The quarterly general meeting of the Mahalakshmi Gardens Betterment Association (MGBA) was scheduled for seven in the evening at the function hall of the Erskine Club. The MGBA had been set up nearly fifteen years ago as a reaction to the municipal authorities’ steady indifference to the provision of essential amenities in the area. The objects of the Association were ambitious: once the local community’s activist potential had been harnessed to resolve the neighbourhood’s problems, the same faculties would be directed towards uplifting more disadvantaged localities and creating a sense of unity in Mysore. Unfortunately the last decade and a half had seen the pioneers of local welfare becoming mired in a swamp of issues very close to home. As a result, the more philanthropic aspirations had been postponed indefinitely.
Sunaina Kamath had recently taken over as the chairperson of the MGBA’s Executive Committee, in what the previous incumbent, Mr Nandakishore, regarded as a savage coup. She had sent out a memo reminding members that under Article 54 of the articles of association no officer of the Executive Committee could stand for re-election for a third term, a rule that served to terminate Mr Nandakishore’s excellent stewardship. He had grudgingly stepped aside but was determined to ensure that the MGBA would not be deprived of his years of experience in matters of civic importance.
The general meeting had originally been due to take place a week earlier but a violent downpour had meant that many of the MGBA members had stayed at home. In spite of the sparse attendance, Sunaina had been minded to continue with proceedings. Mr Nandakishore, however, reached into the same constitutional arsenal that she had previously raided and introduced a point of order with regard to the conduct of general meetings. He was surprised to note that Mrs Kamath intended to proceed with the general meeting despite the inevitable violation of Article 14 of the MGBA’s articles of association. The provision required a quorum of thirty members for the transaction of any Association business. Mr Nandakishore’s careful calculation had arrived at a figure of only twenty-nine. After a hurried discussion with some of the Executive Committee members, Sunaina had adjourned the meeting in an asphyxiated voice. In the car park of the Erskine Club that evening, Mr Nandakishore strode through the stinging rain with his head held very erect.
The second attempt at the meeting was far more successful. It was a clear evening with a punchy freshness in the air and the car park at the Erskine Club was almost full. When Susheela arrived, most of the seats inside the Club’s function room were occupied, even though she was a good twenty minutes early. She walked to the front of the room, smiling warmly at fellow residents who were either currently in her circle or who had left it without causing offence. She sat down in the front row where a few seats remained and continued to look around the room, trying to make her scrutiny look as casual as possible. A tap on her shoulder made her turn expectantly in her seat.
It was Jaydev: ‘Hello again. It seems we only meet in situations of high drama.’
Susheela immediately looked embarrassed, not expecting to be reminded again, and certainly not at an MGBA meeting, of her strange vulnerability on that day.
‘Hello, what a surprise to see you here. What brings you to our neck of the woods to witness our little dramas, as you say?’ asked Susheela.
‘Sunaina and Ramesh have promised to take me to a new Italian restaurant by Tejasandra Lake after the meeting. Being an old man with far too much time on my hands, I have followed them here to make sure that they don’t give me the slip.’
‘I certainly hope the food is worth it, if it means you have to sit through discussions about our garbage and traffic lights and so forth.’
‘Let me just move forward instead of leaning like this. Is that seat free?’
The seat next to Susheela was usually free these days.
At that point Vaidehi Ramachandra gently squeezed Susheela’s elbow on her other side.
‘How are you Susheela? I haven’t seen you for such a long time,’ said Vaidehi morosely.
‘That’s true, how busy we become without even knowing why,’ said Susheela, with as much regret as she could marshal.
‘I’m glad that I’ve seen you here,’ said Vaidehi, cheering up and rummaging in a Shanta Silk House plastic bag. ‘I have been meaning to give you this for a long time but kept missing you.’
Susheela watched the ominous movements being made by Vaidehi’s hands, all the time conscious of Jaydev looking on.
Vaidehi pulled out a pamphlet and presented it to Susheela with a flourish. Under an image of a coastal sunset, the front page read: ‘The Twilight Terrain, A Guide to the Final Paths to the Almighty by the Mokshvihar Spiritual Trust’. If the unequivocal wording were excised, on the face of it, the pamphlet could just as easily have been a guide to honeymooning in Goa.
Susheela scanned the inside pages, which offered vignettes of rudderless pensioners who had eventually discovered the Mokshvihar lecture programmes and trademarked MokshDhyana group meditation techniques. The rest of the pamphlet was devoted to an extensive biography of the Trust founder, a charismatic humanitarian who frequently toured the world with his message of sanctity and salvation.
Susheela glanced at Jaydev, who appeared to be spellbound by some object in the vicinity of his knees. Around them, even more people had arrived and the pre-meeting chatter echoed loudly through the hall. To one side of the dais, two young men in waistcoats and bow ties were setting out more cups and saucers on a long table.
