Story:
Amar Shah
The Reactionary
Prataapmaan had started getting disappointed when he was at the clinic and was disappointed even more after he returned home back. He had returned home from the clinic disappointed and was continuously feeling disappointed and depressed since last few hours. 'There seems no limit of being disappointed'- he had realized. His wife had gone to visit her parents along with the children and he was all alone at home. Thus, the situation was very fertile and favorable for him to be disappointed. He was sitting home alone, making best use of the situation and getting disappointed continuously.
Prataapmaan recalled the event of that evening.
"Tell me, how is it?"
The doctor smiled at Prataapmaan when he saw him entering the cabin.
"The disease is cured, but… …"
Praatapmaan looked hesitant. He did not disclose his mind immediately. The doctor smiled again with an expression of 'well-I-had-told-you' painted allover his face.
"Good…., very good! what is the problem then?"
The doctor might have recalled the word 'but' in Prataapmaan's reply.
"There's no problem and everything's fine, but… … "
Prataapmaan couldn’t reveal his problem. Once again he left the sentence incomplete and stopped at 'but'.
"Okay, go on… …"
The doctor sounded calm and encouraging, but it was now clear from tone of his voice that his calmness wouldn’t last long.
"Doctor, sorry to talk like this, but can you restore my disease back? … … problems have arisen after the disease was cured."
Prataapmaan gathered courage and finally disclosed his problem.
The doctor looked him in utter astonishment.
"Restore disease back! Are you all right?
The doctor was staring at Prataapmaan. The doctor must have met patients who wanted to get rid of disease and recover from their illness, but definitely it must be his first time that he was meeting a 'patient' who wanted his disease to be restored back. The doctor was considering Prataapmaan as someone insane or drunk.
"Yes, I'm fine and serious. I even thought it over and over before coming to you. It will be great help if could bring my disease back…"
Prataapmaan was almost pleading now.
"My job is to cure the disease, not to create it … and moreover, there's no such remedy also."
It was clear that the doctor was losing his temper now.
Prataapmaan saw no use of being there anymore and came out of the clinic unwillingly. While coming out, he saw the doctor pressing the bell to call another patient. The fact that his illness couldn't be restored back to previous stage was making Prataapmaan disappointed and his disappointment was gradually gaining height after he returned home from the clinic.
Prataapmaan started to get cough frequently during the time of referendum* in 1980. He was in his teens then. The cough used to be cured after few days initially. But gradually it became persistent and remained with him for lifetime instead. However, Prataapmaan didn’t try to treat this illness mainly due to two reasons, firstly because it didn’t trouble him much except runny nose, headache, and slight fever at the interval of every two to three weeks, and secondly, because he was a resident of remote place with very limited medical facility. Thus, he grew up with the disease.
His nose never stopped, so with one hankie in his pocket and another under pillow, Prataapmaan learnt to live his life sneezing, sniffling, coughing and snuffling wherever he went. Pratapman joined a job, got married, and even became a father. But, he could smell nothing because he has lost his sense of smell due to this cold and cough.
Prataapmaan felt uncomfortable at the beginning when he was unable to notice smell or scent, he had even to pass through many difficulties due to this, but gradually he became used to all this. He could spend four hours beside a four-days-old dead body of a dog and he could walk comfortably in the middle of highly polluted road. In one way, Prataapmaan found this loss of sense of smell as his strength because his life became more comfortable and easy. As a lower middle class Nepali he had to live more with bad smell around than good one and this disease really helped him live his life.
Prataapmaan regretted over his loss of smelling power for the first time after his marriage. He was quite familiar with the odor of the things and people around him, but his wife was new to him. How was the smell emitted by her body? Was it sweet or offensive? He could not know it, and thus, became sad about that.
In the beginning, his wife did not dare to complain about this. But as the time passed, she started speaking against his running nose that he was blowing throughout fifty-two weeks, twelve months, and three hundred sixty-five days regularly. His wife has complains on washing his handkerchiefs-dry and stiff with mucus, and she also had objections on his frequent sneezing and blowing of the nose. Specifically she did not like the disturbances all this brought to their very private moments.
Her objections were getting more strong in recent months. The pressure to visit a doctor increased so much that neither could he resist his wife by citing shortage of few thousand rupees nor could he delay the visit on some other excuses.
Thus, Prataapmaan had finally visited the clinic of an Ear Nose Throat specialist in the town.
"Allergic Rhinitis and nasal polyps…"
Either the doctor was experienced or the disease was very common. The doctor diagnosed the problem immediately after asking him few questions and examining his nostrils.
"Can't it be cured, then?"
His little knowledge on allergy made him suspicious. He was of the impression that allergies were not curable.
The doctor wrote prescription. He lectured on what to eat and what not to eat, and what to do and what not to do and grabbed his consultation fee.
