SUSHEELA moved the Leaning Tower of Pisa so that it formed a straight line with the Eiffel Tower and the Taj Mahal. She noticed that the Pyramid of Giza seemed to have slid of its own accord below St Paul’s Cathedral. The thought crossed her mind that Uma kept rearranging the formation simply to annoy her. Each fridge magnet secured a vital piece of information and was positioned for ease of reference. Susheela detached a crumpled card advertising a furniture showroom. She ripped it into little shreds and clasped them in her hand. The manager of the showroom had turned out to be a complete buffoon. He had shown no understanding of his trade or her requirements. She would not be repeating that mistake.
She opened the fridge door. Mini cartons of juice were lined neatly along one shelf: apple, orange, grape and guava. Next to them a jug contained about a litre of freshly made lemonade, condensation flecking its rim. If anyone wanted badaam milk, the morning’s delivery would be boiled and cooled, the ground almonds stirred in, before being chilled in the freezer. As an emergency option there would always be yoghurt, thinned out and churned into a cold lassi, spiked with a dash of cumin.
Susheela remembered why she had come downstairs. It was this business with the missing sack of manure. She shut the fridge door; the manure was hardly likely to be there. The bag had invaded her thoughts just as she was beginning her morning exercises and the urge to carry out some form of investigation had been overwhelming. She had abandoned her stretches and come to the kitchen to see if the mali had arrived. In spite of his lengthy protestations, she was convinced that he knew something about its disappearance. The nursery owner had been quite clear that he had sent over the sack and she had no reason to suspect his motives.
She walked across to the dining room windows to see if the mali was anywhere on the front lawn. Currents of dry heat were already beginning to claw their way up through the room, even at this time of morning. She turned on the air-conditioning unit and it let out a sinister growl. It had not been serviced for a while and a reminder needed to be slipped under the Eiffel Tower. There was no sign of the mali. Whether or not he had pilfered the manure, he was definitely late. She wondered for a moment whether he and Uma could have planned something together. Susheela had not spotted any signs of collusion and she had a fine instinct for intrigue being conducted under her roof. Uma was too aloof and reserved to indulge in such treacherous behaviour. Even if the mali dropped dead, she would probably just carry on with her work, silently mopping the floor around him.
Susheela knew she should return to her room and complete those exercises but her irritation made her immobile. Behind her, squares of sunlight shimmered on the rosewood table, polished through its nineteen-year life with great dedication. She noticed that the cracks in the plasterwork above the mirror had lengthened, forming a long and lopsided arrow. In the garden there was no movement at all; only a shocking white glare that would become even more ferocious as the day progressed.
Susheela shook her head and disposed of the tattered card. She supposed there was little point in compromising her health over what was essentially a bag of goat waste. The mali would be here sooner or later and there would be ample opportunity to uncover the truth. She switched off the air-conditioning unit and went back upstairs.
The mali rode past the 42 bus stop where buses from the villages outside Mysore came to a shuddering, shrieking halt on their way into the city centre. He slowed down, half expecting to see Uma in the vicinity. He looked around. The morning’s pageant in this part of Mahalakshmi Gardens was playing itself out but there was no sign of Uma. He pedalled on, sweat running into his eyes.
At Bamboo Corner a group of rubbish collectors were having a meeting in the shade of the giant bamboo. Their blue jackets had been pulled over their saris and their carts stood parked in a neat line down 6th Main Road. Also under the bamboo, a couple of elderly women were stooped over the parched sward, trying to pick long blades of grass for their pooja. The Nachappas’ dachshunds were out on their morning constitutional, their little legs plugging along inefficiently. Up and down the locality’s streets, newspapers were being lobbed over gates into verandas and balconies. The steady rasps of brooms sweeping out yards interrupted the demented chatter of bulbuls. The shutter of the provision store on 11th Cross Road was half raised; inside, the shop owner was deep in prayer before a sandalwood carving of Ganesh.
Opposite the main gates of the Gardens, the mali ran into the Bhaskars’ night watchman, squinting at the sun as he adjusted the clutch of plastic bags in his hands. The mali brought his bicycle to a halt, trailing his feet against the hot surface of the road.
‘Left your shift late again?’ he asked.
‘Yes, all because of that bastard,’ said the watchman, putting down some of his bags.
‘Which bastard?’
‘He is meant to relieve me at six but not even one day does he turn up on time. He is the purest type of bastard. The genuine article. One of these days I will bury him alive.’
The mali had heard details of the proposed interment numerous times and was keen to avoid a further account.
‘You are always wandering around with countless bags every time I see you. Like an old woman you are,’ he said with a laugh.
The watchman thought hard before responding.
‘Of course, make fun, big man. How many months have you been trying to get close to that tasty item inside the house? Seems like your Uma has no appreciation for a hero like you.’