Susheela looked up at Vaidehi, whose face had settled into an expression of beatific encouragement.
‘Don’t say anything about it now. You need time to go home and reflect on what is said there. If you have any questions later, please come and ask me,’ said Vaidehi, turning to face the front again, satisfied but with an air of modesty. She was, after all, only the messenger.
Susheela thanked her and put the pamphlet into her handbag.
She had never really questioned the complexion of her spiritual fibre: she believed in God, knew she lived a principled life and performed the correct rituals on festival days with an undeniable precision. She would no more have considered becoming an atheist than she would the cultivation of marijuana on her front lawn. But the truth was that she found it difficult to entrust other beings, mortal or celestial, with the business of running an organised existence. Even when Sridhar had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, she had not sought relief in appeals to the divine. Her natural instinct had been to throw herself into finding the best oncologist, keeping an unfaltering watch on the hospital staff, ensuring the maximum possible comfort in his daily routine and communicating regularly with those who needed to be kept informed of his progress. When her sister-in-law had suggested a special pooja for Sridhar’s well-being, Susheela had quickly slotted it in on an auspicious day free of other commitments and made brisk enquiries on acceptable rates for caterers.
Vaidehi Ramachandra’s overtures did not offend her from the point of view of scripture or orthodoxy. What Susheela did not care for was the presumption that there was a space in her life that needed to be filled or that she was adrift in a sea of moral doubt. The fact that Vaidehi felt entitled to give Susheela advice on her spiritual nourishment was no less irritating: she was hardly a friend, habitually wore her sari two inches above her ankles and her husband had made his fortune selling steel utensils in an alley behind Shivrampet.
Jaydev leant in towards Susheela and said under his breath: ‘So when are you off to the ashram?’
‘Please, not now. She might hear you.’
‘I don’t think so. She looks like she is in some sort of trance.’
‘Please Mr Jaydev, here is not the place.’
‘All I am asking is that you allow me to wish you all the best on your journey to salvation.’
Susheela could no longer stifle her smile, but persisted in looking straight ahead at the bowl of chrysanthemums on the Executive Committee’s table.
At that point Sunaina and her colleagues on the Committee took their seats on the dais, the Treasurer stamped on the floor a number of times and the assembly was called to order.
As Girish had told Mala that he would pick her up in the evening, she had left her scooter at home and had got a rickshaw in to work. When she left the main gates of the Mysore Regency Hotel at half past five, she saw him across the road, standing by his motorbike, reading the evening paper. The rain had been heavy the night before and she had to skirt around the pools of water in the road, avoiding the onslaught of cars and rickshaws that splashed their way through.
Their first stop was a sari shop near Hardinge Circle, crisp pleats of turquoise and mauve silk fanning across the bolsters in one of the window displays. In the other, the mannequins appeared to be about to launch into a martial routine, their arms slicing at the neon air around them. Despite Mala’s protests, Girish had insisted that she should at least have a look. She was bound to see something irresistible.
It was wedding season and the shop was busy. Impassive matrons consulted lists scribbled on pages torn from their grandchildren’s exercise books and huddled conferences were breaking out on the little stools provided for customers. Shop girls circulated with steel lotas of intensely sugared coffee and cold badaam milk, made from a cheap packet mix, as noted by the more discerning clientele. Here the service was still steeped in the traditions of canny servility; the haughty appraisals and polished merchandising of the new boutiques at the Tejasandra Galleria were a world away. Sari after sari was rapidly unfolded, pallus shaken out, borders smoothed flat: a ballet of drapes and furls. Despite the small size of the store, the offerings seemed endless. A teenaged boy leapt about barefoot on bales at the back of the shop, locating additional stock, although to the untutored it simply looked like the crazed caper of a Nilgiri mountain goat. Nothing was deemed unavailable; runners were despatched to nearby warehouses or convincing alternatives were seamlessly conjured up.
Girish was always an enthusiastic participant in such an environment. He thrived on the theatre of transaction and grasped eagerly at his roles. These were the occasions where Mala relaxed and fed off his enthusiasm as he became the disappointed fiancé or the outraged bystander. She ran her finger over a zardozi leaf on a sari, the embroidery scratching against her skin. Girish’s face was flushed in the crowded room, a film of moisture spreading above his lips and across the back of his neck. His eyes flashed at Mala, an intimate connection made in the shop’s thick air, over the heads of two sisters who were examining a length of printed crepe. He was leaning on the counter, his fingers resting on the rounded steel edge, a tiny pulse thrilling in the soft dip under his thumb. Mala noticed that his belt clasp was hanging loose between the sharp creases at the top of his trousers. She smiled at him as he narrowed his eyes at the salesman whose hands were acting out a livelihood being wrung dry.
