Read Online The Smoke is Rising by Mahesh Rao - Free Book Online

mobile phone and shuffling sheets of carbon in a receipt book. A teenage boy squatted on the pavement, hammering nails into the back of a frame while keeping a watchful eye on his boss.
    Girish thought about walking down a couple of blocks before getting a coffee but the heat was merciless and no one in his office would notice or care. He stepped into the restaurant across the road and it was only a matter of seconds before the milky confection arrived in a chipped glass. Girish sent the coffee back, asking for another glass, incurring the savage but silent wrath of the waiter.
    The restaurant was relatively empty at this hour. An old film song played very softly: a solemn ode to the beauty of a country belle.
    ‘Of course, everyone is at their desks, shuffling important bits ofpaper, mentally composing crucial memos and notices,’ thought Girish.
    He decided to make himself comfortable and looked around to see if any newspapers had been abandoned. The waiter returned with the coffee, this time in an intact but grimy glass.
    Raised voices from across the street carried into the restaurant.
    ‘Look what they have done to my Krishna! Look at my Krishna. Look!’
    From where he was seated Girish could see a wiry woman with a hoarse voice in a state of extreme agitation. The usual idlers, starved of entertainment, had quickly gathered around to provide counsel and succour. The woman pointed to an image lying flat on the tarpaulin. A series of sooty smudges had appeared on the picture like smoke rings blown from those perfectly shaped roseate lips.
    ‘Look there! At the mouth! Look!’
    The young man had quickly ended his phone conversation and was now cuffing the back of the boy’s head every time the woman pointed out the mishap.
    ‘What are you hitting him for? He has not been anywhere near the picture. You have done this. Or else it was that donkey inside. Look at my Krishna!’ screamed the woman.
    ‘Please calm down,’ said the young man.
    ‘Criminal
sule magga. Ninna mukhake benki hakka.’
    ‘We’ll fix it.’
    ‘Nachikedu, paapi mundemakkala
. May burning hot coals rain down on your dick.’
    ‘
Che che
, is that a mouth or a sewage pipe?’
    ‘May a stray dog fuck your wife from behind.’
    ‘She is not my wife yet. The marriage is in six months.’
    Girish paid for his coffee and left the restaurant. That was all people could find to do these days: shout like a fishwife and cause a huge scene over a few dirty marks. He walked on theshady side of the pavement towards Kabir Road, stepping around the arrangements of cheap sunglasses and wallets laid out on dirty sheets. He thought of looking in on a friend who worked at a newspaper around the corner but then changed his mind. He was in no mood to hear about the daily miseries involved in being a third-rate journalist for a tenth-rate rag. He turned into Anegundi Road and headed towards the recently opened mall near the Farooqia College of Pharmacy. At least it would be cool and there would not be any howling harpies to give him a headache.
    As he approached the mall he stopped and thought about paying Mala a visit at work. If he waited half an hour or so she would probably be ready to leave. Maybe they could go and have
chaat
somewhere and then go to an evening show. A vision of them sitting in a crowded snack bar, Mala playing with the chain around her neck, flashed through his mind. The thought depressed him instantly. There was nothing left in him to give to an evening of spontaneous recreation. In any case, going to pick up Mala would entail walking back to Jyothi House to pick up his motorbike and he had no intention of returning there at least until he had managed to speak to the Director of Customer Relations. He turned around again, crossed the road, walked quickly through the metal detectors and disappeared behind the mall’s dark sliding doors.

    The towels had been hanging on the line all day and were baked crisp. Uma piled them into a brittle