‘These things take time.’
‘Don’t be simply buzzing for too long. The flower will droop and wilt.’
‘Go home, ajja.’
‘Eunuch.’
‘Bastard.’
They parted good-naturedly.
The last of the early walkers were completing their final circuits in the Gardens. A huddle of retirees could usually be found by the main gates, caught up in an intense exchange of news: all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. The last few years had seen an influx of iPod-clutching, midriff-baring, visor-wearing joggers, who had returned for good from Houston, Manchester or Auckland. The t’ai chi habitués were adrift in their practice in the southern corner of the Gardens. A relatively new phenomenon in Mysore, this still attracted the gaze of alarmed older gentlemen, their loose cotton pyjamas flapping as they strolled down the paths. An aggressive display in electric blue spandex was taking place on the monkey bars. The regulars were all there: the speed-walking couple with identical lacquered hairstyles; the man whose principal exertion appeared to be clapping at the neem trees; the three rotund, middle-aged brothers who spent their forty-minute amble discussing breakfast options; and the woman in the Yale T-shirt who ran backwards, regularly flicking her head back to avoid an ugly mishap.
On Gulmohar Road the mali paused to wipe his face. He had tried to set off earlier than usual, knowing that his conduct needed to be exemplary over the next few days. Amma’s eyes would be following him continually until she forgot about that missing sack of manure or found something else to occupy her mind. But he had slept badly and was now struggling to make it on time. He began pedalling again, past the large bungalows with their forbidding wrought-iron gates, the Spanish-style villas set in green quads and the corner house shaped like a violin. He finally turned into 7th Main Road and stopped outside a neat house, smaller than its neighbours, surrounded by a low compound wall.
Knowing he was in full view of the front windows, his features creased into an expression of honest industry. He wheeled the bicycle in through the gates and propped it up against one of the pillars of the carport. It looked like Uma had not arrived yet and so he stayed away from the front and back doors. The gravel on the path leading to the shed looked white in the dazzling sunshine. Deciding not to take on the blaze, he squatted in a small patch of shade under the dining room windows, sluggishly tracing his fingers through the desiccated soil. His days usually began with a steaming coffee, set down in his steel lota by Uma next to one of the sinks by the back door. He leant over the spent blossoms of the hibiscus shrubs. As a bead of sweat from his face dropped on to a bud’s wrinkled lobe, he settled down to wait.
In the master bedroom Susheela inhaled deeply and tried to hoist herself up on her arms, fixing her gaze on the corniced ceiling. Her wrists seemed to be made of moist clay. She renewed her attempt, managed to hold the position for a few seconds, before setting her head back down on the mat. A strange pain had launched itself between her shoulder blades, as if to counterbalance the throbbing circle around her right ankle.
There was a time when she would have taken herself off to see Dr Bhat for any such complaint, even if it meant having to endure his hyperactive receptionist and the jolt of her vigorously hennaed hair. Such frequent visits to the doctor, however, had become embarrassing. Although his manner was always solicitous, he probably assumed that she had little else with which to occupy herself. She recalled their last conversation, which had taken place as the doctor scribbled on a pad.
‘You must think I’m a hypochondriac, doctor, but truly, this cough has not gone for weeks,’ she had said, wishing he would look at her, rather than at his own jerky hand.
‘There is no need for any concern at all, you are absolutely in the pink,’ he had responded, still failing to meet her gaze.
‘But, after all, something must be causing it?’
‘Without a doubt. But you please don’t worry. I am here, no? How are your daughters? Doing well, I hope?’
‘They are doing very well, thank you. They were also a little worried about this cough, you know. They have been pestering me to get it investigated.’
‘Oh yes, good thing that you came to see me. The body is such a complicated instrument, isn’t it? The important thing is to be happy and enjoy a positive outlook. Joyful thoughts, in fact.’
‘Doctor, to be most frank with you, I don’t think my thoughts are more or less joyful than anyone else’s, but not everybody goes around having a strange cough for weeks.’
‘That is true. But in worrying about such matters one forgets that cheerfulness is the true medicine in life. An elixir, in fact.’
Susheela had given up. She had taken his prescription, a tonic that was apparently beneficial for general health and all-round well-being, and left the clinic in a state far removed from the recommended joyfulness.
Apart from the ankle and the shoulder blades, the last three months had also seen the appearance of a patch of dry skin on one thigh and an unaccountable watering of her eyes every time she lay down. Susheela had learned stoicism and a benign neglect. She no longer discussed matters with the Nachappa boy, who was a junior doctor at St Theresa’s, and avoided the temptation of consulting an online compendium of illnesses. Given the array of symptoms, no doubt she would be able to diagnose herself with everything from aphasia to scurvy.
