The Smoke is Rising (8 page)

Mother-in-law or no mother-in-law, this was Mala’s home now, although late at night a wave of bewilderment would still occasionally wash over her. What peculiar devices of hazard had led to her ending up in this house, with its low, streaky ceilings, married to a man twelve years older than her, dusting the ceramic frogs of a woman who had drowned a decade ago in the Alaknanda River?

Mala shut the cabinet doors, folded the duster into a tiny square and buried it in her lap as she sat down on the sofa. She turned the television on and had to sit through the last few minutes of a quiz show before the melancholy strains of the theme tune to her favourite soap came drifting out. The show was set in a mansion in Delhi, inhabited by a prominent family of industrialists. The patriarch of the family was in a contemplative stage of his life. The money had been made; now the legacy had to be moulded. His wife, the third in an imperious progression, had recently come under the influence of a shady
swami
, a god-man with a penchant for travel by private jet. The state of her rapidly unravelling psyche formed one of the soap’s more prominent subplots.

The patriarch’s three sons all lived in the same mansion, along with their glamorous wives. The eldest son was a ruthless workaholic who managed to carve out a little time to conduct a rather obvious affair with his secretary. His wife symbolised the soul of
the programme and was often shown in heart-rending close-ups, trying to make sense of the turbulent world around her. Her devotion to her family was matched only by her apparent inability to recognise infidelity in her husband, a man addicted to surreptitious text messaging and returning home freshly showered in the middle of the night.

The second son had not been endowed with a personality and was therefore reduced to looking craven and forlorn in various quarters of the large garden. His wife, on the other hand, tended to fizz and pop with storylines. The daughter of a powerful politician, she ran a major fashion house – primarily, it seemed, by making her senior employees sob in public. Her adroit manoeuvring had seen a rival designer arrested on terrorism charges weeks before the launch of the summer ready-to-wear collections. Now she found herself faking a pregnancy in order to achieve some as yet unrevealed ambition.

The third son ran a modelling agency, which allowed him to troop through the mansion with a string of coltish nymphs in full view of his epileptic wife. The actor who played this character seemed to have been cast mainly on account of his lustrous hair and the programme makers endeavoured to show it always in the best possible light. This son’s best friend was an art gallery owner who spent much of his time appraising paintings in Paris and New York. There were strong indications that he was developing an unhealthy interest in the wife of the eldest son. As the soul of the programme, it was beyond dispute that she would not be permitted to engage in any unprincipled frolicking. There were, however, signs that she was responding in her own way to some amorous stirrings, and her struggle to contain her restiveness would no doubt take the show through the summer months and into the rainy season.

Weight loss was big business in Mysore and not simply as a consequence of the city’s many yoga schools. For Faiza Jaleel, it was oxygen. As sole occupant of the lifestyle desk at the
Mysore Evening Sentinel
, her articles drew on the wispiest of details and then puffed out information and advice, steeped in the earnest vernacular of slimming. New gyms seemed to be springing up in Mysore practically every day. Dieting clubs had begun to make inroads into suburban kitchens. The new Dhamaka health club in Mahalakshmi Gardens claimed to have a formidable waiting list. Boxercise and jazzercise groups were convening on roof terraces, first floors of office blocks and in community halls. The readers of the
Mysore Evening Sentinel
were assured that Faiza would catalogue every fad and fancy.

In one poignant interview, Mrs Jethmalani of Jayalakshmipuram explained the difficulties she faced.

‘It is true that these days temptations are very strong, but I think the real problem is in my genes,’ she confessed to Faiza.

‘In my genes and in my jeans,’ she giggled, a second later.

It was lucky that Mrs Jethmalani was of a jolly disposition. She had joined her local laughing club, having heard impressive accounts of its health benefits. The club founder had assured her that with a positive attitude and the strong abdominal muscles engendered by communal hilarity, the pounds would simply fall off. Faiza had nodded sympathetically, switched her recorder off and returned to work.

Carbohydrates continued to get a bad press and a pall of dejection settled over a city of rice-eaters. The coconut seller
outside Sheethal Talkies had begun to sell body-building supplements along with hashish and pirated DVDs. In Kuvempunagar and Gokulam, the Keralite Ayurvedic centres were offering consultations and massages to counter disproportionate weight gain. The enterprising general manager of Sri Venkatesh Traders had managed to procure several consignments of grapefruit essential oil after hearing about its virtues as an appetite suppressant.

