Mahesh Rao - The Smoke is Rising

Uma did not look entirely convinced that such intrigues could be playing out on 6 thMain.

‘It’s true; anyway, that’s what the watchman said. The police took that poor man away to the lock-up last night and when they came back this morning, his face looked like a pumpkin. The woman has not come home since yesterday so God knows what has happened to her.’

‘I have never seen her. Or him.’

‘Too late to see either of them now I think.’

‘I’ll see you. I’m going inside.’

‘Okay, but keep your ears open for once. If you find out anything, let me know.’

‘I didn’t know they had a watchman during the day,’ said Mala, as the uniformed guard gave them a jaunty salute and opened the gates.

‘Well, you know Anand is a big man now, he probably has all kinds of mafia dons wanting to kidnap him,’ replied Girish, parking the blue hatchback behind his sister-in-law Lavanya’s silver Lexus.

Mala looked at Girish, not sure if he was being serious.

‘Take the fruit basket,’ said Girish, giving himself a quick glance in the rear-view mirror before getting out of the car.

The fruit basket had featured prominently in the day’s itinerary. The initial plan had been to pick something up at the usual fruit stall in Sitanagar. But an inspection of the selection there had revealed a mound of shrivelled oranges and an ailing watermelon. Girish had then driven to Devaraja Market where he had chosen a suitably carnivalesque combination, only to find that the vendor intended to place his selection in an ugly plastic basket, covered with some grease-spattered cellophane.

The search had then begun for a more acceptable receptacle. The bamboo bazaar only stocked large bushels and trays and the man at one of the general stores had tried to sell Girish a basin that he swore was a fruit bowl. Finally, they had retreated to a shopping mall, where a number of themed fruit hampers were on display in the food section. Mala gazed at the Lovers’ Delight, the Aromatherapy Special and the Cheese N’ Wine Deluxe, not even daring to look at the prices. Girish proclaimed that the entire range was in some way deficient and stalked off towards the household department. Half an hour later they emerged from the mall with a small woven basket and made their way back to Devaraja Market, where the vendor had callously returned Girish’s selection to their original positions in his arrangement.

Mala now picked up the basket and followed Girish to the front door. Girish’s brother Anand lived in a large Yadavagiri property that he had bought about three years ago. The house was completely incoherent in layout and style as each successive owner had indulged an architectural vision, or corrected an apparent lack of embellishment, with scant regard for the overall composition of the building. The result was bewildering. The ground floor extended across the site like a cubist fantasy: three giant blocks of equal size, arranged like a three-leaf clover. The first floor, resembling a Swiss ski chalet, seemed to have dropped from the sky quite by chance, attaching itself en route to a trio of pretty Juliet balconies. Above the first floor, a Gaudiesque turret rose up to menacing effect, competing for attention with a stately dome, dotted with a number of portholes. The full impact of the house was like being brought face to face with a deranged aunt who had decided to wear all her party dresses on the same day.

Lavanya opened the door as they approached it.

‘I thought I heard the gate.’ She winked, waving them in.

In the sitting room Richie Rich , dubbed into Hindi, boomed out of the 52-inch plasma screen on the far wall. Anand was seated cross-legged on the thick cream carpet, sporting a tiger mask, a pink dupatta wrapped around his head. As Girish and Mala walked into the room, he began to lift himself up.

‘Ah, come in, come in. You have my permission. I am the maharani of the jungle, you see,’ he explained.

Standing next to the armchair was his daughter Shruthi, a green dupatta tied around her neck, waving a steel whisk.

‘ Appa , I told you that you have to roar loudly before you say anything. That’s how all the other animals in the jungle know that you are going to speak,’ said Shruthi.

Anand looked suitably chastised as he unwound the dupatta and stood up.

Lavanya switched off the television and, surveying the jungle inhabitants’ paraphernalia strewn across the sitting-room floor, called out to the maid.

Turning to Girish and Mala, she said: ‘Look at me, still in my exercise clothes. Since coming back from the gym, these monkeys have not given me even one second’s peace. I’ll just change and come, okay. You’ll have some pineapple juice, no? Or tender coconut? Anand, see if Girish wants a beer.’

She went upstairs, her gait deliberate and ceremonial, as if aware that there could be an audience.

Girish shook his head from the enormous cream leather sofa. As Anand wandered off to speak to the maid, Girish looked at Mala sitting opposite him. Even though she had recently started to wear make-up when they went out, she still looked absurdly young: like a PUC student who had been dolled up for a skit at the school’s annual variety show. She was still clutching the fruit basket. The whole effect made it seem like she was going to burst into a harvest folk song.

‘What are you still holding it for? Give it to Lavanya when she comes down,’ he muttered to Mala.

He turned to smile at Shruthi who had retreated to the far end of the room. Her preoccupation with the whisk seemed to have increased but she still managed to show a modicum of interest in her aunt and uncle.

‘Shruthi, why are you hiding there? Come and tell me how your holidays were. Where did you go? What did you do?’ asked Girish.

‘We went to Bangkok,’ mumbled Shruthi.

‘Wonderful! So tell me, what did you see there?’

‘Lots of temples.’

‘Lots of temples, okay. What else?’

At this point Shruthi shrugged and slipped upstairs too.

The maid came into the room with four glasses of juice and set them down on the coffee table. Anand followed, smiling expansively, as befitted someone who wished his brother and sister-in-law to make themselves completely at home.

Anand was three years younger than Girish. Expectations for the younger brother had never been great. In fact, in some quarters there had been a grim apprehension that he would fall in with the wrong type of people and be responsible for his poor mother’s early demise. As it happened, one of those fears was proved accurate, although for reasons connected to the overloading of boats on the Alaknanda River, rather than any unmeritorious conduct on the part of Anand. Academically undistinguished, he had drifted into a job as a sales representative for automobile components and then moved on to a shadowy enterprise involving a number of cable operators in Sitanagar. It was only after extricating himself from those arrangements that Anand had wandered into the world that would make his name.

About ten years ago, on a hunch, he had gone into partnership with a friend and purchased the right to put up two advertising hoardings at a nondescript junction near the Bangalore — Mysore road. At the time, the section of the road separated a disused chemical plant from a belt of sugar cane fields at the northern periphery of Mysore. The junction’s main role had been to channel trucks and other goods vehicles to and from the state highway. But Mysore’s growth meant that the city’s boundaries began to carve away at the surrounding agricultural land, laying new extensions and sectors on top of fields of paddy and sugar cane. Within six months of Anand’s purchase, plans for the allocation of residential sites in the northern layouts were complete; a year later, the chemical plant had been demolished; and soon after that there was a brisk trade in real estate spoils from the area.