Mahesh Rao - The Smoke is Rising

Dusk was stealing into the city. The pitiless heat of the day was now only a memory as a light wind picked up, bringing with it grit and dust from the Bangalore — Mysore highway. The furrows in the sky turned an inky violet and the coconut trees loomed solid and grey. At the northern approach to Mysore, the acrid smell of burning firewood drifted across tin rooftops. By six o’clock, the constant commotion of car horns, autorickshaw engines and accelerating scooters had risen up a register. Trays of freshly baked buns and puffs were being laid out in the Iyengar bakeries, their smell disorienting school children in the streets.

In the centre of the city, the crumbling houses seemed to breathe a sigh as they released residents on to porches and pavements. Office workers stood around food carts, hungrily watching expert hands slicing, seasoning and ladling. A stream of anxious out-of-towners took a wrong turning and headed away from Mysore Junction, their holdalls swinging recklessly. On the corner of Lansdowne Building and Sayyaji Rao Road, several neon signs sparked into action.

Girish paused as he made his way down Staircase B of Jyothi House. Procrastination after work had become something of a habit. He decided against continuing on into the basement to pick up his motorbike and emerged into the smog of Irwin Road. One of his junior colleagues was smoking in front of the building.

‘What, sir, had your coffee?’ he asked, hurriedly stubbing out his cigarette on the ground.

‘Not yet,’ replied Girish.

He glanced down at the butt, mashed into the mud. His colleague caught the look.

Shrugging, he said: ‘Very dirty habit, sir. What to do?’

Girish did not respond. There was a moment’s silence before the young man tried again.

‘Going to have your coffee now, sir?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe. See you tomorrow.’

‘Definitely, sir. I will definitely see you tomorrow.’

Girish walked slowly past the vegetable vendors, their gas lanterns emitting a pale, ghostly light. Trade at the novelty shops and fancy stores was picking up, their windows crammed full of bindis , bangles and piles of furry toys. At the Central Post Office junction, a boy selling dishcloths and almanacs had stationed himself in a prime position, anticipating the evening rush. In a shop doorway on Kali Temple Road, a tailor raised his voice as he defended his expertise.

As Girish cut through a side street, he glanced into the houses crammed into the block. Artless curiosity still enjoyed full respectability in this part of Mysore. Some windows were shut against the unexpected wind but a number had stayed open, revealing the yellow-blue haze of television sets. In one room a mother fed her baby little scoops of rice while he banged on the floor with a spoon. Next door, a card game was in progress, bowls of roasted peanuts and raw onion scattered across the table, the television’s sound turned low to a manageable hum. Further along, an elderly woman was laboriously trying to bring some order to the chaos of newspapers and magazines on the sofa in her sitting room. In the house at the corner, a boy and a girl lay sprawled on the floor, their neglected homework pinned under their elbows as they stared up at the screen.

All the English, Hindi and Kannada news channels were reporting the successful launch earlier in the day of Chandrayaan-1, the first Indian unmanned mission to the moon. The media had seized the historic moment. One television studio had transformed itself into a mini-planetarium, with a backdrop of shooting stars in front of which a giant silver moon revolved seductively.

‘This is the future,’ panted a reporter. ‘This mission will ignite the imagination of all youngsters. It will give hope to every struggling child in this country. Won’t we all remember where we were on this day?’

Girish turned into Sawday Road and stepped into the Vishram Coffee House, smoothing down his hair. He walked to a small table at the back of the restaurant and ordered a sugarless coffee. Service would be slow: the place was almost full.

A television was mounted on a precarious bracket in one corner of the restaurant. Images of the satellite flashed on the screen. There were sound bites from space experts, politicians and, inexplicably, a well-known wrestler. A number of white-coated, venerable-looking scientists sat in a row, their faces fuzzy with anxiety. Archive footage of the first moon landings was spliced with shots of the Deep Space Network centre at Byalalu, an unremarkable village outside Bangalore, stunned by its sudden fame. The camera swooped in to capture the scene it was seeking: cows grazing in the scrubland under the giant antenna that would enable the communication of pictures and scientific data from the satellite.

Next to Girish, the chat at the large corner table of the Vishram Coffee House was becoming animated.

‘Seriously Kumar, just suppose you are a politician and you want to take a bribe. Some fellow turns up to your hotel room with crisp notes in a nice briefcase. Will you just count them in front of all and sundry, rub your belly and go home? There have been so many of these sting operations that you would at least be having a few doubts, no?’

‘What I am saying is that their greed is too much.’

‘But how can they not know about secret cameras? How? Even street sweepers are using them to catch their cheating wives.’

‘Look at our poor Kumar. If he was a politician, with a face like that, no one would try and film him, even for some sting-ping operation.’

‘And now see this nonsense. Sending spaceships to the moon.’

‘You don’t know? The government is looking for new areas for housing plots. We have run out here so it is exceptionally vital that we get to the moon before anyone else.’

‘But I say, there is no reputable water source there.’

‘No matter. There has been no water in Vidyaranyapuram for the last two and a half days. People from here will not notice any difference.’

On the pavement outside the restaurant a flower seller continued to string together jasmine blossoms at top speed. Her head was covered in a maroon knitted scarf and her eyes darted into the crowd, seeking any passing regulars. A novice priest clutching two overfilled plastic bags hurried past a throng of worshippers and walked into the Ganesh temple’s side entrance, late for the evening aarthi . Charcoal clouds had pushed their way across to settle high above the spires of St Philomena’s Church on Ashoka Road and, further away, dark rents had appeared in the sky over the horizon. A minibus stopped abruptly on the corner and disgorged its cargo of student nurses before nosing its way towards Nazarbad.

A sudden flash lit up the television screen in the coffee house, followed by an assault of reds and oranges as enormous globes of smoke moved in. Seconds of dull, lifeless sky later, the space vehicle’s tail flared into sight. It pierced through the pale clouds and streaked upwards for a moment before being shrouded by a heavy mist. The white-coated scientists began to clap and cheer, hugging each other and making the thumbs-up sign at the cameras. It had been a perfect launch.

Girish had allowed his coffee to grow cold. He sighed, drained the glass and motioned to the waiter for the bill. It was getting late and he was expected at home. In a short while he would push open the front door to hear his wife turn the television off and scramble to her feet. He would hang his keys on the hook above the metal folding chair. The room would smell of food now cold in its pans.

The waiter finally brought the bill, slapping it down on the table.