‘We can always try Srinivas and Sons,’ she said, on cue.
A refreshed scene of offer and counter-offer, declaration and protestation, finally culminated in them leaving the shop with a plastic bag containing two saris wrapped in brown paper.
They wandered past one of the many electronics shops on the same street. A stack of DVD players in their boxes stood on the pavement outside the shop. A buck-toothed boy in a baseball cap urged them to go inside to take just one look at the rest of the stock. Girish ignored him and walked on towards Sheethal Talkies.
‘Where to now? Do you want to look at some jewellery?’ he asked Mala, twisting around in the throng on the street.
‘No, I think that’s enough for today. What do you want to do?’
‘Are you hungry? Let’s go to the food court.’
Mala was not hungry. The smell of fried garlic from nearby food carts and the brawny wafts of kerosene from their stoves were making her feel nauseous. A muted ache was taking form somewhere behind her temples.
They made their way across the busy intersection to Sri Harsha Road, walked past Woodlands Theatre and Maurya Residency, turning towards the new shopping centre that had leapt into the centre of old Mysore. The giant hoardings outside the mall advertised a new range of teak furniture, heavily discounted as a result of a condition termed ‘Monsoon Mania’. In front of the metal detectors, girls with fresh jasmine in their hair were aggressively thrusting flyers for cut-price home cinema systems into the hands of shoppers.
Inside the mall, Girish and Mala trawled up a series of escalators, negotiating pyramids of non-stick cookware, bins of cheap towels and bed sheets, racks of crumpled shirts and a display of framed landscape prints. A remix of a Hindi film song bore into Mala’s head as they reached the fourth floor. The food court was partially screened off from the shop floor by a set of cardboard palm trees. Under paper cut-outs of pizzas and burgers, which hung in dense clumps from the ceiling, a couple of dour security guards circulated around the tables, trying to spot anyone who had smuggled in eatables from outside.
The food court had a complicated payment system involving the purchase of colour-coded coupons from different counters, depending on the type of cuisine. On their first visit, it had taken them half an hour to understand the intricacies of the system and another fifteen minutes to realise that they had paid for the wrong number of dishes.
Mala slid quickly towards the one free table, her lip curling in disgust when she spotted a greasy noodle on the tabletop. She looked around for the boy as Girish went to inspect the demented array of menu displays and special offers. On the next table three men were hunched over a mobile phone, shoulders shaking with mirth. They must have been brothers; as they leant back, Mala could see that they all had the same upturned noses. On her other side an elderly woman was staring at her with vapid eyes. Mala looked away, arching her back in an attempt to get comfortable on the tiny chair.
Girish returned, reciting: ‘Fried-rice-hakka-noodles-aloo-paratha-onion-paratha-veg-pizza-veg-club-sandwich-chilly-paneer-dahi-puri-sev-puri-masala-dosa-paper-dosa.’
Girish spun smartly around and initiated the complex procedures necessary to order some food. At the next table, the woman continued to stare vacantly in Mala’s direction. The boy arrived and gave the table a half-hearted swab. After he had gone, Mala took a paper towel out of her handbag and wiped the surface dry. The skin on her wrists looked raw and had begun to peel. She put her hands in her lap and tried to exhale her headache.
The agenda for this quarter’s MGBA meeting was not particularly heavy. There were the perennial updates on waste collection and street lighting. A number of members were keen to discuss the two incidents of chain snatching that had been reported recently. Mrs Urs of West Garden Road leant forward and told the group that the crime wave was taking a psychological toll: she had begun to have a recurring nightmare in which a tattooed man locked her in the servants’ toilet and made off with her collection of antique snuff boxes. Sunaina nodded as these concerns were aired and then read out a statement from the sub-inspector at the Mahalakshmi Gardens police station, its reassuring message lost in her melodramatic delivery.
Jacob D’Souza, the Secretary of the MGBA, wished to draw attention to the proposed tree-felling on Fergusson Road. He was keen to stress that he did not subscribe to the view that the road-widening project was essential to the city’s development; on the contrary, he advocated the preservation of the jacaranda trees that gave Fergusson Road its unique character. Mr D’Souza’s moving description of his childhood spent in the trees’ lilac shadows introduced a nostalgia to the meeting that was not universally appreciated. A caustic voice at the back of the room suggested that discussion of the issue was premature. The tree-felling proposal was in its infancy and it was unlikely that any firm decision would be taken for some time. Luckily for Mr D’Souza, municipal inertia was as great a boon as it was a curse.
The meeting then moved on to the issue of the enormous hoarding at Shastri Circle. Many of those present were agreed that the visual pollution being visited upon them had now reached unacceptable levels. After all, what was the point of paying these exorbitant amounts for a corner site facing the Gardens if the view was going to be sabotaged by a fifteen-foot advertisement for a water purifier?
