth wedding anniversary at the Mysore Regency Hotel. Mini’s younger sister Mony had taken charge as party planner and the guest list had spun itself into a healthy gathering of over two hundred and fifty.

‘Although in places like Mysore one can never be sure who else will suddenly show up,’ Mony had said to her friends in South Bombay.

There had been lengthy discussions about the choice of venue; everyone was agreed that the Regency was not what it used to be. Had anyone been to the Burra Peg on a Friday night recently? Most
of the tables seemed to be occupied by men in groups that were a little too large, their laughter a little too loud, their accents a little too earthy. They never ordered gin or wine but managed to put away bottle after bottle of the most expensive imported whiskey. Sometimes they tried to involve you in their conversations about the cost per square foot in Siddhartha Layout or which kebabs to order next. Still, the Lotus Imperial would not be ready till next year and the Regency did have those beautiful gardens sweeping down from the old wing.

Crystal was of course the theme. Mony had outdone herself in sourcing original table centrepieces, seat covers, a dazzling ice sculpture and silk goody bags filled with charming mementos. Guests were encouraged to wear white but neither Mini nor Mohan wished to make it mandatory on the invitation. Mini, of all people, knew that white could be extremely unflattering on some figures.

There had been a little bit of thunder earlier in the evening but the sky seemed to have settled by the time Anand and Girish reached the hotel’s side pavilion, their wives a few steps behind. Moments later the power cut out. There was a collective cry from the guests and a nervous few seconds in the near total darkness before the generators swung into action.

The group joined the queue waiting to congratulate Mini and Mohan.

Mala was anxious. She knew that her performance tonight would be feeble, her craft strained and faltering. As she waited, she prayed that she would not see any of her front office colleagues on duty or any of the waiters who knew her by sight. She needed no further reminding that she did not belong here, just as she did not belong at work or at home.

‘But where has this tradition come from, recharging your vows?’ asked Anand, looking puzzled.

‘Renewing, not recharging. It’s not a battery,’ said Lavanya.

‘But what is the point of spending so much money on your wedding if you have to do it all again in a few years?’ he persisted.

There was no response. Anand would have to resolve these questions of nuptial husbandry on his own.

Mini looked lovely in a cream and gold sari. Mohan looked drowsy. There were hugs. Gifts exchanged hands. Girish made a witty comment about marriage. Mini seemed to wonder who he was. Lavanya flicked her hair back. Mala looked down. The photographer snapped away.

On the way to their table, there were several asides as Lavanya and Anand saw people that they knew. Mala smiled fiercely every time she was introduced and then stood behind Lavanya. Anand and Venky Gowda bear-hugged each other. Priyadarshini Ramesh, of the Mysstiiqque chain of beauty salons, blew kisses in their direction. The former chairman of the Mysore Regeneration Council galumphed over with a cocktail
dhokla
in each hand. Girish’s face gave nothing away but Mala knew he must be bored. She had no idea why he had thought it would be a good idea to come.

A man in a white kaftan put his arm around Anand.

‘This man is too much,’ he said to Girish and Mala. ‘
Too
much.’

‘Mr Pasha, the theme was white. Not fancy dress,’ said Lavanya to him, pretending to look injured.

Ahmed Pasha wagged his finger at Lavanya in delight: ‘Naughty, naughty.’

A few minutes after they had sat down at their table, a column of silence settled over them, not heavy enough to spur action, but sufficient to lend a laboured awareness to the evening.

Waiters were handing single white roses to all the ladies under Mony’s anxious gaze.

‘We don’t even know them that well. God knows why they invited us,’ said Lavanya at last, clearly wondering why Girish and Mala had been invited.

Mala speculated as to whether she ought to ask about the plans for the new house. It could lead to all kinds of problems. Instead, she asked them when they were next going on holiday.

‘Ask this one,’ said Lavanya, jerking her head at Anand. ‘He is the one who has no time to even scratch his head.’

‘Our Thailand trip was not that long ago,’ said Anand.

‘Yes, and we may as well have stayed here since you spent all your time with your phone. Or looking for other Indians in Bangkok.’

‘What rubbish.’

‘It’s true. The only things that moved him were the sounds of Indians in a public place or when he discovered some word in Thai that had a Sanskrit root. Then he got all excited and stopped looking at his emails for a few seconds.’

Anand smiled to say that it was true, she had just identified his most prominent but loveable weakness.

‘Actually, we will also be out of station soon,’ said Girish.

Mala looked at him. Something inside her darted out of position.

‘Oh? Where?’ asked Anand.

‘Two weeks in Sri Lanka. I booked it last week,’ said Girish, fixing his gaze on Mala.