Prataapmaan had zero percent trust on the doctor but he kept on taking the medicines because he was under direct supervision of his wife. And one fine morning, he felt some smell while sitting in the toilet and also could smell aftershave also while shaving.
"This is a miracle! How are you all managing with a toilet smelling so bad?"
Prataapmaan happily shared the news on his repossession of sense of smell with his wife first. His wife shared this with others and others with others. In this way, the news of Prataapmaan's ability to smell the things again spread among all his relatives and neighbors. The news soon became hot cake like any news of national importance.
It was great to gain the smelling power back. He smelt the scent of his wife and even smelt many new scents. But parallel to this retrieval of sense of smell, new problems were also arising.
The problem cropped out from his own office where he had been working as an assistant to accounts officer.
"This payment cannot be processed, can it?"
When he smelt malpractice in the bill the accounts officer had asked him to process, he went to his boss and reported about the smell that the bill was emitting. Similarly, after he gained the smelling power, he was smelling odors in all the applications, bills and various payments his office was making.
"Okay, I'll see this."
His boss didn’t say him anything at that time but the very next day he was transferred to another department where more labor was needed and where there was less opportunity of rewards.
"Mustard oil does not taste good. Use sunflower oil instead."
He changed the oil used in kitchen after he smelt scent of palm oil in mustard oil in use. Yet the smell of palm oil didn’t leave him, as he was smelling palm oil in soya, sunflower, almond, and coconut oil. Finally, he had to give up consuming oil.
"Okay, we shall use ghee then."
His wife started using ghee instead of oil in kitchen but in ghee also he was smelling fat, ingua-fruit and other materials. Thus, his diet reduced so much that his wife began to worry.
"You don’t eat enough nowadays; shall we go to a doctor?"
His wife was really worried.
Prataapmaan too was worried due to all this because, the world he had been seeing around him had suddenly changed after he regained the smelling power. To start perceiving the world differently than you are used to do, especially at this age, was not only difficult but painful too.
Prataapmaan stopped finding anything positive in the speeches of political leaders except desire to fulfill personal means in the speeches of leaders from ruling party and frustration of being out of power in the speeches of leaders from opposition parties. He began to see thing just opposite of what he had believed to be so far. This all was really very painful.
Prataapmaan's life gradually became more difficult when he started smelling conspiracy in his friends' smile, smell of money from the body of ladies with full make-up and smell of pollution even in clean air. The situation worsened so much that he even started smelling greed when his seven years old daughter came near him and sat on his lap affectionately. As a result, Prataapmaan became depressed and his habits also changed. All this forced his close friends, acquaintances and relatives to maintain a safe distance from him.
A victim of various types of smells, Pratapman was dumbfounded by a new smell coming from his wife's body one night.
"Your body smells different today, what may be the reason?"
He called his wife who was already in sleep then. One of her distant cousin, a young boy in search of job, had been staying as a guest in Prataapmaan's house since last few weeks and Prataapmaan clearly smelled the scent of that boy from his wife's body.
"Strange, Your body smells of your cousin !"
Prataapmaan couldn’t hide his feeling. He expressed it directly.
"What ?"
She took some time to understand what he really meant and when she understood she was perplexed at first. Later she was shocked and started crying.
"I can stand it no longer. You've gone mad!".
She started to sob and spent the whole night crying. She left for her parents' home with the children early next morning.
Prataapmaan regretted the whole day. There was a struggle going on inside him between two opposite thoughts- one against blaming her who had stayed with him together for so many years, and another what else he could have done when the scent coming from her body was so clear and strong. Prataapmaan finally reached a conclusion that the main cause of all the problems was his sense of smell that he has retrieved after so many years.
"It is impossible to live like this."
Prataapmaan had visited the doctor after a painstaking thinking for a whole day and after the doctor expressed helplessness, he was feeling disappointed and depressed now.
He had decided to return to his previous stage back because he had been facing more challenges after he gained the sense of smell. Many accidents had occurred, there was possibility of even losing his job, living was becoming too difficult, and even his wife has left him.
But the doctor said there was nothing he could do.
"What can be done?"
Prataapmaan became more serious. Prataapmaan wanted to live a normal life and he was trying for that. But the life that Prataapmaan was forced to live now was not the life he has wanted to live.
"No banana, egg, fish and ice-cream, they cause allergy … …. avoid dust and smoke as far as possible."
Prataapmaan recalled the doctor's advice during his first visit there. He was a bit happy now. Maybe the illness that can't be brought back medically can be brought back with those edibles. Now he will eat banana, egg, fish and ice-cream and walk in the dust and smoke as far as possible- a small hope emerged in his mind. His feeling of hopelessness receded a bit.
He will try to bring back his illness right from tomorrow- Prataapmaan felt relieved.
Note:
*: Nepal had a referendum in 1990 when people were asked to choose between party less monarchy or constitutional monarchy then