Some aspects of aging were easier to accommodate than others. The trouble, she thought to herself, in her most private moments, was that having had a face once widely acknowledged to be beautiful, one could hardly be expected to make an accurate assessment of its current merits. Just as an old but treasured cardigan would fail to reveal its frayed seams and baggy sleeves to its devoted owner, Susheela had begun to suspect that she had been rendered blind to a number of indignities in her facial appearance.
When she looked at her face she saw a woman who looked perhaps fifty-four rather than sixty-four. She saw good skin, lighter than the matrimonially prized ‘wheatish’, large brown eyes flecked with hazel, a fiercely proportionate nose and a well-defined Cupid’s bow that gently dropped her mouth into a soft vulnerability. She saw a slightly fleshy chin and a deep fold of skin that had somehow nudged its way to the top of her neck. She saw a deep dimple in her left cheek when she smiled and a faint crease radiating out under each eye from the top of her nose.
All this she saw but was this what everyone else saw too? And when they had seen it, what did they make of it? She knew very well that what anyone saw or thought about her looks did not matter ten paise at her age but, in spite of herself, she still felt the need to place herself within an assembly of women of her generation. She pictured a line of dumpy elderly women in shawls and Kanjeevaram silks, chappals slapping against the floor as they walked across a stage, adjusting their sashes and tiaras.
As for her body, on the other hand, there she was perfectly confident that she had not been spared any realisations on the subject of its decline. Over the years it was clear that her hips had widened, apparently seeking to conquer with bulk what could not be conquered by grace. She was conscious of a solidity in her upper arms that she could not remember from her youth. Her stomach, she felt, was a disgrace. Obstinate and insistent, it seemed to pillow around her, taking no notice whatsoever of her hostility. Where had this flesh come from? It was at least fifteen years since Susheela had properly regarded herself as slim but her changed form still took her a little by surprise.
Susheela turned her head to look at the clock on the bedside table. She rolled on to her side and then slowly stood up, feeling between her shoulder blades for the exact source of this new visitation. A short bath later, it seemed to have subsided as she uncoiled the thin cotton towel from around her head. Her hair was still a little wet and had settled in stubborn waves down to her shoulders. Above her ears, Reshmi, her hairdresser, had artfully left a few strands of subtle grey.
‘In all good lies, there must be a little bit of truth,’ Reshmi had pronounced.
The rest of Susheela’s hair proclaimed itself a glossy black. It was a fiction that she felt that she owed to the world and one in which the world ought to collude gratefully. This was not so much a matter of vanity as mutual courtesy. She picked up a comb and began to run it through her hair, wincing as she broke through tangle after tangle. Every day the same: first the right side and then the left, and then sweeping motions over her crown and the back of her head, all culminating in a sad fuzz of jilted hair, plucked from her comb and dropped deftly into the waste-paper basket.
In the bottom drawer of the teak dresser in the dining room was a picture album, the pink and grey floral swirls on its cover a reminder of her early married life. A third of the way into this album, carefully pasted on to the lower half of the page, lay a photograph of Susheela at the age of twenty-four. This image of herself had over the years become embedded in her mind and she clung to it without ever having meant to do so.
The photograph had been taken on a trip to Mount Abu with her husband, Sridhar. The year was 1968. ‘Mere saamne wali khidki mein’ crackled out of transistor radios in tea shops, university hostels and railway station waiting rooms. Indira Gandhi was in Thimphu, discussing democracy with the Bhutanese monarch. In Tamil Nadu bursts of agitation continued against the declaration of Hindi as India’s primary official language. The Beatles transcendentally meditated in Rishikesh, a group of friends in tow, and, quite coincidentally, condoms were being distributed and marketed across rural India by the large tea, petroleum and chemical corporations in a government family-planning initiative.
The photograph’s white border, mottled by an unidentifiable substance, had curled up at the corners and a yellow tinge had washed across the scene. Sridhar had taken the photograph in the early evening of their first day at the hill station. Susheela’s sari, a green Japanese georgette with a brown geometric motif, seemed to shimmer in the light, although she would have been horrified at the suggestion that she might have been dressed in anything that lent itself to a daytime gleam. Her hair was perfect. She had resisted the vulgar pull of a Sadhana cut or a beehive but some limited backcombing had given her face the composition that she had sought. A couple of kiss curls were a further concession to the era but the glossy braid that hung heavily over her left shoulder was timeless. Her posture was stagey, right arm tilting awkwardly by her slender waist and her chin lowered in a reproduction of cinematic coyness. In the background, the clutter of structures on the hillside looked about to pitch into the orange waters of Nakki Lake.
The last time she had looked at the picture had been a couple of years ago when her daughter had been recovering from chicken pox. It was a humid June day and Priyanka had been lying in the sitting room, listlessly turning the pages of the album, one eye on the Wimbledon match unfolding on television.
