The Promenade by Tejasandra Lake was blocked for general traffic in both directions. The only vehicles being allowed into the area belonged to organisers, performers, contractors or security staff involved in the Lake Utsava and the Mysore International Film Festival. The inspections being carried out at either end of the road added to the air of celebratory exclusivity as ID cards and wristbands were flaunted with enthusiasm. To the officious, the bureaucratic and the socially suspicious, it was a celestial gift.
Once the initial rancour and invective had been overcome, the organisation of the lakeside festivities took on an unfaltering momentum. The selection of the film festival jury had been surprisingly undemanding and the coordination of dates had been effortless. The organisers’ strategy of targeting artistic personalities who had not been publicly active for a while had paid rich dividends. The local media were also doing all they could to show their support. The Mysore Evening Sentinel was featuring a ‘Countdown to Celebration’ section, crammed with updates on festival highlights, behind-the-scenes exclusives and a tornado of small advertisements.
The Mysore Tourism Authority had been a model of productivity too. The ‘Geneva of the East’ campaign had been rolled out across a number of Tier I and Tier II cities, photographs of an inviting Tejasandra Lake, the Promenade twinkling in the distance, appearing in a variety of magazines. Due to budgetary considerations a television campaign had been rejected, but radio spots had been booked on dozens of stations across the country.
The organisers of the Lake Utsava were intent on projecting an image of Mysore as a centre of elite metropolitan accomplishment, able to stand up to scrutiny by global trendsetters. The environs of Tejasandra Lake absolutely had to look the part. A phalanx of sweepers, carpenters, electricians and decorators had been drafted in to bring Geneva to South India. Paving stones were scrubbed, lamp posts were repainted and an exceptional sheen was brought to the barriers rising above the lake’s flood defences. A fashionable young artist had been commissioned to produce a mural outside the Museum of Folklore, an avant-garde crypto-tribal conceptualisation of the spirit of Mysore, designed to challenge and energise festivalgoers. The artist was well known for his chronic addiction to a range of illegal substances, and in certain quarters the prospect of his early demise only served to enhance the project’s artistic cachet.
A ramp now led up to a giant platform at the central point of the Promenade. Here the vintage cars would ascend to dazzle in the sun. Giant stone torches were being placed at regular intervals along the lakeside; plants and trees had been hired from garden centres and nurseries across the city to infuse greater colour; and the Mysore Archaeology Museum was being painted a warm ecru. The Utsava’s dance stage was in place and already being filmed as part of a DVD release marking the grand success of the festival. A media enclosure had been set up opposite the front steps of the Anuraag Kalakshetra and technicians were conducting their final tests on the lighting rig that would illuminate the red carpet. Two outside screens had been erected on either end of the Promenade where, weather permitting, the entries in the ‘Panorama: India’s Rising Sun’ section would be shown.
Not far from the Anuraag Kalakshetra a fountain had been wheeled into place, the water spraying out from the apex of a structure resembling a steel samosa. Although not quite able to match Geneva’s Jet d’Eau, according to the Deputy Artistic Director of the Lake Utsava, the fountain added a structural fluidity to the psychology of the urban space.
Not all of the organisers were impressed.
‘Even my grandson can piss higher than that,’ one board member commented.
If these improvements were settling the costume of Tejasandra Lake, the necessary braids, spangles and flounces were being fastened with similar taste and care. A swathe of banners and logos stretched across the arches outside the museums, fell from the windows of the Galleria and fluttered over the rocks that dropped down to the edge of the water. The sponsors of the Lake Utsava and the film festival were naturally given priority in vantage and visibility in order to ensure optimum brand persuasion among the attendees.
Beyond these concerns, the organisers had entrusted the lakeside to G S Anand and his reputable aptitude at squeezing revenue from every square inch of outdoor space. Mr Anand’s company did not disappoint. Everything from plastic cups and paper napkins to the side panels of floats and the huge plasma screens along the Promenade offered up an opportunity to engage in the vibrant commercial hub of India’s eleventh fastest growing small city. Designers at Exospace Media had even managed to install in record speed two ‘time dilation pods’, essentially arcade games enclosed in a plastic sheath, which purported to conduct users on a journey through Mysore thirty years in the future. Those accustomed to G S Anand’s sleights of hand would recognise this for what it was: a tour of shimmering towers and sweeping walkways that served as an ideal backdrop for a flood of product placement.
Advertising was also alive in the mind of Venky Gowda, who had dropped in to have a look at the construction of the HeritageLand stand at the Utsava. As far as Venky was concerned, there was no such thing as premature merchandising and he had personally approved the colour of the HeritageLand dental floss that would be on sale at the festival, along with an exciting array of other HeritageLand products.
The festival organisers were all too aware that the security arrangements would need to be beyond reproach. Senior police personnel had authorised the relevant sub-divisional officers to round up known miscreants, rowdy-sheeters and other objectionable elements in anticipatory custody. A specially trained unit would be responsible for crowd control and the maintenance of law and order on the lake shore. Metal detectors had been installed at all the entry points to the Promenade and CCTV cameras would cover the majority of proceedings. City officials had also enlisted the assistance of the police in conducting background checks on those who had sought licences for stalls at the Utsava handicrafts bazaar. The question of who would bear the cost of the extra policing had yet to be finalised but the police department, commercial sponsors, festival organisers and civic authorities were each quietly confident that it would not be them.
There were only a few days of preparation left. The giant staff of anticipation drummed away steadily, marking time, focusing minds, making reputations. For those involved in the event, the world had shrunk to the size of a strip of asphalt that glittered across a few hundred metres at the edge of the dimpled waters of incomparable Tejasandra Lake.
They were to set off early. The dawn fog was still smothering the garden with its attentions, the lawn a murky opal and the giant bougainvillea smeared into obscurity. Susheela had suggested delaying their departure until the visibility improved but Jaydev had insisted that there would not be a problem. He was right. In less than a quarter of an hour a sluggish sun began to burn through the fog, creating clear channels around the waxen forms of the familiar surroundings. Bamboo Corner was silent, now only a banister of heavy mist curling up around the trees. The corner house shaped like a violin emerged into the morning like a surrealist’s fantasy and the shapes on Gulmohar Road became distinct, walkers making their way home from the Gardens.
