Mahesh Rao is not the archetypal publicity hungry novelist. He opted to let go of a flourishing career as a lawyer in England and relocated to Mysore to write books. His debut novel, The Smoke is Rising is based in Mysore, which has seen many transitions over the years, evolving from a traditional small town to an upmarket city. Why did he feel compelled to modernise the historical Mysore into a futuristic city? “I think the concept of a theme park called Heritage Land is a useful device for the novel. It serves to evoke the sense of a particular modernity but is also sufficiently ridiculous to fulfill some of the book’s comic aims. I had tremendous fun coming up with the Kailash Wonder Mountain and the Yamaraja Monorail. I’ve mentioned the fictional theme park to people and quite a few have asked whether it’s a work of non-fiction and whether this is indeed happening in Mysore. Satire and reality are often alarmingly close,” says Mahesh, who clearly feels at home in his favourite city.
Perhaps not many are aware that Mahesh was born in Nairobi, studied politics and economics at the University of Bristol, and law at Cambridge and LSE. But, like most NRIs, he kept visiting the country every year with his parents and as his parents grew old, Mahesh felt compelled to settle down in Mysore. “Mysore was the perfect place to move to in order to write this novel. I was so relieved to be able to write my novel, it felt like such a privilege, that this far outweighed any difficulties I may have had,” he says.
His novel tends to drip with nostalgia yet is pragmatic in its tone as he highlights the dichotomy that old-timers face. The novel focuses on the glorious past of Mysore and yet highlights the importance of moving ahead. “It’s true that people who remember pre-boom Bengaluru are steeped in nostalgia and conversation often returns to the glorious days of traffic-free roads and a hill-station climate. Bengaluru’s phenomenal growth casts a long shadow over Mysore too there is a plangent horror when faced with the question of whether Mysore’s fate will be the same, while recognising the opportunities that Bengaluru offers to so many people,” he says.
Normally, with debut novels, there is a tendency to draw from one’s personal experiences and since Mahesh’s novel is based in Mysore, how much of an influence has his own life been? “The book isn’t autobiographical but I have been hugely influenced by the city of Mysore, more than I perhaps realised while I was writing it. The novel wasn’t set in Mysore initially; it was set in a fictional city. But in subsequent drafts it became clear that I had written about Mysore by its own insistence,” he avers.
One can’t help but draw comparisons between his work and that of his idol R.K. Narayan. He concedes, “R.K. Narayan has been a big influence; I began writing this novel while thinking about what Malgudi would look like today. But he has been present in terms of more than just the setting of his novels: his ideas of a particular restlessness in a world full of restrictions, the confusion of his characters’ inner lives, how they dealt with the transformation of their societies, and of course, his humour.”
The Smoke is Rising has tackled the land grabbing menace rather well, depicting a clash between tradition and modernity. Is this a reflection of the chaos that exists in society as people find it difficult to succumb to change? “I think the question that needs to be asked is: who benefits from the change and who loses? Change doesn’t always have to be negative. If we take urbanisation as an example, there are positive things to come out of it too: the potential for caste barriers to break down, increased opportunities for women to enter the workforce, rewarding urban subcultures. But where urbanisation involves land grabs or severe ecological disruption, as it often does, the immense cost to many cannot justify the gains to a few,” he says.
A prolific writer, Mahesh has already finished his second book, One Point Two Billion, a collection of short stories and critical acclaim has already come his way. “This book has stories that are set in different Indian states. One of my short stories has been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Prize. The book is due out in the UK in October 2015, and in India soon after that,” he says.
Mahesh is already working on his second novel, “but the characters keep changing, so I don’t want to discuss this too much,” he adds.