‘God, amma, you look just like Sharmila Tagore in this one,’ she had said, rather incredulously, it had seemed to Susheela.
‘Yes, maybe when she played a mother’s role in her fifties,’ had been Susheela’s retort.
‘No, really. I think it’s the hair and the shiny shiny sari.’
The photo album continued to be confined to the dresser drawer.
Her hair done, Susheela stood up and got dressed, picking out a purple silk sari with a black border. She adjusted the angle of the dressing table mirror, moved across to close the bathroom door and then straightened the edge of the bedspread. As she went downstairs, she wondered why Uma had not yet arrived. Maybe she was up to something with the mali.
Uma’s eyes opened just as the train heading south to Mayiladuthurai wheezed into Mysore Junction. Only a row of dilapidated sheds, a slope covered with banks of refuse and a collapsing chain-link fence separated her home from the outlying platforms of the station. The sky was a sooty grey in the gap that ran around the room between the wall and the corrugated iron roof. In the near darkness, Uma’s eyes focused on the wooden frame of the picture of Shiva on the wall. The liquid eyes and the open palm would only be visible after another hour or so when the light filtered through the gap and the room’s tiny window. Uma shifted slowly on the thin foam mattress. Her skin felt flushed and sticky, the sheet twisted into a clammy wreath underneath her.
In one corner of the room, a pipe with no tap extended over a square of lumpy cement, surrounded by an uneven brim. Apart from the mattress, the room also contained a tin trunk and a plastic chair. Placed on the trunk were a small mirror, a comb and a bar of soap. Uma sat up and tried to perform the deep breathing exercises that Bhargavi had shown her. Pranayama would help bring peace to the mind and take away all fears and negative thoughts, she had said. Uma closed her left nostril with her thumb and inhaled deeply through the right one. After a few tepid attempts she stopped. She kept losing count and was not sure she was following the correct order in any case. She would probably just have to learn to live with the negative thoughts, at least for today.
She reached for a small scarf and wound her thick, fractious curls into a tight coil at the nape of her neck. Once she had bathed, she would begin the process of marshalling them into place, drawing them into a neat braid. When she was about six or seven, the neighbourhood children had scored a complicated ditty involving her ‘hair like steel wool’ and ‘skin like charcoal’ before moving on to another victim some months later. Even after their overtures had ceased, the hair continued to be an issue: agonising sessions of her mother’s firm tugs and jerks as she tried to bring order to the jet black kinks. The skin remained even more of an issue, a plague that was impossible to hide.
Uma unbolted the door and stepped outside. There was movement even at this early hour. Her neighbour’s daughter walked past, a mewling toddler hitched to her waist. The sound of water drumming against plastic filled the air. Somewhere a radio droned out the news while its owner hawked loudly by the gutter. Uma picked up her two plastic pots and, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, walked down the row of rooms to take her place in the morning queue at the tap. Parvathi, her neighbour, was already there and smiled weakly at her. It was too early to exchange any pleasantries. The earth around the tap had been churned into a grey sludge, trailing skeins of banana leaves and strips of newspaper. Uma shut her eyes and pressed her pots against her chest as she waited to reach the front of the queue.
At the opposite end of the row another queue was growing, this one for the toilet. Uma walked quickly back to her room, her muscles taut with the weight of the water. Dumping the pots behind the door, she made her way out again towards the toilet, clutching a mug of water. A rooster seemed to have joined the queue in front of her, jerking its head and puffing out its feathers, as if in an attempt to be escorted to the front. Uma looked down and waited. A man now stood behind her: she could see his cracked feet in the blue rubber chappals. The wait to use the toilet in the morning seemed to be getting longer these days. Maybe more people were living in the rooms in this row. Then there was also the landlord’s teenaged son who had taken to smoking in the toilet, barricading himself in there for ten minutes at a time, leaving behind a rank fug and a floor covered in cigarette butts. As she waited, Uma felt an almost imperceptible tug at her sari, a sough that instantly made her stiffen. She stood very still. It happened again; a soft but deliberate graze against the backs of her legs. She did not turn around, praying that the toilet door would open. The feet in the blue rubber chappals seemed to have moved closer.
Just then a man emerged from the toilet, wiping his hands on a towel slung over his shoulder. Uma rushed in and firmly locked the door behind her.
Mala could feel the hot sand pulsating through her chappals as she walked down the gradual decline to the river. She slipped them off and for a second the blistering charge against the soles of her feet made her spine ache. Drawing up her sari a few inches, she stepped quickly into the water and gained instant deliverance. Here the river bed was nearly forty feet wide where it gently swung away towards the lean scrubland further downstream. The stately progress of eucalyptus trees on both sides of the river came to a halt as the steep banks dipped into this gentle grainy bowl. The sustained dry spell had assailed the river basin and the water level was in full retreat.