The trip had been Susheela’s idea. The drive would be easy except for perhaps the last fifteen kilometres up through the hills; there she knew Jaydev would take the bends slowly. At the summit there existed a place simply called Viewpoint. There was no temple, no market, no monument; only a handful of benches at the edge of a copse, facing the slope that led back down to the rumpled rug of paddy fields below. At times, on one side of the path that led up to Viewpoint, an old man sat next to a pile of tender coconuts. There was never any sign of how he had managed to get there with his stock or of how he proposed to leave; only his mirage-like presence in front of the eucalyptus trees.
Before dawn Susheela had packed some sandwiches and made a flask of coffee. She had put some extra sachets of sweetener into her handbag. In the basket there went a pack of paper napkins, two plastic cups and stirrers, two apples and a packet of butter biscuits. Jaydev no longer sounded the horn at Susheela’s gates. He preferred to call her mobile and let it ring a couple of times. It was yet another adjustment to the structure of unspoken arrangements that governed their meetings. The rather casual enquiries as to the presence of maids and drivers; the knowing references to crowded places that simply got on one’s nerves; the pointed avoidance of their own neighbourhoods; the search for distant entertainments that would satisfy their apparent craving for a change from the staid routines of their social set. There had been further visits to cinemas in unfamiliar localities. One overcast afternoon they had had coffee at the canteen in the Akaash Astronomical Observatory, a place frequented only by the occasional foreign tourist or visiting academic. Perhaps the oddest rendezvous had been a sudden late-night trip to the twenty-four-hour pharmacy at the J S Desai Hospital.
Jaydev had called Susheela just as the ten o’clock bulletin was ending.
‘Did I disturb you? I’m sorry, I only just realised how late it is.’
‘Not at all. I’m still downstairs.’
‘You will think I’m mad but I wanted to ask you something.’
‘Yes?’
‘I need to go to the medical shop. I’ve run out of some pills that I need to take in the morning.’
‘You’re going there now?’
‘The all-night one at J S Desai. And I was wondering, if it’s not too late for you, if you felt like coming on the drive.’
‘What, now?’
‘No, of course you’re right. Please, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what comes into my head sometimes.’
‘No, wait. I’ll come. Can you leave in maybe ten minutes?’
‘You’ll come?’
‘Yes. Why not? Just give me a missed call when you get here.’
‘Of course. I’ll do that.’
They had driven through the silent streets of Mysore, the only other movement being silver dogs streaking into the shadows. The lights had been dim at eye level: a pale yellow bulb hanging over the entrance to a government building; the waning neon sign over a shuttered supermarket; a hint of lustre as the car turned at a junction, its lights reflected in a shop window. But far above their heads the hoardings glowed like gems. White teeth, gleaming car bonnets and gold screens lit up the sky, sending shapeless searchlights into the heart of the city.
‘Is this what it has come to for us? A drive to the medical shop is now an outing?’ Susheela had asked.
‘Aren’t you excited about your sudden tour of Mysore by night? When was the last time you saw the roads this quiet?’
‘Probably that day. The day we first met.’
‘We had met before that day. You just don’t remember.’
‘No, I don’t. Which is a surprise to me. I am normally very good at remembering things like that.’
In the hospital car park, while Jaydev was at the pharmacy, Susheela had looked up at the building’s dark windows. This was the place where Sridhar had spent his last days, endless hours when she had waited, sometimes with her daughters, sometimes alone. The heel had come off her sandal when walking up the entrance ramp that last morning. She had given a ward boy some money to go and find her daughter on the fourth floor. A few hours later her husband had died. But when Jaydev returned to the car, of course, there had been no need to bring all that up.
This morning they were on a proper outing. Susheela opened her window just a fraction and, her crimson shawl tucked snugly around her, narrowed her eyes against the whip of wind on her face. In recent years she had only worn the shawl once. It was what she would normally have termed a bold choice for a woman of her age. But Susheela’s nerve seemed to be firming up these days in matters beyond the merely sartorial.
In less than two hours Jaydev was shifting gears as they negotiated the steep rise to Viewpoint. There were no cars impatiently tailing them and nothing hurtling down in the opposite direction.
The road ended at the top of the hill, in a clearing marked by a faded white line. Jaydev got out of the car and walked around to Susheela’s side. He held the door open for her, the expression on his face deliberately purposeless. As Susheela stood up, the wind picked up, ruckling her sari and sending a plastic bag careening through the trees and over the edge.
‘See, in any beauty spot, even if there is not a soul about, you will still find some filth,’ she said. ‘That is what people here do.’
Jaydev shut the door, took the basket from Susheela and looked around. There was no sign of the coconut seller. The only other vehicle was a dirty motorbike a few feet away.
‘Which way?’ he asked.
‘If we go down this small path, there are some benches that face the valley.’
Susheela walked into the shade of the copse, where the light dimmed to the green of old bottles and the chill escaped out of the grooves in the bark. The path led through clumps of sweet violets and dense bushes of angel’s trumpets, hanging their heads in some unknowable shame. The ground was uneven so she stepped carefully, hearing the similarly cautious tread of Jaydev behind her. Above their heads there was an occasional whisper, caught only by the woody shoots on the highest boughs. Neither of them spoke until the trees had thinned out and they were back on the open hilltop, the sun bold again. In front of them five benches stood in an arc facing the glorious drop.
On one of them a young man sat with his back to them.
They both stood still.
At last, Jaydev said: ‘How about the one at the end?’
‘Yes, that’s fine.’
Susheela loosened her shawl and let it hang slackly from her shoulders before sitting down. Jaydev placed the basket between them and smoothed down his hair.
The young man did not look up. He was in his late twenties, the angled planes of his face making him look like he had been hewn out of a single piece of stone. The frames of his glasses were thick and black, widening his long face. He held his hands locked in his lap.
Rather than gazing at the view, in spite of themselves Susheela and Jaydev found themselves studying their neighbour. Every now and then the wind would puff out the front of his papery shirt. The man remained immobile.
‘There’s an unusually grave young man,’ said Jaydev in a low voice.
‘He looks very sad, no? Like he is caught in a great dilemma. And so thin.’
