Mahesh Rao - The Smoke is Rising

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.