Despite the mid-morning heat, various groups had made their way across the scalding dune to the water’s edge. Four young boys had stripped off to their shorts and raced into the river. Mala squinted at their brown bodies glancing off each other as they whooped at the world around them. Following some prearranged signal, the bodies disappeared for a few seconds before four pairs of inverted legs emerged in a row, pointing shakily at the sky.
A boy in trousers rolled up to the knee was offering to take people across the river and back for ten rupees.
‘Madam, you want a boat ride?’ he asked Mala.
She shook her head.
‘It will be like heaven,’ he said, his eyes rolling in earnestness.
Mala could not help smiling. But she shook her head again.
The boy looked crushed and then, quickly recovering, disappeared into the cluster of kiosks that inevitably sprang up in the fecund earth around tourist sites.
At the top of the dune, behind the low wall, one hundred and one stone steps led to a temple that faced the high lustre of the river. The temple’s roof was supported by thirty-six pillars bearing inscriptions in praise of the resident deity. A frieze of rearing horses ran over the plinths that formed the base of the structure. At its main entrance, the fangs and bulbous eyes of the carved sentinel served as a warning to tourists unable to muster sufficient interest in the history of the shrine. Taking his cue from this figure, a priest stood on the uneven porch and looked bleakly at the figures below, before returning to the solace of a large potato bun.
Mala looked at her feet, strangely flat and wide in the rippling water, like brown table-tennis bats. She wiggled her toes and a puff of sediment rose up to obscure the dull glint of her toe ring. Sweat was now running down her back, the fierce heat basting her arms and her neck. She looked around for Girish, who was deep in conversation with the father of the boat-boy. It was his usual sociological burlesque: what is your native place, who lives with you, how many children, how old are they, what do you grow, where are your parents, how far is your native place? Mala had seen the performance countless times. Girish would never listen to the responses, preferring instead to stack up more questions, revelling in the beneficence of his camaraderie with the drivers, the guides and the porters.
This time the conversation had veered into local politics. The constituency’s MLA had recently succumbed to his injuries following a disastrous attempt at skiing in Kufri. A by-election had been called and the opposition was taking full advantage of the district authority’s failure to construct a bridge at Suvarnadurga, four kilometres away. In fact, plans for the bridge had been stewing for nearly a decade. Opinions had been canvassed, engineers had been consulted, funds had been allocated, contracts had been awarded and invoices had been raised. The bridge, however, remained unconstructed: a footnote in the life of the late MLA for Suvarnadurga.
Girish waved at Mala, gesturing towards the tea stalls. She shook the water off her feet, slipped on her chappals and walked heavily up the dune again, the coarse sand cleaving to her toes. Girish was seated at one of the few shaded tables. She had felt his gaze all the way up the dune but had kept looking down at the little gullies her feet were making in the sand. She sat down opposite him, wiping her neck with her pallu.
‘So do you know about the myth?’
‘No, what myth?’
‘About the temple.’
When Mala looked blank, Girish continued: ‘It seems that there was a just and responsible king who ruled this area in times of yore. He always looked after his subjects and made sure that they did not start filing public interest litigation cases.’
Mala flashed a hurried smile in response.
‘The king was looking for a bride and began praying to the river god to assist him. Using the river god as marriage broker, you could say. So, after the king had prayed for many months, the river god was satisfied and offered him his daughter’s hand in marriage. The daughter, it seems, was a very beautiful creature. And also very entertaining.’
The coffee and vadas he’d ordered arrived and Girish broke off to examine them. Satisfied, he popped half a vada into his mouth with a smudge of chutney, shuffling the hot mouthful around with his tongue until it was cool enough to swallow.
‘Yes, so this daughter could tell amazing stories, dance beautifully and play lots of instruments. The king was completely bewitched and married her with no delay. But then what happened is that the king became obsessed with his new wife. He began neglecting his state affairs and all his subjects began to suffer. You could say that he was the model for our politicians today.’
A girl appeared at the table, holding out calendars for sale. Girish looked around impatiently for the tea boy. Within a few seconds, the girl darted away, her skirt billowing behind her.
‘Anyway, neighbouring kingdoms began to make plans to attack this state and the subjects began to starve so they begged the river god to make the king come to his senses. It seems the river god appeared before the king and scolded him for his dereliction of duties. The king was very arrogant, thinking that he did not need the river god any more, now that he had his beautiful daughter. So the river god punished the king by making his daughter invisible.’
A fight had broken out between two stray dogs in the parking area and it was a minute or so before their ferocious barking receded into a series of cartoon yelps.
‘Some people, I think, will question whether making a wife invisible is real punishment.’