‘What do you think is bothering him?’
‘God only knows. Maybe he is suffering the pangs of a deep and unrequited love.’
Jaydev laughed.
‘You can do better than that.’
‘Okay, maybe he has lost his job, he has fought with his entire family, he has no idea what to do with the rest of his life and he has not got a single friend in the world. Happy?’
‘Arre, why would that make me happy?’
‘You know we should not be sitting here speculating like this on that poor boy’s problems.’
‘Maybe we are wrong and he does not have any problems. Maybe he just looks like that.’
‘Oh my God, do you think he is here to jump?’ asked Susheela.
‘No need for such drama. He is probably just enjoying the view. Mind you, the poor fellow probably will jump if we don’t stop staring at him.’
In the background a line of bush quail let out a series of long whistles, peaking in an alarmed tremolo. Then the low of the wind pressed back in. The young man and the possible reasons for his malaise were forgotten as the sun warmed the backs of their necks. Below them, the valley was totally still, in that moment sealed off from the world’s intervention. The wind hummed on.
‘Why don’t you come for dinner next week?’ Susheela asked.
‘Dinner?’
‘Yes, my place.’
‘At your place?’
‘Are you sure?’
Susheela forgot the strictures of politeness and paused to think about whether she was sure.
‘Yes, I am sure. It won’t be anything elaborate of course. Something simple.’
‘Well, then I won’t come.’
‘Fine, don’t come then. You should be happy an old man like you even gets an invitation anywhere.’
‘I should be happy about the insults too?’
‘Yes, that too.’
The silences between them were now rich with contentment, the pleasure that could be gained only through an intimate civility. Susheela no longer spent these pauses reflecting on the nuances of her comportment. As the fancy took it, her mind swooped through flurries, plunged into craters or simply lay motionless in a luminous shoal.
‘I spoke to Priyanka yesterday,’ said Susheela.
‘She is the elder one?’
‘Yes.’
‘How is she?’
‘Fine. But I don’t know how. She seems to lead such a busy life that it makes my head spin just hearing about it.’
‘We also once had those lives.’
‘I never had the kind of life she seems to have, where every hour of every day is audited, planned, disposed of.’
‘And your other daughter?’
‘Well she is the opposite. I won’t hear from her for a while and there will be weeks unaccounted for. But to me that seems more normal.’
‘I think we all have parts of our life which are unaccounted for. They simply don’t appear in our conversations with other people.’
Susheela threw one end of her shawl over her shoulder. The sun had disappeared behind a long boat-shaped cloud. At their feet, silver grasses banded together before beginning their procession over the lip of the hill. There they plunged headlong over the edge, dashing towards the velvet shadows of the jackfruit trees that stood further down. The air itself was contemplation.
‘Is it too early to have a sandwich?’ asked Jaydev.
Susheela smiled.
‘Not at all.’
Mr Tanveer’s printer jolted into action, making a sound like an angry goat. Mala looked across at Shipra who now spelt her name Shiiprraa. She had consulted a numerologist a few weeks ago and had been advised that some minor alterations to the spelling of her name would enhance her destiny number and provide for better numerological vibrations. Shipra became Shiiprraa and an email was duly sent out to inform her family, friends and colleagues.
Mala had made no progress with the figures she had been asked to reconcile. Her head was bent, shoulders rigid, eyes narrowed, body suspended in an arc of concentration. But her efforts were directed at trying to regulate her breathing and dull the panic rising inside. They were due to leave for Colombo in two weeks. She had told Girish that her leave had been approved even though she had not dared bring the subject up with Mr Tanveer. She glanced at him. He was staring anxiously at his screen with what appeared to be chalk marks around his mouth.
Over the course of a couple of evenings, Mala had feigned great interest in the trip. She had followed the itinerary and had asked about clothing, food and history. She had looked over his shoulder as he showed her image after image on his new laptop. But the efforts had cost her the stupefying enervation of sleepless nights, long hours spent making out shapes behind her eyelids and listening for sounds of morning.
From Mala’s seat she could see what Shiiprraa was working on when there was no glare from the window. Shiiprraa’s screen saver showed a beach, a hammock slung between palm trees, a hummingbird and a sea that was an impossible blue. Would the sea in Sri Lanka look like that? Girish had said five nights at a beach resort. He would take her hand and they would walk along the shore in the early evening, their fingers laced tightly. There would be a hard warmth from his hand and a soft warmth from the breeze. He would point things out to her: a fishing boat, a crab that staggered into a hole in the sand, and across the water, India.
‘Coming along?’ asked Mr Tanveer.
She nodded weakly and reached for a file on her desk.
There were thirteen nights, he had said, filled with jungles, ruins, temples, wildlife, churches, train stations, tea gardens, museums and those walks along the beach. She would wake to his soft snoring in a hotel room with sealed windows and the bedspread neatly folded on the luggage rack, preparing her first words of the day. She would have to anticipate what he thought of someone they met on the tour bus and whether that was an acquaintance that needed to be nurtured. On an afternoon when he had not spoken for over two hours she would anxiously wonder whether or not to suggest something delicate and diverting for the evening, affordable and appropriate. She would need to pay attention and understand and, all the time, listen, judge, gauge, while knots of desperation tightened around her lungs.
The piercing ring of the phone on Mr Tanveer’s desk broke into her thoughts.
‘Accounts. Tanveer here.’
‘Of course, sir. You don’t worry, sir. For what reason am I here? Consider it already done.’
He replaced the receiver and then sat down.
The words and numerals on the paper in front of her shifted in blocks, like a child’s puzzle. Both her colleagues seemed to be engrossed in whatever they were doing but Mala still did not feel it was safe to look up. She worried that if she caught Mr Tanveer’s eye at this point she would simply have to leave the room and never return.
Seconds or perhaps minutes went by and the image of the beach returned to Shiiprraa’s screen.
Another vision flashed through Mala’s head. She and Girish were in the sea, she near the shore, the water rising up around her thighs and he, a distant head, floating away from her, his arms slicing cruelly into the sunless water.
The figures on the page came back into focus. She now inhabited a place where it was impossible to separate the real from the imagined, like the needle pricks that she could feel on her palms and the chunks of ice that rattled around in her heart.