The issue had, however, only now made it formally on to the agenda of an MGBA meeting. The hoarding which had caused the present anxiety advertised a luxury jewellery brand: the giant face of a supermodel, an emerald ring in the form of a peacock clasped between her lips, snaring drivers and pedestrians at the traffic lights below. The hoarding had existed at Shastri Circle for a number of years without objection, its staid parade of mobile phone handsets, high-interest savings packages and family cars apparently tolerated by local residents. But there was something about the current image that had awakened a sense of disquiet. The members present at the meeting could hardly condemn the image for its subject, luxury branded jewellery having made its way into many of the home-security lockers in Mahalakshmi Gardens; nor was there any transgression as a result of inappropriate skin-show. Instead the composition of the image and a highly charged quality in the model’s eyes gave an impression of unreserved improperness. Unsightly intrusions on the urban landscape when coupled with unfettered female carnality had proved a step too far in Mahalakshmi Gardens.
The Executive Committee was urged to make representations to city officials without delay and, if possible, a direct appeal to the Mayor’s office. It was implicit in the assembly’s objections that the correspondence would stress the negative impact of indiscriminate signage on the locality, without setting out the particular impressions generated by the supermodel with a ring in her mouth.
There were a few items of little consequence raised as ‘Any Other Business’, some concluding remarks from Sunaina and then the customary vote of thanks. As the members of the Executive Committee stood up, Sunaina glared victoriously at Mr Nandakishore who was seated in the second row. Her bob seemed even more anxious today, a frizzy tangle on the crown of her head seeking to secede from the rest of her hair. She stepped down from the dais and looked around for her husband Ramesh.
‘The rascal, I knew he would miss the meeting,’ she said, as she waved distractedly to various people.
Little groups had begun to form by the table of refreshments and the function room door. The manager of the Erskine Club had made an appearance, the club crest resplendent on his dark blazer, as if to remind the MGBA members that, regardless of the importance afforded to their association, they remained on club premises. Mr Nandakishore had decided to avoid the office-holders of the Executive Committee and began to engage some new members in conversation. After all, Article 2B of the association’s constitution included among its purposes the aim of ‘promoting unfettered camaraderie and congenial fellowship among the Members and all residents of Mahalakshmi Gardens.’
‘That was very interesting,’ said Jaydev. ‘True people power in action.’
‘It’s easy for people like you to laugh at us. But if we just sat at home, this place would turn into a slum like so many other parts of Mysore,’ said Susheela tartly.
‘I was being serious,’ protested Jaydev. ‘I have never been to a meeting like this. Where I live most people are always abroad at their children’s homes anyway.’
‘We have to take care of ourselves,’ said Susheela, her tone softening.
She looked around the room and then stood up.
‘I will take my leave, Mr Jaydev. Enjoy your dinner,’ she said.
‘Why don’t you join us?’
‘Oh no, I didn’t mean to ask for an invitation.’
‘Of course not, but it would be very nice if you could join us. It’s only Sunaina and Ramesh, whom you know.’
‘That’s very kind of you, but I should really get home.’
‘To read the Mokshvihar pamphlet?’
‘Yes, maybe. You have no idea what my spiritual needs are.’
‘I think your soul will be better nourished with a plate of delicious pasta than a lecture given by some mad guru.’
‘No please, I really don’t want to barge in on your evening like this.’
‘Fine, if you won’t listen to me, maybe you’ll listen to Sunaina. Here she is.’
Sunaina had found Ramesh playing billiards in another room and was now approaching Jaydev and Susheela, still fuelled by her post-meeting adrenalin.
‘Sush, I didn’t even see you and here you are in the front row,’ she said.
‘I have just been telling Susheelaji that she absolutely must come with us to La Whatever-it’s-called tonight,’ said Jaydev.
‘And I have been telling Mr Jaydev that I simply cannot charge in uninvited.’
‘You’re invited now, na? What do you need, Sush, an embossed card with tassels?’ asked Sunaina. ‘You’ll love this place. Last time I had the tiramisu, I swear, they had to carry me out of there.’
And with that, Susheela found herself being shepherded towards the Kamaths’ car.
‘Ramesh, if you try and have another peg here, I swear I’ll bury you in that flower bed,’ said Sunaina.
Susheela caught Jaydev’s eye and smiled. As they left the club, the manager bid them a curt good night. There was a chance he had heard the allusion to destruction of club property and, if so, had no doubt taken a dim view.
On the way out of the mall, Girish wanted to stop off in the electronics department for a few minutes. They walked through a crowd watching a demonstration for a new model of hotplate and reached the computer section. Girish immediately engaged one of the sales assistants in a conversation about laptops. Mala looked around for a seat but there was nothing in sight.
