The Smoke is Rising

With India's first rocket launch to the moon, the scenario is changing fast. It is this changing world of Mysore which Mahesh Rao's novel speaks about. In this story, Mysore is gearing for an international remake with the construction of HeritageLand, Asia's largest theme park. Citizens and government officials alike prepare themselves for a complete makeover, one that not everybody welcomes. An elderly widow finds herself forced into a secretive new life, and another woman is succumbing to the cancerous power of gossip as she tries to escape her past. Another woman must come to terms with reality as her husband's troubling behaviour steeps out of hand. In Mysore, where the modern and the eclectic fuse to become something else entirely, everyone must hang on to their own escapes or find themselves swept under the carpet of the sublime change called development.