There seemed to her to be only two options. She would have to tell Girish that they could not go on holiday and face the likely consequences. Or she would have to go to Sri Lanka and then return to work, the penalty of her unauthorised absence drawing down dimly over her. Unless the terror engendered by either scenario forced her into a third option.
Uma had just put the last scoop of rice into her mouth when she heard the scrunch of gravel. She saw the mali slowly straighten his body, drop the sack he was holding and walk towards the gates. She had a sense that she had seen him perform exactly the same action half an hour ago, but no one had come to the gates then. The day had been imbued with strange shifts in the progression of events. Susheela had asked her to come to work early and then left as soon as she arrived, wrapped in a new red shawl. She had got into a strange car, the driver’s identity hidden by blades of mist.
After that Uma had been alone in the house. As she swept and dusted, the silence had been heavy and exacting after the early morning turmoil. She had spent the previous night at the Sangam Continental Lodge, at first light rushed back home in a rickshaw for fresh clothes and then arrived at Susheela’s at the agreed hour. There had been a brief argument with Shankar when he had insisted on giving her money for the rickshaw. She had finally accepted it but by then their tight voices seemed to be disagreeing about something else altogether. He had ended the conversation with a joke about her hair, which had been even more riotous than usual that morning. As she got into the rickshaw, she had felt his hand gently press the dip between her shoulder blades.
It was the disorientation of metamorphosis. The entry of kindness, pleasure, subterfuge and uncertainty, where before there had been only a wary monotony. The encounters at the lodge were hardly flecked with the glitter of romance or promises foretold. Yet they carried the weight of fascination. There was the knowledge of a secret, lodged deep within. There was the solicitude of a generous regard. There were flights of fantasy, realised in the harsh light of the Sangam’s first-floor rooms.
Shankar’s single act of sympathy on the day of the floods had brought forth from her the only possible response in gratitude. He had accepted that gratitude with a humility she had never known. The palisade around her had fallen away, stake by stake, as the hours of her days reorganised themselves into new blocks of longing. Until recently, she had warded off new experiences for this very reason. Her encounters with Shankar had deposited a patchy lamina of expectation over her life that now obscured her vision and made everything that had been familiar seem somehow unsettled.
When she heard the key in the lock, Uma rose at once. She hurriedly rinsed her plate at the back sink, as if trying to erase the shame of sustenance.
‘Uma?’ called Susheela, who had just come in through the front door.
Uma walked back through the house.
‘Had your lunch?’ asked Susheela.
Uma nodded.
‘Here, for washing,’ Susheela said, handing her a basket with a flask and a lunchbox in it.
Uma took the basket and then said: ‘I need to leave a little early.’
‘Yes, that’s fine. You came early.’
Uma nodded again and slipped out of the back door.
Susheela sat down in an armchair and shut her eyes, her face in absolute repose.
A few minutes later, when Uma walked past her to go upstairs, Susheela was fast asleep.
Twenty years ago, the Central Lending Library – not to be confused with the City Central Library – occupied the entire ground and first floors of 34 Mirza Road, a three-storey building supported by sturdy pillars the colour of earth. Registration was free, members were allowed to borrow up to six books at a time and there was a special Reference Room for rare or delicate collections. The Chief Librarian had his own office adjacent to the Main Reading Room, and the noticeboard in the veranda usually advertised a variety of English literary events. Particularly well attended in those days were the Mysore Literary Society’s Great Masters discussion evenings and the talks and readings arranged by the University of Mysore’s Department of English.
In the late nineties, the library was confronted by a deadly combination of drastically diminished allocations from the state’s consolidated libraries’ fund and shrinking interest from the residents of Mysore. In spite of the heroic efforts of the then Chief Librarian, the library was compelled to reduce its active lending stock and take up residence on the first floor of the building. The prestigious ground floor was quickly occupied by the offices of the Mineral Concessions Directorate, the Reading Rooms were lost forever and, along with the fustiness of old paper and threadbare armchairs, the astringent odour of loss pervaded the upper rooms.
Continued financial adversity meant further deterioration in the core collection and the imposition of a registration fee and refundable deposit. Little enterprising flourishes like the introduction of a home delivery service and a single computer for public Internet access did not improve matters; the library was forced to cede some of its first-floor space to the insatiable appetite of the Mineral Concessions Directorate.
Girish had accompanied the library through its lengthy travails, a frequent visitor to the Reading Rooms as a student and still a loyal member. Of course these days he purchased books online, at the regular book expos and in the seductive bookstores at the malls; but he still periodically negotiated the uneven stairs leading up to the first floor of 34 Mirza Road.
The current Chief Librarian at the Central Lending Library was a retired academic, a man who once held considerable influence at the Department of History at the University of Mysore. Traces of his former standing remained in his puckered lips and the haughty look of enquiry he directed at the strays who wandered up to the first floor. How he reconciled his current circumstances with the significance of his legacy at Mysore’s leading institution of further education was a perplexing question, as imponderable as what he did to occupy himself during the course of his barren days on Mirza Road. A thin, carefully groomed moustache and a promontory of dyed hair made him look like an unlikely hybrid of Clark Gable and Dev Anand. Naturally, Girish’s dislike for the man was intense. They behaved in each other’s presence rather like the first and second wife of a lascivious seignior. Having lost pride of place to the more comely third wife, all that remained was for them to belittle each other in the course of meaningless battles.
Today their discussion touched on the precise meaning and origin of various Latin phrases but it was clear that neither of them could muster up much enthusiasm to ambush the other. After a while, Girish drifted back through the room’s dark aisles, casually running his finger along the rough cloth spines of the older reference volumes. Daylight had faded and the dim lights above the shelves only served to emphasise the hopelessness of any search. He had come to the library with the half-hearted intention of picking up something interesting and improving for Mala to take on holiday. Very soon after his marriage, his natural didacticism had trained itself on his young wife, a blank slate, ready to receive his painstaking inscriptions. His instruction was absorbed but seemed to have little impact on Mala’s desires and enthusiasms. But Girish persevered.