Girish smiled at Mala and then continued.
‘But the king was highly distraught. He began to pray again to the river god, agreeing to any kind of penance as long as his wife was returned to him in visible format. The river god agreed to return his daughter, but only on condition that the king pray non-stop for forty days, restore the good fortunes of his subjects and also build a temple where the river god could always see it.’
Mala’s eyes ventured a glance at the next table as Girish spoke. A couple were holding hands across the table’s ringed surface. The tea boy set down two bottles of cola, flimsy straws capering at the top. Red and green bangles clinked on the woman’s lower arms as she traced little circles on her husband’s palms with the tips of her fingernails.
Mala stole another look. The woman was wearing a white salwar kameez, the fitted bodice showing off her contours. She stretched out her arm and turned the two pens poking out of her husband’s shirt pocket so that they would be correctly ranged for any impromptu drafting. Her hand moved upwards and her fingers swept through her husband’s hair, brushing it away from his side parting. Spotting a crumb at the edge of his mouth, she flicked it away and ran her thumb across his bottom lip.
Mala turned back to Girish and their eyes locked. She looked down at her lap and then across at the spread of the sluggish river below. Girish reached out for the sole paper napkin sitting in a plastic tumbler on the table and began to wipe his hands meticulously.
The doorbell rang at a quarter past eleven, spooling out a joyless version of ‘Edelweiss’.
‘Actually on time,’ thought Susheela as she smoothed down the front of her pallu and walked towards the door.
Sunaina Kamath made her usual entrance: she walked into any room as if expecting to interrupt a vibrant conference. Her apparent disappointment at being confronted by only Susheela and a potted philodendron was quickly swept away as she took off her sandals.
‘How are you, Sush? This heat, I can’t tell you. It gets worse every year.’
Behind Sunaina, Malini Gupta smiled woodenly as she took in her surroundings.
‘I don’t know whether it’s the global warming or getting older or maybe both. But I definitely seem to feel the heat a lot more these days,’ sighed Susheela. ‘Please come, Malini. First time you’re coming here, no?’
Sunaina sank into a brocade sofa.
‘Oof, I think I’ll just stay here for the rest of the day and not move.’
Slightly rested, she let out an abrupt chuckle. Her dimples gave her face a softer, more pliant aspect as she dabbed at her neck with a man’s handkerchief. Sunaina’s hair always looked as if she had walked into it quite by chance, the unyielding bob anxiously perched over her face. She stuffed the handkerchief into one of the many pouches in her handbag and looked ready for business.
Malini Gupta sat straight-backed on a leather and bamboo stool despite Susheela’s attempts to navigate her towards the more comfortable corner armchair. Susheela saved herself some trouble and focused her attentions on Sunaina, it being widely known that Mrs Gupta’s only interests were the cave paintings of Ajanta and the arthritis in her big toe.
The social call slid into its characteristic rhythm. More on the hot weather, children, other family, traffic, general health, specific health, completed building works, anticipated further building works, weight gain, weight loss, cooks, maids, drivers and gardeners.
Sunaina dragooned her way through topics like a seasoned politician, mindful of all reasonable views but keen to move on to other more significant issues. She was convinced that her uncompromising sense of community responsibility and benevolent participation gave her a nose for what mattered. If questioned, she would have been hard-pressed to define the community for which she toiled so industriously. In fact, the question would probably only have served to irritate her: the kind of mindless prattle that got in the way of people setting agendas and achieving objectives. Nevertheless, she recognised the importance of weighty nomenclature. Sunaina had always believed that if one invited gravitas, patronage and influence would automatically follow.
She was therefore an indispensable member of the Association of Concerned and Informed Citizens of Mysore, the chair of the Mysore North Civic Reform and Renewal Committee and the secretary of the Vontikoppal Ladies’ League. No less impressive was her record in the inner circles of the Mahalakshmi Gardens Betterment Association and St Theresa’s Humanities College Alumni Society. She also gave freely of her time to any number of spontaneous causes and supplicants.
In some quarters her tireless public efforts were viewed as a deliberate counterpoise to her husband’s cantankerousness. A canny property developer, he seemed to relish his renowned irascibility, picking fights with even the paan seller outside Mindy’s. The most recent outrage had been an ugly scene involving an overturned basket of chrysanthemums outside the Chamundeshwari temple. During her early married life, Sunaina had appeared to have a firm grip on her husband’s unpredictability. She had regarded her handiwork with the pride of a dog trainer who had made a success of a particularly idiotic mongrel. But over the years the cur had reverted to form and ever more florid notes of apology had been required to appease her relatives and neighbours.
Susheela wondered when exactly Sunaina had begun to call her Sush. She was certainly the only person in the world to do so. Uma appeared briefly to serve the chilled juice and some light mid-morning snacks. Sunaina greeted the malai chum chum and the cashew pakoras with protestations, grudging acceptance and then a cheerful zeal. The air-conditioning system rattled away in the background.
