A Sense Of Smell

Oh, the sweet pang of pain. Tatvik’s drugged brain failed to feel the intensity of the operating pieces of equipment entering him, but a soft feeling engulfed him completely, his bubbling mind, imagining things, yesteryear memories caressing him by, all his senses, as if exploding and bursting, creating an orchestra of a cacophonic circus of thoughts, and he seemed to get sucked into that realm, slowly, slowly.

A tap on the shoulder, and he figured, he’s still in the space-time conundrum of his dream, and as he tried hard, very hard, to remember his last fleeting thought, his mind relayed to him some snapshots of his career, his career as a chef, but a very weird chef.

Tatvik saw himself, cooking up a storm, in his restaurant, mixing ingredients, aplenty, his eyes strained, with dollops of sweat forming around it, trying hard to not miss a minute detail.

He moves to the bakery section, ready to serve.There’s the chocolate lake. Yes, a slice of chocolate cake. His specialty. He takes so much extra care to see that whatever recipes that have been followed to make a chocolate cake, he can do something new, incorporate something that hadn’t been tried earlier, ever. Maybe add a whisker of toppings which is unconventional. Every single bite should have that mix of nostalgia and a burst of innovation. And the chocolate cake is his guinea-pig. He smells it. Perfect.

After finishing the plating, he walks on to the nearest sous chef looking at his dish and then tasting it, nodding in approval and moving to the next. Finally, he takes a look at the new orders and starts his preparations.

The next image that pops up in his dream, was himself, in his already closed restaurant, eerily silent, with only a neon bulb flickering above him as he stood there, breathing deeply, trying again, to try to smell even the faintest smell from any of the hundreds of items lying before him, raw vegetables, fish, meat, bakery and what not. Even the smell of fresh rain, that had already started, didn’t reach his sensory nerves. He wondered how he had survived all these years without his sense of smell. They say, a chef must have a strong sense of smell and taste, and he has none. Well, technically, because of the sense of smell being absent, his sense of taste is diminishing at an alarming rate. Nowadays, the only way he recognizes the quality of cooked food is by color, texture. And that has worked well, uptil now, no complaints. But for how long?

None of his cooks knew, albeit the sous-chef,about this condition. So, this operation. Which aimed at improving his sense of smell and that is where he is currently and that is where his tingling senses played with his mind as the procedure remained in motion.

Tatvik sat on his wooden chair, thinking. That sepia light kept flickering over his head. His eyes fixated on the open fridge, he could now smell each and everything that the moment offered. The icy cold winds crashed on his face, and he closed the door. It has been more than a month since the operation, and now he could smell every food that is being prepared in his restaurant’s kitchen. He could minutely measure the number of ingredients more efficiently in his chocolate cake than before. But then, why did he feel his customers seemed a bit dissatisfied. More so, why is he dissatisfied? This new sense of smell has left him irritated like never before. He finds faults in his work and others too, which takes a toll on his mind. His confidence, which was there, on top, irrespective of his shortcomings, seemed to have gone dwindling slowly, slowly.

This sense of smell, which was a defect in my body for a long time, and now fixed by introducing or mending something, does that make my body new? Did my body reject this new change? Or is this my old body itself, sewed together again, because it needed repair? And what if I want back my old self, the old sense of not having a sense? Would then, my body be termed as old, because now that old part is put back again, in some way or the other?

Tatvik grew more and more restless as a myriad of smells juxtaposed together and ignited his senses like never before. He breathed in a lung full of air, trying to inhale every bit of smell that every organism near him emanated at that very moment. He knew. Would it be possible, though?

He dialled his doctor’s number.

***