Mahesh Rao - The Smoke is Rising

‘Why do they need you to help them shift? They can get some professionals, no?’

‘Yes, but they will need help supervising. And we had to offer. Especially since they are taking us to Thailand.’

Mala was enjoying herself now. She mentioned Thailand with a flighty nonchalance, like it was a neighbourhood attraction.

‘Thailand? Why ?’

‘What do you mean why? For a holiday, why else?’

There was a further pause as Ambika tried to make sense of this new revelation.

‘But they are taking you?’

‘For the company, na ? So generous of them. But they are lucky. God has really blessed them, not like you and me, having to count everything.’

Ambika huffed but made no other comment.

‘So how long are you all going for?’ she asked a few seconds later.

‘Nothing has been fixed yet, but I think three weeks.’

‘Three weeks ?’

Mala searched for further colour that she could add to their holiday plans.

‘It’s so exciting for me, leaving India for the first time and that too all first-class air fare.’

‘But will you be able to be with Lavanya for that long? I mean, it’s not easy, no?’

‘I have come to know the true side of Lavanya.’

‘So arrogant, no? Whenever you see her, sleeveless blouse and cooling glass. Someone should kick her.’

‘No no, you’re so wrong. You just need to get to know her. We have become very close after spending so much time together and she really is such a wonderful person.’

Ambika became subdued and after a few more minutes discussing Anand and Lavanya’s new home she became aware of a few matters that required her immediate attention. In any case, she had only called Mala to find out if she needed anything; she would ring again for a proper chat some other time. Moments after she had ended the call with Mala, she dialled her husband’s extension. She intended to find out as soon as possible whether it was really conceivable that there were housing complexes in Mysore with their own fire departments.

The rain had been coming down for a few hours now but the skies still seethed. Shankar was sodden, the water running into his shirt, down his torso and dripping from his jeans. He had peeled off his light windcheater and shoved it under the seat of his motorbike, finding its clammy grip oppressive. He wheeled the motorbike into the shelter of an abandoned lean-to and, tucking a small package under his arm, began to trudge through the mud churned up by the side of the road. He always found these rows difficult to negotiate, with nothing to distinguish them, apart from perhaps a tangle of wire or a damaged bicycle left at the entrance. Today matters were much worse. The rain was sweeping into his eyes and some of the lanes were hidden under a foot of water. He thought of turning back but decided to brave the conditions. It was the last box of sweets and Janaki would be furious if she found out that he had come this far without going on to see Uma.

Janaki had given birth ten days ago. The baby boy had arrived two weeks late, weighing in at eight pounds, with a full head of hair and a breathtaking disdain for his new surroundings. Luckily the birth had not matched the terrifying scenarios that friends had described to him, although he had chosen not to point this out to Janaki. The last few days had been overwhelming: a culmination of ambitions; an indication that dignity and gravitas had finally claimed him. He was now a man.

Shankar needed to finish distributing sweets to friends and family and he had picked the week’s most inhospitable day. As he descended into the flooded sprawl below him, he placed his feet on anything that looked solid: a brick embedded in the sludge, a partially submerged plank, the top of a section of pipe. There was hardly anyone around. It was only when he reached the phone box clamped to its pole that he realised the extent of the flooding in the area. The stench of sewage clawed at his nostrils. Three children were splashing hysterically outside their home in the first row, the water reaching their knees. He made his way along the gummy slope to the next row, his feet sinking into the brown ooze. Here too the water was rising. A twist of clothes, some plastic basins, a palm frond and then a curled chappal drifted idly along in the current.

Shankar tucked the package into his waistband and rolled his jeans up to his knees. He took off his chappals and strode into the water, telling himself he was mad. But his conscience would not allow him to turn back. He knew that Uma lived here alone and he could not simply return home without seeing if she needed any help. His toes sank into the moiling sediment as he pushed against the water, past a drenched mattress propped up against a smoke-stained wall. The doors of most of the rooms were closed but he could see that the water was flowing straight in to Uma’s room through the open doorway.

As he approached the room, he caught sight of Uma sitting on the tin trunk, her legs folded beneath her, a framed picture lying face down in her lap. She was completely wet, her hair clinging to the sides of her face and the turquoise from her blouse leaching on to her skin. The trunk was marooned in a fuscous pool, a layer of scum lapping against the back wall of the room where the rain was running down the brickwork. Every particle in the room seemed liquescent, caught in a state of chemical collapse.

Shankar rapped loudly on the open door.

Uma looked across at him in amazement.

‘I can’t believe it. It’s like an ocean in here,’ he said, taking a large step into the room.

‘In this rain, what are you doing here?’

‘I didn’t know it was this bad. I came to tell you something. I have some good news.’ He heard the incongruous ring of his words and his features creased into an embarrassed smile.

‘But first you have to get out of here. You’ll get sick and who knows when this rain will stop.’

‘What good news? Janaki?’

‘I’ll tell you, but first just come with me.’

‘Where?’

‘Somewhere dry. Or do you want to sit here in this gutter all night?’

‘But where will we go?’

Shankar paused as he looked around the room.

‘Look, I’ll be back in five minutes. Just wait.’

Uma watched him wade across the room and disappear to the right of the open doors. In front of her, a plastic chair, the only piece of furniture in the room, bobbed about idiotically. The clouds continued in their inexhaustible convulsions, wrapping the room in ribbons of water. Earlier that evening, moisture had begun to seep into the room through the floor, its crevices filling up and foaming malevolently with the liquid disgorged by the saturated ground below. The rain had then begun to pour down the walls as the rising channel outside beat at the door. The rows of rooms had been illegally constructed over a storm water drain at the bottom of the hill leading down from Mysore Junction. Every monsoon they were doused and sluiced, mercilessly beaten for a few weeks by the force of the storms. The torrents had nowhere else to go in that dense maze of battered structures; so they surged onto unmade beds, spouted up around rusting cupboards and spewed over shelves of aluminium pots.

Shankar returned to Uma’s room, his head lowered against the lashing blasts, brandishing several sheets of dirty blue plastic.

‘Where did you get those?’ Uma asked.

Shankar ignored her and stumbled through the water to the back of the room. A smell like curdled milk was everywhere. Tucking the ends of the sheets of plastic into his jeans and grasping the top of the back wall, he hoisted himself up, his caked feet seeking a purchase against the exposed bricks. Leaning one arm against the top of the wall, with his free arm he began to twist the sheets of plastic into tight rolls that he then stuffed into the gap between the roof and the wall. One section completed, he moved further along the wall and rose up again, his feet manically seeking a cleft in which to lodge themselves. As he tried to plug the gap, the room darkened further, the gloom and the dankness meshing into a miasma that swept to the edges of the room.