Mahesh Rao - The Smoke is Rising

‘They say the girl’s family cheated him into the marriage. She had lots of mental problems, which they managed to hide and then dumped her on to him. He only came to know after the marriage. One day she started to behave very weirdly.’

‘Really, sir? What was she doing?’

‘I don’t know the details but they say she was very disturbed. I think she was smashing all the furniture and the TV at one point.’

‘ Ayyo, howda , sir? Who told you this?’

‘My cousin is known to his family. They told him just the other day. So this Girish, that is his name, tried to manage the situation for quite some time but it was too much. He had to send her back to her family. How can he look after a mental patient?’

‘It is too much, sir, the kind of cheating that goes on these days.’

‘That’s what. Poor fellow, you just never know sometimes what can happen.’

The man at the next table stood up and looked around the restaurant.

‘Hey, is that TV not working?’ he asked one of the waiters.

‘If you want to watch TV, sir, you better stay at home.’

‘No, no,’ said the man looking irritated, ‘there is something happening at the lake, some trouble, the police have arrested lots of people.’

‘What’s happened?’ asked someone else.

The questions became louder and more insistent in the Vishram Coffee House as news of violence at the Promenade spread. Conjecture and fabrication were pumped into the stale air of the room as diners called up friends and listened to the waiters bringing news from the street. The man from the next table had rushed off to find out more, leaving behind the helmet he had so carefully tended over the course of his meal.

The two officials paid the bill and left the restaurant. It was time for them to head back to work, but their walk down the street was unhurried. They peered into shop windows and the interiors of restaurants, looking for a television. On a day like this, it would not hurt to be a little late.

Rukmini’s visitors stared at the ground. It was one of many lulls in the conversation. They had looked at Mala once during the entire period and given her a frozen smile, a single accusation at its heart. They had come there as if nothing had happened. But they had also decided that they already knew about what had happened.

Rukmini raged under her composed exterior. If they would only say something, she would counter it. She would smash her hands against her temples and say it was not her daughter’s fault. Dragging them to where Mala was sitting, she would describe, with great care, every single brutalising experience of which she had knowledge. She would demand that they imagine all the others that had remained sequestered. She would rip each imputation from their guts and tear it to shreds in her lap.

The lull continued. Gazes shifted, there was a dry cough, a hand beat time lightly against a cushion. Then they stood up to leave, and after that they were gone.

Rukmini’s jaws were set tightly together as she picked up the used coffee lotas .

Babu emerged from the bedroom where he had been waiting for the visitors to leave.

‘I just heard on the radio,’ he said, ‘there have been riots in Mysore.’

‘What?’ she asked, straightening up.

‘Mala, turn the TV on,’ he said.

Rukmini’s daytime prohibition was overturned and the room was filled with the noise of gunfire and sirens.

The ayah was frantic. Her sister had called her to ask her if she had heard about the trouble at the festival. Not knowing what to do, she had turned on the television, a liberty she would never have allowed herself under normal circumstances. The first sight she saw was a man being helped to a makeshift shelter under a sheet of tarpaulin. His head seemed to have split at the top, his hands helplessly trying to stop the blood flowing into his eyes. The ayah made sure Shruthi was upstairs playing and then called Lavanya’s mobile. It rang but there was no answer. She then called Anand. A message told her that the network was busy and asked her to try again a short while later.

She knew that Anand and Lavanya had been at the opening ceremony of the festival. Lavanya had called her for a quick check just as they were being seated for the inauguration speech. That was four, maybe five hours ago. She tried both numbers again but she could not get through. The words ‘Riots at Mysore Festival’ flashed repeatedly on the screen. The reporter managed to convey the sense of panic and chaos at the scene but provided no information on what had actually happened.

She called her sister, who passed on some more news from a friend who had managed to return from one of the roads near the lake. Apparently, one of the buildings on the Promenade was ablaze, possibly the big shopping centre. She did not know if there had been a bomb blast but there was definitely a fire in the area.

The ayah went upstairs again to check on Shruthi. When she came back downstairs, the screen showed a clear shot of the northern end of the Promenade. Fumes were drifting across the road, over the rocks at the water’s edge and blowing out over the lake. The ashen sweep made it difficult to see where the wings of smoke ended and where the water began. She switched off the television in case Shruthi wandered down for some reason. In a couple of minutes she would try the phones again.

All three televisions were on at the Bhaskars’ home, each tuned in to a different news channel. Bhargavi stood in the hallway looking at the huge screen in the sitting room. Mr Bhaskar was standing to one side, eyebrows angrily knitted. The camera seemed to be focusing on a deserted building while a male voice exclaimed in the background. She could not make out his words and did not understand the significance of the office block. It did not even look like it was anywhere near the lake.

She crept upstairs and stood outside the older son’s room. On his television a reporter was pointing to a police barricade where uniformed guards were milling around a jeep. In a few moments, a distinguished looking officer began to speak to the press, his tone grave and deliberate. He would not pretend that the crisis was completely under control, but the law enforcement authorities were taking all necessary steps to prevent an escalation of the situation. It was important that members of the public were made aware that the violence was attributable only to a few senseless individuals who were determined to indulge in criminal and antinational activities in order to undermine Mysore’s reputation for peace and harmony. They would be dealt with swiftly, in accordance with the law, to ensure that the city returned to normal as soon as possible. The officer turned his back on the ensuing volley of questions and walked quickly towards a waiting car.

Bhargavi watched as the camera returned to the Promenade, displaying the bleakly prosaic configuration of defiance. Rocks and bricks curved through the air on their implacable trajectory. A fire blazed in the distance. The contours of the retreating protestors shifted as the arrangement of helmets, shields and body armour moved forward in a sudden spurt. The scene shook violently and then returned to the placid surface of the lake again.

Bhargavi sat down on the floor, her eyes pinched in concentration. The images she was seeing did not fully accord with the haunting presence in her head, the repeated appearance of a dark woman in a yellow sari, her unruly hair twisted into a braid, holding all her belongings as she navigated her way through a city of smoke and screams.