Mahesh Rao - The Smoke is Rising

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.

Jaydev and Susheela turned to each other and smiled awkwardly, as if hating to admit that they were really rather enjoying the film.

‘If we can’t compete economically, at least on the beauty queen front we have no challengers,’ said Jaydev.

‘She looks about fourteen,’ said Susheela. ‘And how is she going to pass her final year exams with all those public appearances she seems to be making?’