She looked at his lips, from where the words had come.

‘Mala, you never told me,’ said Lavanya.

Mala was silent.

Then she said: ‘I didn’t know.’

‘Oh my God, Girish! A surprise holiday; how wonderful! Who would have suspected? You don’t really look like the romantic type,’ said Lavanya.

Girish, having sought an audience for his grand gesture, began to look embarrassed. He smiled awkwardly at Lavanya and then turned to Mala, perhaps to indicate that it was her turn to reveal the various manifestations of his whimsical nature. Mala looked
away. At the next table a boy in a three-piece suit was trying to suck up the remains of his melted ice cream through a straw, puckering his lips and rolling his eyes in a frenzy. Next to him, a girl in pink pearls let out a series of staccato giggles. For the boy it was an early lesson in the addictive power of performance.

‘Look, she can’t even speak, she’s so surprised,’ said Lavanya, reaching out and giving Mala a squeeze on the arm.

Mala flinched, her napkin falling on to the grass.

The others all looked at her.

‘You’ve really booked it?’ she asked Girish.

‘All done,’ he announced. ‘Thirteen nights. We arrive in Colombo, then the next day we take the train to Galle. One night there, then some time in the jungle at Sinharaja and then they will take us to see some caves. Really ancient, with stalactites and stalagmites and fossils still visible in the cave walls.’

‘I think I have heard of this place,’ said Anand. ‘What is it called?’

‘Waulpane cave.’ Girish’s research had been comprehensive.

‘It’s meant to be an amazing sight, with a waterfall in the middle of the cave and bats flying all around. After that, we go to Ratnapura, where they have the gems, and then a hill station for two nights. Then to Kandy for another two nights I think, then on to a beach resort and then back.’

‘Sounds beautiful,’ said Anand. ‘Sri Lanka is on our list too, no?’

Lavanya agreed that it was on the list.

‘How sweet, he’s done all this secret planning. You had no idea?’ she asked.

Mala shook her head and smiled in Girish’s direction.

‘But I have not got my leave sanctioned. What if they refuse?’ she asked.

‘They can’t refuse,’ said Girish.

‘If you have any problems, let me know. You want me to talk to them?’ asked Anand.

‘No, please don’t do anything like that. Let me ask first. I’m sure it will be fine,’ said Mala.

‘Well, it is nice to see that romance is not just in the movies,’ said Lavanya, clinking her fork on a wine glass.

Anand refused to take the bait.

‘You don’t have that long to plan, Mala. Any idea what the weather’s going to be like there?’ Lavanya asked.

Mala did not respond. She stared at the golden orbs that surrounded the swimming pool, growing larger and fainter, as the bats from the Waulpane cave screeched around her head.

Jaydev had given the occasion some thought, while being very careful to appear as if he had done no such thing. The cinema that he suggested was an old single screen in Vishveshvaranagar, respectable enough to be safe, distant enough from Mahalakshmi Gardens to be fortuitous. They seemed to have done little else but talk, so going to the cinema would give them a chance just to be. Sometimes that much was enough. It was not the weekend and there had been a light drizzle every evening for the last few days: there was less of a chance of bumping into anyone they knew. Everything seemed in place.

Under the circumstances, the choice of film seemed almost irrelevant; or it did to him at any rate. Of course it would not do to end up trapped in front of something vulgar or depressing. Luckily the film showing at the Vishveshvaranagar cinema was neither of those things. Faiza Jaleel of the
Mysore Evening Sentinel
had given it three stars, praising the freshness of its young actors and the allure of the Brisbane locales where it had been shot.

The film bore the proofs of its creed. The female lead was a medical student in Brisbane, a firm ambassador of her parents’ immigrant values, combining resolute study with stunning
expositions of Hindustani music and trays full of
halwa
. When not acting as a totem for multicultural conformity, the heroine would indulge in an afternoon of chaste conversation with an engineering student from Delhi, played with aplomb by the current teen heart-throb. Persuaded by her plain but jovial best friend, she entered the Miss Australia competition and won the title, precipitating a media frenzy and intense interest from a handsome but morally ambiguous Indian entertainment baron, also settled in Brisbane. The unexpected pageant victory also had the happy consequence of sparking an appetite for Punjabi culture across Australia. There followed scenes of
bhangra
classes outside the Sydney Opera House, emerald
lehengas
flaring across the outback and beers across New South Wales being replaced by Patiala pegs. By the interval, there were a number of indications that the engineering student would not give up the girl quietly and a showdown with the entertainment baron on the Story Bridge seemed unavoidable. With a dramatic escalation of strings and piano, the lights came on again.