Guests at parties and wedding receptions collared Faiza, eager to discuss the merits of burdock root in increasing metabolism. Stealing a look at her plate as she circulated, they would outline the ingredients of the latest miracle remedy for corpulence and describe the craze for veil-dancing or Zumba-
Natyam
routines. Faiza serenely absorbed the new intelligence while noting the relative girth of prominent socialites; she had an idea for a column called ‘Society Snacking Secrets’.

At a diabetes fundraiser, Faiza had spotted Leena Lambha, a well-known item girl. Leena was currently the face and body of a company that manufactured plug-in belts guaranteeing a toned midriff through a patented thermodynamic system. Leena had been charming and candid. Nothing she had ever tried had been as successful as the toning belt.

Some of the seriously well-heeled had of course taken their cues from their intimates in Mumbai and Delhi, returning from foreign jaunts with a new litheness on show. Tummy tucks and gastric bands were expensive, especially when rates were converted into rupees; deluxe maintenance, however, always came at a price. Faiza had arranged to meet a dentist who was known to administer Botox injections, the only high-profile medical professional in the city to do so. Encouraging him to say anything interesting on the record was proving difficult but Faiza was indefatigable.

Nutritionist husband and wife team, Valmiki and Vanitha Govind, had seized the day. Their second book on the perfectly balanced
Indian diet had hit the shelves. Radio interviews, a lecture tour, cooking demonstrations in shopping malls and a column in a women’s weekly had all followed. There was a rumour that the couple were in talks with both ETV and Suvarna, their televisual potential not having gone unnoticed. Not surprisingly, Faiza’s calls to their office no longer yielded a ready response.

Faiza did not take these matters to heart. There was more than enough vitality in Mysore’s cultural scene to prevent her dwelling on the inescapable injuries of a journalistic life. She had come to know that the authorities at St Catherine’s College had permitted the producers of a new reality show to use their Senate Hall for the Mysore round of the show’s auditions. An advertisement soon ran in the
Mysore Evening Sentinel
encouraging ‘bubbly, overweight ladies’ to take this unique opportunity to embark on a life-changing journey.

The show’s producers had taken inspiration from a variety of cultural leitmotifs to put together a concept involving the anguish of weight gain, the enchantment of celebrity, the allure of a distant island and the rapture of the human condition. Six celebrities and six non-celebrities, all female and all stout, would be transported to a Mexican island where they would be encouraged to find their inner and outer beauty, all under the strictest medical supervision. The participants would be assessed on their success at transforming themselves and discovering hidden truths about their personalities, with the invaluable assistance of telephone voting from viewers at home. The show’s publicist had already sent out communiqués heralding the identities of the high-octane judges: a former Miss Asia Pacific, celebrity nutritionists Valmiki and Vanitha Govind, a stuntman turned fight choreographer and the personal physician to a retired Chief Minister. There had been some concern that the reality format no longer held the pulling power of previous years. As a result, battalions of media monitors
were dispatched, market researchers appointed and focus groups set up. The final conclusion, some months later, was inescapable.
Moti Ya Mast
would send the ratings into the stratosphere. Faiza, notebook in hand, would undoubtedly be watching.

For years, Susheela had been a fan of the tangy rather than the sweet. Her natural constituency was the lip-sucking sourness of limes, the quivering tartness of tamarind on her tongue and the acid sting of green mangoes. She had once made Sridhar drive back to his cousin’s home in Indore, when they were nearly halfway to Bhopal, in order to pick up a jar of gooseberry pickle that she had left behind on the dining table.

Once she was in her fifties, though, there appeared a new arrival that laid waste to her established palate. Sugar made a grand entrance in Susheela’s life. Of course in the past she had on occasion popped a festive
laddoo
into her mouth, a squidge of birthday cake or some steaming
prasada
after a Satyanarayan
pooja
. This new interest in sweet things, however, was unprecedented in range and depth. She remembered the first time that she had realised that something had changed beyond all doubt. It was at the wedding reception hosted by Cyril and Sanjana Fernandes for their daughter Maya. On a whim, Susheela had drifted past the dessert table and returned with a single scoop of fig and poppy seed ice cream in a scalloped silver bowl. The first mouthful had been an epiphany, an unclouded insight into the realms of other people’s pleasure. The jammy trails of fig had yielded at just the right moment, offering up their nutty grains. The swirls of poppy seed were engaged in a creamy conspiracy and Susheela had unlocked each of their dark secrets. The dessert had feathered her mouth and throat and left her with no option. She returned to the buffet and then had to summon all her willpower to resist a third visit.