He remembered once having watched a Bengali film set in a period before independence. A cultured landowner, equally comfortable with Keats and Kalidasa, had been forced, or perhaps had blundered, into marriage with a traditional wife whose ambitions had only swept as far as the elaborate palanquin in which she had arrived at her new home. The landowner had quickly made amends. He had engaged an English tutoress, a woman of steel and scholarship, who would endow his new wife with all the important attributes of classical cultivation and learning. The young wife had spent hours closeted with the gracious lady, exploring music, literature and history. Scales had been sung, dates memorised and quotations relished like plums sucked dry of every last drop of juice. Girish could not remember what happened in the rest of the film but he had begun to recall with increasing regularity those first images where a woman, in spite of herself, was lifted on to the same plane as her husband.
That was all he asked for, he said to himself: a consort who could be his equal, a truly companionate wife. He had suffered the occasional doubt but he had never thought it would be impossible to achieve with Mala. He sometimes felt the need to overwhelm her with good things, with the care and the direction that she needed. He had to protect her, guide her and warn her. Girish was not a man so lacking in self-awareness that he could claim complete ignorance to the effects of his little slips of self-control. But he viewed them as the unfortunate adjuncts of his zeal, the collateral damage precipitated in trying to bring equilibrium to their relationship. As he stopped in front of a shelf crammed with dusty classics, he told himself that they would have the time and the space on this holiday to forget each other’s transgressions, her infuriating dispassion, his occasional irascibility. They would explore and discover, returning home refreshed and renewed.
Twenty kilometres from the self-regarding bluster at Tejasandra Lake, the light was dim in Vasu’s house. Resting his back against the cool wall, he could just about make out the outline of the rolled up bedding on the floor and the bicycle leaning in the corner. The two windows were shut. A wispy curtain hung over the doorway leading outside, its uneven hem sighing in time with the breeze on the porch. Around the edges of the curtain, the day was a spotted gold, an ugly, grimy compound spreading over the sunlight itself. His father was in the inside room, lying down on the wooden bed whose boards screamed in rage every time they were disturbed. His sister had returned to her husband’s house. He had a good idea where his two brothers were. The whole morning they had spoken of fire and missiles, revolt and combat, action and engagement, damage and disorder. Then they had disappeared without saying a word to him.
The disappointment at the High Court had been overwhelming. There had been the long journey back to Mysore, the three buses caught in dense traffic most of the way. The recriminations had begun even before they had left Bangalore, accusations of manipulation and fraud levelled not only at the establishment but also at him and his colleagues. The meeting called by the gram panchayat the next day had turned into a jostling, snarling affair and had to be postponed. The next meeting fared no better. Those who had always maintained that the courts would never come to the villagers’ assistance paraded their furious affirmation from house to house in the dusty lanes.
Just as suddenly as Vasu’s efforts had collapsed, the rumours had sprouted and burst into the village’s every nook. There was talk that Vasu had always known that this would be the outcome; he was in the pay of the state authorities, the real estate developers, the land grabbers; his only intention had been to distract them while the merciless reality unfolded behind their backs. He had been seen having secret meetings; there had always been something shifty about him; how could they not all have known?
There was other talk too. It was said that the victory at the High Court had only hardened the government’s position further. The minister in charge had been heard saying that he would ensure that the farmers would be punished for their intransigence and temerity. Bureaucratic obstacles would be put in place to make certain that they would never see even the small compensation that was owed to them. There were reports of other harassment. Funds that had already been earmarked for expenditure in these taluks would be diverted elsewhere and any future projects would bypass them entirely.
There were specific examples so the conjecture had to be true. One farmer had it on good authority that the distribution of subsidised fertiliser to these areas was soon going to develop an inexplicable bottleneck. Another had heard that power load-shedding would increase dramatically in the coming months, paralysing pumps and delivering a string of hardships designed for debasement. Apparently local babus had been made to understand that complaints against them would not be referred to superior officers; police officials had heard that they were to have even more of a free rein in controlling any unacceptable law and order situations.
At first Vasu had been moved to react angrily. He had demanded proof from his accusers; he had waved documents in their faces, the evidence of months of toil; he had stabbed his finger at his own stupidity for trying to give these ungrateful wretches a legitimate voice. But even his storm needed sustenance and the latent heat had simply dissipated.
One evening he had walked into an informal meeting at the house of a village elder. His intention had been to admit his mistakes and appeal to the reason of the community. He had meant to wrap his anaemic confidence around the platitudes of the lawyers and present it to the men as a fresh start. Every road had obstacles; they could not say it was over until all options had been exhausted; they needed to have faith. The words had turned brittle and acrid even in his own mouth.
When he had slipped off his chappals and walked into the house, a weary hostility had descended. Insects buzzed around a hurricane lamp placed at the centre of the group of men and the lotas of coffee scattered at their feet. Vasu had stood awkwardly at the door, not having been invited to sit. The men’s goodwill was as impenetrable as the fug of beedi smoke.
‘With what face have you come here?’ one man had asked, his voice deadened by failure.
Vasu had looked at him and the others whose eyes held the same whetted flint. Without answering he had turned around and returned home. He did not know with what face he had gone there.
Like every morning, Susheela slipped the key into the letter box on the gate and pulled open its door. Out of the chaos of restaurant menus, sari sale flyers and magazine subscription offers, Susheela pulled out the programme for the Mysore International Film Festival, the logos of its proud sponsors prominently displayed on the cover.
On the inside page Jaydev had written: ‘What do you think? Warm regards, Jaydev.’
It was the first time that she had seen his handwriting and it made her smile. What clues to his character lay in those finely pointed Ws and the vertical tails of the Ys? Susheela had once picked up a guide to handwriting analysis at Great Expectations. The one thing from the book that had stuck in her memory was that the greater the rightward slant of the writing, the more emotionally expressive the person. She smiled again, picturing Jaydev’s reaction to her confident assertions regarding his personality, based on the straight lines and sharp edges that dominated his seven-word missive.
Mala sat on the corner of the bed, her mind registering and processing the morning’s sounds. It was before half past eight as the old man next door had not turned on his radio. The regular slap of wet sheets against stone by the tap outside meant that Gayathri had not finished the washing yet. In the bathroom, the drumming of water continued. Girish had not emerged. But he would soon and if she had not spoken to Gayathri by then, she would have to just let it go. It was important to Mala that she did not let it go.
