The Smoke is Rising Read Online Free PDF

you’re really trying to finish me off,’ Sunaina groaned, biting into another
chum chum
. ‘Just after scaring us with all these health stories, you serve us these heart attacks.’
    Malini Gupta had barely touched her plate. A corner had been nibbled off just one
pakora
. Susheela made a mental note.
    Talk turned to Sunaina’s nephew, whose disinclination to find paid employment troubled her like an ingrown toenail.
    ‘At least he doesn’t gamble or, you know, conduct himself in loose ways,’ said Susheela.
    ‘Birdwatching,’ said Sunaina with disgust. ‘That’s the only thing he’s interested in. Always leaping up to tell you that he spotted some crested crow with three legs.’
    ‘But I suppose it doesn’t do any
harm
.’
    ‘It doesn’t do any
good
either. He may be comfortably off, but asa life, what does it amount to, all this lying around in puddles, gazing at hens?’
    Malini Gupta seemed to cheer up a little at the thought of the dismal prospects of Sunaina’s nephew.
    The morning’s paper lay folded and pressed flat on the coffee table. The front page revealed that the High Court had granted a fresh stay order on any construction at the site of HeritageLand. The saga of the proposed theme park, one of Asia’s largest, seemed almost immemorial. Every call of support or protest was eagerly absorbed into the civic ether as if the pitch for construction was the real entertainment envisaged by the park’s creators. Almost every aspect of the project was endlessly debated in the local press, the choice of site and acquisition of land being the most controversial. The editor of the
Mysore Evening Sentinel
was unequivocal in his warning: ‘If we don’t hurry up and build the damn thing, the Chinese will do it, like they do everything else.’
    ‘As for this so-called HeritageLand, I don’t think we will ever see it in our lifetimes,’ said Susheela.
    ‘I am just sick and tired of hearing about it,’ said Sunaina, her hands fluttering to her temples.
    ‘Every day there is another press release, another exclusive. The park will only have five-star hotels, it will have five thousand fountains, it will be seen from space.’
    ‘Apparently we will be able to experience a day in the life of Tipu Sultan there.’
    ‘Didn’t he spend his days flinging Britishers off a cliff?’
    ‘Maybe that’s what they intend, although I hope not. Think of the mess. Just when street cleaning has improved in our localities.’
    Sunaina gulped the last of her juice like a stricken heroine.
    A bee had somehow made its way into the dining room and its dull drone was interrupted by the thud of its deranged lunges at the closed window. Malini Gupta glanced at the moulded ends ofthe curtain rail, shifted on her stool and once again examined her uneaten
chum chum.

    ‘So, what made you late this morning?’ asked the
mali
, as Uma carried a basin of dirty utensils to the outside washing area at the back of the house.
    She gathered up the folds of her sari, tucked them between her thighs and squatted to turn the tap on. The
mali
walked around to one side of the tap and looked down at the top of her head.
    ‘Definitely in a bad mood,’ he said.
    ‘
Amma
said there were plates under the pots on the upstairs balcony that need to be cleaned,’ Uma said. The water sprayed halfway up her thin arms and wet the edges of her sari.
    ‘Can you get me another cup of coffee? Even in this heat, my stomach is feeling cold inside.’
    Uma did not respond. She quickly rinsed the last of the steel tumblers, laid it out on a mat in the sunshine and hurried back inside the house, without giving him another look.

    The sun was lower in the sky but the dry heat still bore away with the same intensity. Seated on the low wall, Mala looked for the hyperactive boys but they were nowhere in sight. Girish sat next to her, his arm slung across her shoulders like a sandbag. He occasionally clicked his fingers as if in time to some mysterious