Across the aisle, a scene from a film played on a giant television screen. A disgruntled young man strode through the foyer of a hospital holding a machine gun as nurses and porters leapt away in terror. The man walked into the lift, shoving aside a squat, bejewelled man holding a briefcase, and stared bleakly at the floor indicator as he was taken to the fifth floor. The film’s background music pounded out of the television’s powerful speakers, each strike of the bass making Mala’s chest contract. She leant against a rack of DVDs and prayed that Girish would finish soon.
The hero of the film was now making his way down a corridor, swatting away security guards with just one arm, his pace not slowing. A brave doctor tried to lasso the hero with his stethoscope but was sent crashing into a gurney for his troubles. The hero then walked into a ward and violently pulled at a curtain behind which a hook-nosed man lay shivering in bed.
‘Bewarsi, halka nanna magane, ill bidhgondidhya ninnu?’
There followed a summary of the torment suffered by the hero’s family members at the hands of the man with the hook nose, delivered by the hero in an emotional address to those members of the hospital staff still present. The scene ended, in predictably gory fashion, with the patient being gunned down while trying to escape down the staff staircase.
Three college girls stood near the television screen, acutely conscious of a couple of young men pretending to look at a catalogue a few steps away. One of the girls shifted her weight from one leg to the other while flicking ambiguous glances at the men. Her tall friend was bolder and smiled in their direction. After some discussion the catalogue was discarded and the men approached the girls. There was a bold offer of a mint and a silvery laugh of acceptance. The group headed off, one of the men pausing to primp his hair as he caught sight of his reflection in a toaster.
Girish was still talking to the sales assistant and their heads bobbed in unison as they leant over a computer. At one point, with his hands outstretched, he mimed one car taking over another and they both laughed. The bright overhead lights gave the air a faint blue tinge and an almost metallic sheen to Girish’s hair. His posture was that of a serious buyer, knowledgeable but open to suggestion, a man in control.
Mala’s headache was now a seething, churning beast mauling her nerves and tissue. She decided to perch on the end of a wooden block that supported a mobile phone display. Instantly a member of staff appeared, eager to use this opportunity to put some training into practice.
‘Madam, sitting here is not allowed,’ she said primly.
‘I’m sorry. I got very giddy. I’m not feeling well.’
The woman’s expression changed: ‘Are you on your own, madam? Should I call someone?’
Mala stood up.
‘No, thank you. My husband is here. We are just leaving.’
Mala looked around for Girish but he was nowhere to be seen. At the food court she had hardly touched her dosa but Girish had insisted that she try some of his fried rice. The smell of the starchy steam and the dollop of ketchup’s artificial sweetness now began to repeat on her. She had a word with the sales assistant who had been talking to Girish but he shrugged and continued with some paperwork. A burst of applause from a group behind her made her turn around. The hotplate demonstration had come to an end and the audience was dispersing, the company representative thrilled with the success of his last joke.
The tiles on the floor seemed to shift suddenly as Mala held on to a pillar to regain her balance. Wave after wave of nausea consumed her as she swallowed hard, willing every fibre to check her body’s runaway impulses. She sank to her knees, feeling the sweat breaking out on her face. A woman behind her called out for help. Within seconds Mala was vomiting on the shop floor, kneeling in front of the row of laptops. There was a searing sensation in her nostrils and the heaves seemed to go on and on.
As a sales assistant rushed off to alert the section manager, Girish appeared in the aisle, his eyes drawn to the hunched figure on the floor. In his hand he held a surprise gift for Mala: a small diary bound in creamy yellow felt.
When Susheela and Sridhar left Mysore for Bhopal in the late seventies, the area around Tejasandra Lake had been a swampy wasteland, famed mainly for the tenacity of its mosquitoes and the stench of the dense algae washed up on the lake’s shores. The only conceivable reasons for venturing there were to stave off hunger by catching some of the lake’s toxic carp or to dispose secretly of a dead body. When they returned to Mysore from Delhi, following Sridhar’s retirement, the state government had finally released a substantial tranche of funds to clean up the lake’s fetid waters. A stew of sewage, pesticides, cattle remains, automobile lubricants, medical waste and plastics, the lake had been named one of the top ten environmental scandals in a nationwide study carried out by a prominent NGO. The clean-up operation had taken another four years to complete, but nonetheless it was a major success for the state’s environmental record.