‘Oh Sush, you’re really trying to finish me off,’ Sunaina groaned, biting into another chum chum. ‘Just after scaring us with all these health stories, you serve us these heart attacks.’
Malini Gupta had barely touched her plate. A corner had been nibbled off just one pakora. Susheela made a mental note.
Talk turned to Sunaina’s nephew, whose disinclination to find paid employment troubled her like an ingrown toenail.
‘At least he doesn’t gamble or, you know, conduct himself in loose ways,’ said Susheela.
‘Birdwatching,’ said Sunaina with disgust. ‘That’s the only thing he’s interested in. Always leaping up to tell you that he spotted some crested crow with three legs.’
‘But I suppose it doesn’t do any harm.’
‘It doesn’t do any good either. He may be comfortably off, but as a life, what does it amount to, all this lying around in puddles, gazing at hens?’
Malini Gupta seemed to cheer up a little at the thought of the dismal prospects of Sunaina’s nephew.
The morning’s paper lay folded and pressed flat on the coffee table. The front page revealed that the High Court had granted a fresh stay order on any construction at the site of HeritageLand. The saga of the proposed theme park, one of Asia’s largest, seemed almost immemorial. Every call of support or protest was eagerly absorbed into the civic ether as if the pitch for construction was the real entertainment envisaged by the park’s creators. Almost every aspect of the project was endlessly debated in the local press, the choice of site and acquisition of land being the most controversial. The editor of the Mysore Evening Sentinel was unequivocal in his warning: ‘If we don’t hurry up and build the damn thing, the Chinese will do it, like they do everything else.’
‘As for this so-called HeritageLand, I don’t think we will ever see it in our lifetimes,’ said Susheela.
‘I am just sick and tired of hearing about it,’ said Sunaina, her hands fluttering to her temples.
‘Every day there is another press release, another exclusive. The park will only have five-star hotels, it will have five thousand fountains, it will be seen from space.’
‘Apparently we will be able to experience a day in the life of Tipu Sultan there.’
‘Didn’t he spend his days flinging Britishers off a cliff?’
‘Maybe that’s what they intend, although I hope not. Think of the mess. Just when street cleaning has improved in our localities.’
Sunaina gulped the last of her juice like a stricken heroine.
A bee had somehow made its way into the dining room and its dull drone was interrupted by the thud of its deranged lunges at the closed window. Malini Gupta glanced at the moulded ends of the curtain rail, shifted on her stool and once again examined her uneaten chum chum.
‘So, what made you late this morning?’ asked the mali, as Uma carried a basin of dirty utensils to the outside washing area at the back of the house.
She gathered up the folds of her sari, tucked them between her thighs and squatted to turn the tap on. The mali walked around to one side of the tap and looked down at the top of her head.
‘Definitely in a bad mood,’ he said.
‘Amma said there were plates under the pots on the upstairs balcony that need to be cleaned,’ Uma said. The water sprayed halfway up her thin arms and wet the edges of her sari.
‘Can you get me another cup of coffee? Even in this heat, my stomach is feeling cold inside.’
Uma did not respond. She quickly rinsed the last of the steel tumblers, laid it out on a mat in the sunshine and hurried back inside the house, without giving him another look.
The sun was lower in the sky but the dry heat still bore away with the same intensity. Seated on the low wall, Mala looked for the hyperactive boys but they were nowhere in sight. Girish sat next to her, his arm slung across her shoulders like a sandbag. He occasionally clicked his fingers as if in time to some mysterious strain unfolding in his head. A few minutes later he stood up and stretched.
‘Time to go, Mala. We’ve got that journey back,’ he said, heading towards the parking area.
The square of shade in which the car had been parked had pivoted around to the right, leaving it fully exposed to the day’s fury. Its interior felt like a hot, fetid mouth and the seat began to brand Mala’s back and thighs. Girish reversed out of the parking area and slowly began the descent down to the rutted road.
The car was fairly new. Its purchase had been preceded by lengthy consultations with colleagues and relatives. Girish had pored over motoring magazines, scoured road user websites and posted detailed queries on car information forums. The Maruti dealer had come to their home three times and had fielded countless telephone calls. Finally, the loan was arranged, the EMIs fixed and the vehicle delivered on an auspicious day, before Rahu reared up to cause any chaos. Girish had driven the car carefully to the Venkateshwara temple in Sitanagar, a marigold and jasmine garland looped over the bonnet. As the priest reeled off the blessing, Girish stared at the new number plate. His intermittently professed rationalism had been given the day off. Girish was not a man who liked to take chances.