Maya Fernandes’s marriage ended a year later with some unpleasant allegations on both sides but Susheela’s sensory stimulation had endured. Puddings, pastries and
payasas
had floated into her gaze like stunned fireflies in a searchlight’s sudden beam. The envelope of rich butter cream coddling the carrot cake from the coffee shop at the Mysore Regency; the tender resistance of plump raisins in a dollop of
pongal
cooked in hot
ghee
; the honeyed tang of freshly made
jalebis
, the sticky coil coming apart in her hands: Susheela’s surrender had been complete.

As the driver slowed down at the traffic lights on Narayan Shastry Road, she told him to make a quick stop at the Plaza Sweet Mart. It would not take long to pick up a small box of
kaju pista
rolls. The driver worked for her on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, by arrangement with Shantha Prasad, fellow resident of Mahalakshmi Gardens. Neither of them required a full-time driver and they were both agreed that it would be an extravagance. So a mutually convenient arrangement had been struck, with Susheela offering to let Shantha have the driver during the latter half of the week, including Saturdays. It was a sacrifice that Susheela hoped would be acknowledged by a similar act of kindness. This never came.

She was surprised to see that there was hardly a soul at the Plaza Sweet Mart. She made her selection and then walked down the road to pop in to Great Expectations. Ashok the owner stood up as soon as he saw her.

‘Welcome madam, not been here for many days.’

‘How are you? I came one evening, I think your daughter was here. Nice girl.’

‘Thank you, madam. Looking for anything particular?’

‘Any books on Ayurveda? But properly written please, not by some fraud who makes up any old rubbish. There are plenty of those.
Vata, pitta, kapha
, alpha, beta, gamma … as if no one will notice.’

Ashok smiled sadly, apparently wounded by the depths of chicanery in the publishing business, and busied himself at a display, looking for books that would not affront Susheela.

A mulch of sweet wrappers and plastic bags lay at the entrance to the cyber café. The sliding door sat uneasily in its groove, threatening to crash to the ground at any moment. Girish could not tell whether or not the place was open for business. He knocked on the door and, a few muffled noises later, the door slid open by a few inches. He could just about make out the face of a girl with a red
dupatta
loosely covering her head. She raised her eyebrows once in quick enquiry.

‘Open?’ asked Girish, an edge of annoyance creeping into his voice.

The girl raised her eyebrows again and stepped slowly to one side, pushing the door open by a few more inches.

Girish stepped into the dim room, turning his shoulders away from the girl in disgust. What kind of a business were these people running? Probably a front for some terrorist cell, a
mujahidin
network having decided that Sitanagar in Mysore would be the perfect base for their activities. One just never knew these days.

Six partitioned surfaces holding computer monitors had been crammed into the tiny area. The room had no windows and the only light was the murky indigo flicker from the grimy screens. The woman pointed at a computer in the corner and returned to her own screen. Girish squeezed into the space indicated and began his circuit. He had an email from his credit card company, one from Indian Railways and one from a colleague sending on a tedious list of differences between ‘the smart Indian man’ and ‘the smart Indian woman’. He moved on to various news websites, barely absorbing the first few lines of a story before
clicking on another link. Then he checked into a couple of motoring websites.

There was a knock on the door and the girl pushed her chair back with a screech. This time she had a hurried conversation with someone wearing a baseball cap and returned to the gloom of her station. A mosquito dived past his ear with its urgent whine. He once again resolved to buy a computer before the end of the following month. It was simply untenable that he should continue to come to this rank hole and pay money for the privilege.

Girish had profiles on three social networking sites, all featuring the same brief account. A couple of allusions to his seniority were buried in the short description of his career; there were half a dozen photographs taken during his honeymoon in Ooty; and he had added a list of interests which probably had contained elements of veracity at some point. He had no idea why he even logged on to these sites any more. They had brought neither stimulation to his social life nor favour in his career. As a creature of habit, he supposed that it was just something else that he had built into his routine. He did occasionally like to catch up on the current status of ex-colleagues and college mates. The truth was that he probably scrutinised their profiles a little more than occasionally; quite a bit more. But then wasn’t that what these websites were for? To present a palatable record of your own life and to gawk at the signposts planted by your peers?