Some time later a Deputy Commissioner blessed with unusual foresight and dedication had ensured that a flood defence was erected on the western shore, above which wound a stately promenade, modelled on Pondicherry’s Avenue Goubert. The rest of the development then simply fell into place like a series of golf balls slowly tumbling into their holes. The Museum of Folklore had been a longstanding promise from the Department of Culture. Endowments from a number of international arts organisations led to its rapid completion, its modernist design ensuring manifestations of rapture and revolt in equal measure among the city’s consumers of culture. Supporters of the building lauded the mettle of the architects who had set Mysore free from an orientalist vision of domes and arches. Its detractors lamented the lack of harmony between the exterior of the museum and its collections of tribal and folk art from all over India. Most of the rest simply boggled at the price of the entry tickets.
Expensive tickets were not a problem at the Mysore Archaeology Museum, which also arrived at Tejasandra Lake. The government-run museum had previously been located in the centre of the city, in a building so cramped and decrepit that its demolition was a peerless act of kindness. The fossils and antiquities happily made their new home in a three-storey structure with uninterrupted views of the lake’s majestic sweep.
The Tejasandra Galleria was next in line at the lakeside: a grand labyrinth of shops and restaurants, flawlessly preserved by arctic air-conditioning and hushed adulation. In its early days, valet parking had been introduced in an attempt to shore up its exclusive credentials. It transpired, however, that even the best-heeled Mysore shoppers displayed a degree of nervousness when strangers tried to take over the wheels of their cars.
The last major addition to the waterside community was the Anuraag Kalakshetra, a small but luxurious concert hall, courtesy of an infamous tobacco baron and his passion for Carnatic music. It had quickly become a crucial part of the city’s cultural landscape, hosting an array of music and dance programmes while also housing a small café that served excellent apricot tarts.
The group from the Mahalakshmi Gardens Betterment Association arrived at the Tejasandra Galleria in high spirits. In the car, Sunaina had enjoyed telling a story involving the Acting Mayor of Mysore, a second-year medical student and a false-bottomed suitcase. They took the glass lift to the fifth floor, where a reproduction matinee idol seated them at a table by one of La Vetta’s huge lake-facing windows.
Sunaina, ever-conscious of her currency, made her way around the tables looking eminent yet accessible, not unlike a dignitary seeking re-election. Ramesh followed, reflecting that Jaydev was in many senses fortunate to be a widower. As a napkin fluttered into her lap, Susheela experienced the velvety rush of sudden and splendid gratification. Her sense of expectation and participation had narrowed to such an extent that this accidental social reconnection almost drew her breath like a plunge into icy depths. The elegant stems of the wine glasses, the soft chocolate of the suede-panelled walls and the low buzz of sophisticated chatter began to loosen the pins and bolts that had clamped tightly down on her appetites.
‘Have a glass, Sush. Don’t worry, if you get merry and fall in the lake I’ll jump in after you,’ said Sunaina, as the waiter began to pour the wine with ritual attention.
‘We’ll have our own wet sari sequence,’ smirked Ramesh to Jaydev.
‘Don’t be so lewd,’ said Sunaina, thoroughly enjoying the idea that she could be part of some risqué song-and-dance routine.
Susheela picked up the glass of wine and took a small sip, being extremely suspicious of anything that could cloud her judgment. She had only been tipsy twice in her life. The first occasion was at a party in Delhi’s Vasant Vihar in the late eighties. She had collapsed onto a swing on the balcony and spent the rest of the evening trying to remember the hostess’s maiden name. The second time was at a restaurant in London the evening of Priyanka’s graduation: after her third glass of champagne, on her way back from the ladies’ room, Susheela had mistakenly sat down at a table with three Russian businessmen. Inevitably, the family ribbing had been endless.
‘It’s so lovely that we have places like this now in Mysore,’ said Sunaina. ‘I remember when cream cakes at the Southern Star were the height of luxury.’
‘Nothing wrong with those cream cakes,’ protested Jaydev.
‘No, of course not,’ Sunaina swatted at his comment. ‘But you know, the fact that we can be proud of places in our home town, in front of anyone from anywhere in the world, that’s something, no?’
An attractive woman wove past their table and Susheela scrutinised her taut midriff.
‘It’s been so long since I went out this late,’ said Jaydev. ‘In the last few months, I’ve been avoiding driving into town at night. The glare of oncoming headlights, can’t take it any more.’
‘You should have told me before, na? If you want to go anywhere, I can take you,’ said Sunaina.
‘I am sure you would, if I asked you,’ said Jaydev, smiling. He paused and added: ‘But after all this time, it’s having to ask that’s the problem.’
‘You men, with your silly pride. I swear, you all create most of your own problems. You know Pradeep Nair? I went to see him in hospital this morning. He looked so awful. He has to have a kidney transplant and even then, who knows how long he will live. All because he kept refusing to have check-ups. His poor wife; who will remember her name after he’s gone? He was always the life and soul.’
Jaydev glanced at Susheela but she kept her face expressionless.