The thrill of ownership had faded rapidly. Three months after the purchase, the blue hatchback looked drab and niggardly, parked by a pile of macadam left in the lane beyond their front gate. With the surging price of fuel, the car had already become of incidental use: shopping excursions, day trips, weddings. Girish continued to wash and polish the car conscientiously, having read about the dangers of oxidation.
As Girish eased the car into second gear, he glanced at Mala next to him. She had lowered the sun visor and her head was turned towards the window on her side. The condition of the road seemed, at least to Girish, to have worsened inexplicably over the course of the day. The car shuddered and bounced as Girish weaved around pits and potholes. Here and there a darker smear of tar indicated a hurried patching up, maybe in anticipation of a VIP visit or a festival procession.
The car passed through a village, extinguished for the afternoon, and turned on to the wider trunk road at the next junction. Mala continued to stare at the deserted land. The monotony of the dry paddy fields on either side was oppressive. Diamonds of stubble and loam rolled past, at times broken up by a meagre windbreak. Girish slowed down as they approached a bridge. As the car moved across it, Mala looked through the white railings to see that the river below had shrunk drastically. The anarchy of rocks and exhausted channels on the river bed resembled a strange moonscape. She noticed that someone had abandoned a bundle of clothes on the wall of a culvert. It was the only sign of softness in that unforgiving scene.
‘Shall I open the windows? At least the breeze might help,’ said Mala.
‘No, too much dust. Just turn that vent more towards you.’
They were bearing down on a van that was cruising along in the middle of the road. Girish hooted impatiently and flashed his lights. The van seemed to begin moving into the left lane and then shifted again so it was squarely in the centre of the road.
‘Look at this idiot. Who gives licences to these bloody fools?’ Girish let out a series of sharp honks and flashed his lights again.
An arm emerged from the van, undulating in the air.
‘What is this idiot doing? What the hell is that supposed to mean?’ More hooting followed.
The arm continued to motion and then, a few seconds later, withdrew.
Girish moved to the extreme right of the road, his hand pressed down on the horn. There was no oncoming traffic but he still could not overtake.
‘Is this fool crazy or deaf? If he wanted me to pass, why doesn’t he move?’ Girish nosed as close to the van as he could without causing a collision. His hooting was now just an endless, insistent blast.
The van began to gain speed, still in the middle of the road, and pulled away from the blue hatchback.
‘Finally,’ muttered Girish, adjusting his seat belt.
In an instant the van swerved sideways into the middle of the road and stopped, blocking the road. Girish slammed his foot on the brake and the car jolted to a halt, tearing violently at the uneven surface of the road.
Girish had taken his hand off the horn and a foreign silence descended. Mala turned to look at him. He was staring straight ahead, expressionless. The van’s door opened on the driver’s side. There was no further movement.
Girish’s hands remained on the steering wheel, the veins fanning out like the talons of a bird of prey.
A man jumped out of the van. He was slight and athletic looking, dressed in jeans and a tight vest, his hair cropped short. He approached the car at a leisurely pace, swinging a length of cloth.
Mala whispered: ‘Oh God, Girish, please don’t say anything.’
The man knocked at Girish’s window and then pressed his palm against the glass, his flesh pale and turgid. He knocked again, this time harder.
Girish opened the window. The man leant down: ‘Lo bhosdike, what’s the problem?’
Girish stared blankly at him. Mala pushed her handbag with her feet into the far corner.
‘I said, what’s the problem?’
‘There’s no problem.’
‘Really? You make a lot of noise for someone with no problems.’
‘There’s no problem.’
The man took a long look at Mala and then shrugged: ‘If you say so, boss. Too much tension. You need to relax.’
Girish was silent.
‘Okay boss, if you say no problem, then there really is no problem.’
The man took another look at Mala and then sauntered back to the van, still swinging the length of cloth. In a moment the van’s engine fired up and it sped off.
The man’s hand had left a greasy imprint on the window. Girish waited until the van was out of sight. He opened the door and spat into the road. Closing the door, he adjusted the mirror, restarted the ignition and began to move slowly forward.
Neither of them spoke for a few minutes until Girish looked sharply at Mala.
‘What do you think I would have said?’
‘What?’
‘You told me not to say anything. What do you think I was going to say?’
‘I don’t know. Nothing. I just didn’t want him to get angrier.’
‘Because I don’t know that much? That I should not make a crazy rowdy like him angry.’
‘I didn’t mean anything. I was just scared.’
They were approaching the bend in the road at Bannur. Billboards scudded past: models entwined in cords of gold, rows of premium quality rubber chappals and earnest invitations to MBA courses in Australia. A truck carrying wobbling stacks of timber lurched in front of them. On top of the planks sat a sallow-faced man, his dead eyes focused on some distant point.
The rest of the journey passed in silence.