She walked to the back door and peered at Gayathri’s hunched form through the gap between the hinges. Her right leg was extended behind her at a curious angle, as if she were about to break into a run. Mala felt a tickle in her throat and retreated into the kitchen, her heart thumping. She could sense the blood flowing up through her neck, around her jaws and towards the sides of her head. She looked at her watch. It was half past eight. The old man turned his radio on.
She returned to the bedroom. Girish’s clothes for the day were laid out on the bed, a familiar form that seemed to want to grab at her but lacked the flesh or bones to support its desire. The blue and white striped shirt with its collar stiff and primed, the navy trousers with their legs flowing off the edge of the bed, the tan belt laid across the waistband in a single loop, the white handkerchief placed to the right of the shirt, and the brown patterned socks folded into a careful peak. Where were the shoes? The blood surged back into her head as she tried to remember where she had put the shoes. She hurriedly opened the cupboard doors and looked inside. Then she knelt down on the floor to see if they had slipped under the bed. She rushed to the front door to see if Girish had left them outside. As she was hurrying back to the bedroom, she remembered that she had polished them the previous evening. So they had to be somewhere near the back door. In the kitchen, she unclenched her hand as she glimpsed them, gleaming at the top of the back steps.
Gayathri was wringing out the sheets, cheerfully throttling the coils with her strong arms and then unwinding them to hang out to dry. It looked like she had nearly finished. Girish was still in the bathroom. Mala dared not think she had already succeeded but it was beginning to look like it was possible. She did not want to walk to the washing area to talk to Gayathri: the sounds of Girish coming out of the bathroom would not reach her there. She thought that at best she only had a few more minutes.
There were about thirty hours left before they were due to catch the bus that would take them to the airport. A few hours later, they would be on a direct flight to Colombo. Before boarding, they would browse the duty-free shops and have a coffee at one of the cafés. On the plane, Girish might fall asleep, his head nudging Mala’s shoulder. He would probably engage the cabin crew in conversation. Mala would smile. They would land and then clear immigration. There would be urgent tasks, looking out for bags, changing money, checking vouchers. Girish would probe, explain and hurry. Or he would be silent and casual. They would be in Colombo at the start of two weeks of exoticism, the threat of tectonic displacement vibrating under her feet.
She began to count the lies she had told to get her to this point. She had lied to Girish about booking her leave, paying all the bills before they left and setting aside the clothes she was packing. She had lied to her parents about when they were returning. She had lied to Ambika about the reason for the trip, a supposed promotion for Girish at work. She had lied to Lavanya and Anand about her excitement, trilling over the sights in store. She had lied to Mr Tanveer and Shiiprraa, not even having mentioned the trip. There was only so much enumeration that she could undertake before her predicament broke over her head like a breached dam. Her eyelids felt like massive weights had been placed on them. She went to the kitchen sink, splashed some water over her face and wiped it off with her hands.
Gayathri walked into the kitchen, tucking a stray pleat in under her stomach.
Mala said: ‘Come with me one second.’
She led her into the sitting room. The bathroom door was still closed.
‘You remember, we will not be here for two weeks from tomorrow?’ she asked, turning to Gayathri.
‘From tomorrow, is it? I knew but good thing you reminded me. My brain is turning into batter.’
In the background there was a shift in the sounds coming from the old man’s radio. Perhaps he had switched stations.
‘Here, hold out your hand,’ said Mala.
Gayathri looked at her suspiciously.
‘Why?’
‘Just do it.’
Gayathri pushed her hand out and then, with a chuckle, shut her eyes too.
When she felt the cold weight on her palm, she opened her eyes and took a step back.
A gold chain lay coiled in hard mounds in her hand.
‘What is this for?’
‘It’s for you.’
‘For me? But why?’
‘Please, just take it.’
‘I can’t take something so expensive for no reason.’
Gayathri stretched out her hand to give the chain back to Mala.
It was Mala’s turn to take a step back.
‘It’s for you. So just take it.’
‘No no, I can’t do that.’
‘You should never tell Lakshmi to go away. She may never return.’
‘But I don’t understand.’
‘You will.’
Gayathri looked at Mala for a few seconds and then at the chain in her hand. Nodding, she tucked it deep into her blouse. She picked up a plastic bag that she had left on the table.
‘God bless you,’ she said softly.
Mala managed a smile.
At the door, without turning around, Gayathri said loudly: ‘So in two weeks is it then?’
Mala nodded: ‘Yes, see you in two weeks.’
The door shut, the gate bolt screeched across the paving stone in the yard and then Gayathri was gone.
What happened could probably be blamed on the uncurling of a tiny fist. It was that single movement that wrenched Shankar’s heart out of place and set in motion a perfectly avoidable set of events. He had seen his infant son reach out hundreds of times before, pummelling the air and then pulling at invisible filaments in total absorption. A familiar dimple formed in the side of his fist and then creased into a fat fold of baby flesh. The outstretching of a helpless arm was nothing new. But this time, as his son slowly unfurled his fingers, Shankar felt the knowledge of his infidelity smash down on his chest.
Staring at the coloured rings that hung over his son’s crib, he spoke.
Janaki’s interrogation was forensic and emotionless. She desired as much detail as Shankar could be compelled to provide. She tried to pin occasions down to the nearest day; she followed up on instances, durations and locations; she demanded full descriptions, always repeating the same question in a voice like a thick blade until Shankar provided a response. She compiled the grim catalogue as if she had developed an addiction to that hot stab of revelation. At one point when the baby started to cry, she coddled him in the folds of her sari and, mechanically rocking his head against her knee, continued the questioning. Her need was avid and she scythed through Shankar’s shame till she had gathered up every last kernel of information. Then she put the baby back in his crib and left the room, shutting herself in the bedroom for an hour or so.
Shankar sat at the table, glancing occasionally at the bedroom door but not daring to look at his sleeping son. Apart from the scales of traffic, rising and falling beyond the open windows, the afternoon was imbued with stillness, like grief, like death. The long period of questioning seemed to have removed all the oxygen from the air. Breathing now involved only stolen gasps of waste vapour, thin and foul.