‘It was just too horrible to see,’ continued Sunaina. ‘Poor man is in a shared ward as well. Can you believe it, there are no private rooms available at Northfield Wellness or at J S Desai. I was speaking to one of the directors of Northfield. Dr K Narendra? He sits on a board with me. Anyway, he was saying the private rooms are full of foreigners these days. They are all flocking here because it’s so much cheaper for them to have surgery than back home. Lovely little holiday, get a new knee, buy some souvenirs, take a few photos and then return in two weeks. In the meantime, we are all pushed into the common wards with God only knows what kind of diseases.’
Susheela turned to look at the quiet shimmer stretching out below the windows. The wine had softened all her synapses and the liquid amber of the lights reflected in the lake seemed to mirror her easy composure. Around her, the tinkling hum of the restaurant sounded like it was rising from the waters below, a carefully composed liturgy being offered up in praise. As she gazed at the lake, the gentle play on its surface led to a series of shifts in its aspect, all of them captivating.
Sunaina excused herself, having spotted the new chairperson of the Vontikoppal Ladies’ League.
‘Have you met Twinkie? She’s a bit stiff, but still quite adorable. Maybe you don’t know, but she once had tea with Princess Diana,’ she said.
‘Why would Princess Diana have tea with her?’ asked Susheela.
‘I don’t know, something to do with illiterate housewives, or was it vagrants? Anyway, Twinkie said that she almost melted into Diana’s eyes. The compassion simply rolled off her.’
‘For the vagrants or for Twinkie?’ asked Jaydev.
‘Oh hush, Twinkie is fully crème de la. I must go over and say hello.’
‘She is always so busy,’ said Ramesh, his voice beginning to quaver at the thought of the neglect he suffered.
There was no response so he too left, claiming he had to make a call.
A strange new silence enveloped the table. Susheela’s face was still turned towards the window, her hands locked under her chin.
‘Lost in your thoughts?’ asked Jaydev.
‘It’s so beautiful out there, it’s almost making me sad.’
Susheela expected him to ask her why, but he looked at the water and simply nodded.
The motorbike swerved into a great arc and roared back towards Uma. It was only when the driver was within touching distance that she realised that it was Shankar. He was wearing a pair of sunglasses that made him look like a seedy gangster and Uma was relieved when he took them off.
‘Uma, I’m glad I saw you. Janaki’s not happy with you. Why haven’t you called her?’
‘I wanted to but … how is she? Almost the due date now.’
‘She’s okay; she’s like a bomb ready to explode. She told me to drag you to her mother’s place if I see you. I’m going there now. Come with me if you want.’
‘I can’t come now. Tell her I promise I’ll come on another day.’
‘She wants you to phone her. Here, take her number again,’ said Shankar, reaching for his phone.
Uma did not look at his outstretched hand.
‘You write it for me,’ she said.
‘Oh, so then you can say that you couldn’t make out my handwriting? Here, take the pen. I’m not going to let you blame it on me,’ laughed Shankar.
‘I can’t write,’ she said flatly.
‘Okay look, I’ll write it on this,’ he said, tearing off the end of a receipt. ‘Ask someone to dial it for you from the coin phone, but make sure you call her. I think she’s worried about you.’
Uma took the fold of paper and tucked it into her blouse.
Shankar eased his sunglasses back on and turned the motorbike back around. A moment later he turned his head and asked: ‘Everything is all right?’
‘Everything is fine,’ said Uma and walked on towards the pennants flying high above Mysore Junction.
In the distance, the ochre light in a turret at Amba Vilas Palace guttered into the darkness.
The next day was a Saturday and Girish had left the house early. The morning hours seemed to stretch indefinitely like acres of molten tar. Mala stood in the doorway, arms folded tightly against her chest. The hot air around her throbbed like a heartbeat and the leaves overhead were engaged in a sly susurration. It was sure to rain. She had brought the clothes in earlier and they now sat in neat ironed piles on their bed: Girish’s handkerchiefs, socks, short-sleeved casual shirts, short-sleeved formal shirts, long-sleeved casual shirts, long-sleeved formal shirts, work trousers, casual trousers, vests, underwear, long kurtas, short kurtas and pyjamas. Her own petticoats and saris she would do later. The sky gradually began to darken. An autorickshaw piled high with gas cylinders blocked one end of the narrow lane. Goats daintily stepped past the vehicle, guided by the deep guttural ‘uhhhnnnhuh’ of their herder, a wiry young girl in a faded salwar kameez. As the goats approached, Mala became aware of the time and her pulse quickened. Girish would be home soon.
She went back into the house and the sudden darkness made her stop. The room only had two tiny windows covered in steel mesh, which both looked out on to their neighbour’s sagging brick wall. At times Mala thought that she was beginning to shrink into this carapace of a room, that one day her mother or her sister would arrive to find her lying in the dust outside, enclosed in this shell along with the Rexine sofa set and her mother-in-law’s Air India Maharajas. She turned the television on, thought better of it, switched it off, before turning it on and then off one more time. She sat down at the dining table and listened for sounds of Girish’s return.