When Janaki emerged from the bedroom, she picked up the baby’s kit bag and methodically began to fill it: nappies, bottles, clothes, formula, a blanket, squeaky toys and a rattle. She checked the contents of her handbag. Briefly she stepped back into the bedroom and then returned, holding her phone charger and a purse. She picked up her own keys from the hook on the wall and also the keys to her mother’s house. Then, lifting the baby out of his crib, she settled his head into the soft dale of her neck. She picked up the bags with her free hand and let herself out of the house.
Shankar watched her movements like a condemned man replaying in his head the pronouncement of his judgment. When she had gone, he put his forehead down on the table, the plastic surface sticky against his skin. He had imagined this scene many times over the last few weeks. The surprising thing was that her departure had unfolded exactly as he had visualised it, no better, no worse. He was left with the stinging thought that no matter how badly he had misjudged himself, he had judged Janaki perfectly.
The lane outside the house had not woken from its afternoon slumber. It had been hours since the last vegetable vendor had rolled past, the shutters of the provision store on the corner were down and the toddlers at home were probably still napping. But clearly not everything was asleep. The smell of fresh dung rose into the air like a blast of scorched raisins.
Mala closed the gate behind her, lips pursed, placing the latch back on its rest with precision. She walked as quickly as she could to the end of the lane, looking straight ahead, trying to ignore the way the strap of the bag was cutting into her shoulder. There were no rickshaws at the corner. She would have to walk to the main road. Or she could wait here for a few minutes. On any other day perhaps, but not like this, not today with her bags.
On the other side of the junction, the last few children were getting off a minibus impatient to leave, its engine growling urgently. Two teachers conducted a hasty count of the checked pinafores and the pairs of grey shorts. A moment later, two of the boys decided that the time was right to move on and ran across the road towards Mala. Before the teachers had time to react, the rest of the group began to follow them. In no time, Mala was buffeted by a surge of small heads, clammy palms pushing at elbows, all around her hot breaths and stifled yelps. One child’s chin ended up in Mala’s hand, both looking at each other in amazement at this sudden contact. In a solitary world, bereft of clear signs, the slightest irregularity had to be interpreted as a lodestar, bright with significance. So what did it mean that she found herself so trapped that she could not even make it across to the main road, stranded in a pool of chattering children?
‘Stop!’ shouted one teacher from the other side of the road. ‘Not another step!’
She came running across, stumbling over her dupatta, furious and terrified. The children froze.
The teacher grabbed hold of the arm of the first offender and smacked his leg.
‘What did I tell you? What have I been telling you all day? What is wrong with you? This is your last warning. Do you hear me? If you do anything like this again, I will tie you to a coconut tree and leave you there all night for the rats and scorpions,’ she shouted.
The boy’s eyes grew marginally wider.
‘Say sorry to Auntie. All of you, say sorry now,’ she commanded.
‘Sorry Auntie …’ filled the air, dragged out into an undulating chorus.
‘It’s okay,’ Mala managed to mumble.
‘I am also very sorry, madam,’ said the teacher. ‘They are just impossible to control.’
‘It’s nothing.’
‘Truly, I am sorry. Do you know what the time is please? Because of one of these apes, I broke my watch yesterday.’
‘Yes, it’s nearly four.’
The panic in Mala began to rise again.
‘Thank you, madam. Okay everyone, in a line, two by two. Now!’
The children scrabbled to one side and began to order themselves.
‘One more day is over and I am still alive. What else is there to say?’ said the teacher as the group began to move off.
A few moments after they had gone, Mala replied: ‘Nothing. Nothing more to say.’
Perhaps that was the sign.
She picked up her bags, crossed over towards the main road and hailed a passing rickshaw.
At the bottom of the slope leading down from Mysore Junction, a pipe had burst and water was spraying upwards, arcs of joy in the afterglow. A teenaged boy had wasted no time in taking advantage of this fortuitous state of events. As Janaki came down the slope, he stood with his back to her in his underwear, his hands soaping his back, lost in his lathery abstraction. There was something compelling about his insouciant pleasure that made her slow down to look at him as she walked past. He turned slightly and she could only just make out his face in the lilac light. His eyes were firmly shut and his cheeks sucked in as he let the jets hit his body, the soap running down into the ground in patchy streaks. Just as Janaki passed him, the boy opened his eyes. The expression in them changed. His lip curled up lewdly.
‘What are you staring at? Want to join me, Auntie?’ he asked.
Janaki stopped walking, her face devoid of intent.
‘Yes, I’ll join you. And then I’ll cut your filthy tongue out of your mouth and put it in your hand.’
The boy’s adolescent bravado shrivelled in the rime of Janaki’s flat tone. Suddenly he was just an almost naked boy in a puddle of waste water. He looked down at his wet feet and then, almost as an afterthought, turned his back to Janaki again.
She continued walking and turned into the dense grid of tiny rooms. Curious glances bounced off her as she purposefully picked out her route. An occasional visitor to the area would not normally have been able to negotiate the rows with such ease. But Janaki’s fury provided her with an adrenalin-fuelled clarity that brought to mind all the markers she needed to find Uma’s room: the collapsed section of chain-link fence, the perennial stack of corrugated iron sheets and the yellow telephone box clamped to its pole.
Curls of smoke rose through the gaps between the walls and the roofs of several rooms; there was the punch of curry leaves and wafts of kerosene; a girl walked past carrying two eggs. Janaki had timed her visit carefully. She was sure Uma would be home by now. In another life, this had been the fabric of her friendly conversations with Uma, questions about her routine, her work, her life.
The industrial clatter from Mysore Junction rolled down the hill and melded in with the sound of an impromptu cricket match at the edge of the rubbish dump.
‘Catch, catch, catch, catch, catch,’ went up the chant.
There was a loud roar as the ball was caught.
Janaki turned into Uma’s row. She was sure this was the one. In the first doorway, a woman was combing out her daughter’s waist-length hair, winding a section around her fist and then determinedly dragging the teeth through the taut strands. The girl endured the ministrations with a scowl. The mother paused as Janaki stepped over the girl’s outstretched legs and continued to walk down the row. The girl twisted around enquiringly to face her mother who simply shrugged and pushed her daughter’s head back into position. There was a job to be done.