She did not have long to wait before she heard the fading thrum of his motorbike in the lane. She stood up at once and went to the kitchen, where she listened for further sounds. Her relationship with her husband was increasingly managed by aural concentration, an association mediated by thumps, creaks and knocks. She was fiercely attentive to clues left by his footsteps, the pitch at which he cleared his throat, the rustling of newspapers and, in particular, the way in which he called out her name.
‘Maa-laa.’
Or ‘Ma-laaa,’ with a slight lilt at the end.
Or ‘Mah-la.’
Or ‘Ma-luh,’ quickly exhaled.
These divinations had become a vital mechanism of governance for her. Sometimes she would stand in the kitchen while Girish was asleep trying to foresee his mood when he woke up. Rasping snores, repeated creaks of the bed frame, a gentle wheeze followed by a whistle of breath: they were all drawn into her computations. She had become an expert at eliminating the sounds of her own breathing lest she miss some vital sign from the man lying on the bed in his checked pyjama and white vest. Her strategy was simple. She had to adapt her conduct so that no part of it could be perceived as a brazen challenge. Yet she needed to gather information and this was provided by the wholly unremarkable soundtrack to Girish’s quotidian movements. Of course her prognoses were hardly foolproof. The sound of his shoes hitting the back of the cupboard was not always the sign of a gnarled frustration; his conversations with the Prabhakar boys, who were playing badminton in the lane, did not always mean that he would be charming for the rest of the evening. But generally a connoisseur could tell.
There were other subtle signs to look out for too. How long he spent in the bathroom shaving, whether he shut and bolted the door or not after he returned from work, the number of times he stepped into the backyard to answer calls on his mobile phone. Every day Mala added to her cache of intelligence. Sound administration required it of her and habit only served to reinforce the practice.
As Mala stood in the kitchen, she now listened for sounds from the bathroom. She heard the light being switched on and the slopping of water on the concrete floor as Girish washed his hands and feet. She began to get lunch ready, making sure there was no water on the steel plate and that the cabbage was piping hot. She laid the food on the table and waited by the window, her left heel automatically rubbing against her right ankle.
Girish walked into the kitchen and sat at the table. A crow had made its way on to the kitchen windowsill and was flapping against the frame: tok tok.
‘Chase that thing away. It’ll shit all over the window as usual.’
Mala shooed away the bird, knocking on the window and breathing a sigh, relieved that he had spoken. Her mood lifted and she shut the window with a smart click of the latch. Spots of rain had begun to appear on the glass.
She moved to the table and began to spoon rice on to Girish’s plate.
‘Stop.’
Girish surveyed the rice and looked up at Mala. Her hand hovered over the bowl as she stared at the rice, its steam unfurling upwards. Her eyes turned towards Girish.
‘Look at the rice. Is this how you like it? Dry, like sand?’
Mala put the spoon down.
‘Tell me. Is this what you eat?’
The rain was falling much harder now, little eddies forming against the window.
‘Sit.’
Girish had stood up and pushed his chair back. Mala looked at him, her calculations thrown into confusion, her ciphers in disarray.
‘Sit. Why don’t you sit?’ Girish offered her his seat.
Mala sank into the chair and looked at the rice on the plate again. Three little mounds in a huddle, all more or less the same size.
Girish carefully rolled up his right sleeve and sank his fingers into the rice in the bowl. He scooped up some rice and smeared it across the top of Mala’s head, working it into her parting with his thumb. The hand returned with more rice, slapping it on to her crown, kneading it into her hair, daubing the sides of her head with yet more rice. Mala’s scalp tightened with fear. The heat from the rice made her face itch. Her eyes were firmly shut as she gripped the sides of the chair. Girish’s hand kept returning. She could feel its weight, its heat, its motion. Bile flooded her mouth as she felt the steely edge of his ring graze her forehead. She gasped when a hot surge spread in her lap and warm liquid began to trickle down her legs and over her ankles. She heard Girish put the sambar pot down on the table and carefully wash his hands at the kitchen sink. There was a thud on the kitchen window before he walked out of the room.
Mala stared down at the puddle of sambar on the floor. There were little pieces of onion glistening in her lap like jewels. Somewhere a scooter wouldn’t start, the engine hawking repeatedly. A clod of rice fell to the floor over her shoulder and landed behind her chair. Her sari began to weigh down on her lap as the sambar cooled, the cotton clinging to the tops of her thighs. Outside, the rain had turned into a fine mizzle. Finally, after a couple of renewed efforts, the scooter started and roared away.