Janaki reached Uma’s door and looked at the peeling blue paint. There was no lock on the outside latch. She listened for sounds of movement or conversation but could only hear the distant commotion of the train station and the shouts of the boys playing cricket. A baby began to cry in the neighbouring room.
Janaki knocked loudly on Uma’s door. It was the rap of authority and onslaught. She waited but there was no answer. For a moment she thought she heard a draught of deeper silence emanate from the room, a breath held, a beat skipped. But she could not be sure.
She knocked again, even louder. Again there was a sense of a frozen instant on the other side of the door, a suspension of will.
Janaki knew that her rage was too much for an assessment of something so subtle.
‘Open this door. Dagaar munde, I know you’re there,’ she shouted, her fist hammering against the wood.
She waited a moment.
‘I said, open it.’ Her voice broke.
Uma’s neighbour Parvathi came out of the next room, her face pinched with apprehension, a baby almost slipping through her weak grasp.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.
‘Where is she?’ Janaki asked. Her knocking did not stop.
Parvathi looked at the door anxiously.
‘She is inside. She must be, there’s no padlock here. And the door’s locked from the inside. See?’ Janaki gave the door a violent kick. She seemed to be talking to herself now.
A few heads had begun to peer through open doorways. A group of boys edged forward from the other end of the row, keeping their distance, but within earshot.
‘I know you’re there. Open this door.’ Each of Janaki’s words was accompanied by a smash.
An elderly man emerged from the room on the other side.
‘What is going on?’
Janaki seized the hasp and began to shake it, slamming it against its staple.
‘You must stop that, my child. What has happened?’ asked the man, stepping forward.
Janaki looked at him. Sweat was stinging the corners of her eyes and running down her neck.
‘She won’t open the door. But she is inside. It’s obvious that she’s inside.’
‘Why don’t you come back tomorrow? Are you a relative?’ he asked soothingly.
‘No,’ she hissed. ‘I am nothing. She needs to open the door now.’
She gave the door another kick.
‘No, no, please, this is not the way,’ said the man, reaching out to stop her.
Janaki shrugged off his arm and pressed her whole body against the door, heaving at it with her hip. The veins in the wood shuddered, the jamb creaked, the whole frame shook, but the door remained locked.
A group had begun to form outside Uma’s door, leaving just enough space around Janaki for the heat of her rage to tear into the ground.
‘Is the woman inside sick? Has she fainted?’ someone asked.
‘Should we call a doctor?’
‘I think it’s this lunatic at the door that needs the doctor.’
Word had made its way to the owner of Uma’s room, who lived a short distance away. There was a commotion, someone was trying to break into the room, there might be damage, a police case, a whole month of unnecessary hassle.
The landlord pushed through the group.
‘What is this, madam? Why are you trying to break this door?’ he demanded.
‘What has it got to do with you?’ Janaki asked.
‘It is my door, it is my room, it is my business. Will your grandfather pay for the damage?’ he shouted, primed for battle.
‘Get out of the way,’ she spat.
‘Why do you need to get inside so urgently anyway?’ asked the older man, trying to intercede.
‘I need to speak to that whore inside and I will speak to her today no matter who tries to stop me,’ she said.
‘But why? What has she done?’
‘When she has finished fucking your son, you can come and ask me what she has done,’ said Janaki, wild-eyed.
‘This woman is crazy. Someone take her away,’ went up a cry.
‘Don’t you dare touch me,’ screamed Janaki.
The crowd closed in and soon a whistle pierced through. A police constable was on his way.
‘Let her taste the policeman’s lathi. She’ll remember her way home,’ said a smirking boy.
Janaki managed to get a few more kicks at the door before she was edged away by the crowd towards the entrance of the row. There were more jeers, more appeals for calm. It was another half an hour or so before the constable managed to convince her to leave the area.
To those who had gathered outside, each blow on the door had seemed heavier than the last. To someone on the inside, each impact might have sounded like the head of an axe cleaving the wooden frame, a hinge shattering into fragments and the thud of thousands of splinters embedding themselves in every part of the room’s walls and floor. It might even have sounded like the deafening blast of demolition, a structure being ripped from its foundations, setting off a series of seismic currents. Or maybe to someone on the inside it had all been curiously noiseless; maybe all that could really be heard was the sound of the deep hush that lay thick at the heart of any betrayal.
As Girish approached home, the muezzin’s call to prayer echoed through the evening air. It was an invisible kite wavering on the breath of faith, a sound no longer heard so much as simply absorbed every evening. His footsteps were heavy, kicking up a little dust as he moved up the lane. He lifted the bolt, walked through the gate and noticed that no lights were on. Could Mala be asleep at this hour? He rang the bell, its fierce jangle alerting only him. He rang again, this time holding the button down. Irritation swamped him like a sudden rash, unseen welts of annoyance rising up. Where had she gone at this time when she should be packing? He fumbled in his jacket pocket for his keys, let himself into the darkness of the house and slipped off his shoes.
‘Mala?’ he called, turning on the light in the hallway.
‘Mala?’
He walked into the bedroom and then the kitchen, still holding his shoes. He walked back into the bedroom, pressed the light switch and then opened the cupboard door. As he flung his shoes down, the other cupboard door swung open. Moving to close it, he stopped. It was nearly empty. Most of the clothes were gone. Had she packed already?
He looked up above the cupboards and saw that the smaller case was missing. So she had packed. But where had she gone? He looked for the case in the bedroom and then in the corridor and the sitting room. He walked back to Mala’s cupboard and began to pull open the drawers. Most of them were bare.
There was a rush of comprehension.
He grabbed his keys and opened the locker at the back of the cupboard. As far as he could tell, the cash was undisturbed but Mala’s jewellery was gone. He shut the locker door and returned to the sitting room.
The light from the hallway threw a pale arc across the floor, lending a spot of colour to the objects in the room: the collection of Air India Maharajas, the ceramic frogs in the glass-fronted cabinet, the waxy sofa. It was only when Girish turned towards the front door that he noticed the television. The screen was smashed all the way across, two almost parallel lines racing from one corner to another. In between these cracked tributaries, a black void took the form of a visceral wound, reflected minutely in his own dark iris.