A Quick Smoke

It was exactly 20 years before, that one rainy afternoon in the school playground amongst his few close buddies, Joel dragged on his first cigarette. Though he coughed, cursed, and almost threw away the cigarette, something in the bitterness of the smoke made him hold on to the cigarette and take his second drag, followed by the third, and the fourth until his head began to spin and he passed it on to another eager hand.

And as Joel progressed in his biological years, he embraced smoking with a spiritual rigor. He smoked to keep calm, to get tense, after dinner, after fights, after sex, and before breakfast. Joel also itched to paint. For reasons unknown, one midnight after he watched a cigarette stick burn away into a cylindrical column of ash, he decided to quit smoking. The following morning he also quit his job, brought a warehouse and started to paint. And in this warehouse, stroke by stoke he gave life to a simple idea on an oil canvas – a young woman sitting by the riverside with her head on her knees.

For years Joel could think of nothing but paintings; those rich, lush colorful pieces of creativity framed and hanged on numerous museums, bedrooms, art houses, and toilets. Joel always wanted to paint. But to him, it seemed that the whole world had conspired to prevent him from doing just that. When he was young and would spend hours with his drawing sheets, his mother would snatch them away and place Logo building blocks in front of him so that he uses his brains in doing something constructive.

His father didn’t help either. He wanted Joel to be the star batsman of his building apartment – a dream that his father could never fulfill. As soon as he was home from office, Mr. Mukherjee would ask Joel to dress up for the match. Joel would be dressed in a pair of brown shorts, white shirt, canvas shoes, and a cap. Next, an old bat and ball would be placed in Joel’s hand. Thus armed and dressed, Joel would proceed for the local cricket match played in his building. Joel hated this entire errand and would see a large canvas with beautiful paintings as he waited for the ball. Disaster always stuck on the first ball. He was always out with the preciseness of the moms calling out to their children from various windows on various floors to finish the game at 6:00 pm.

Like the renaissance painter, Joel grew a beard, ate only to refill his lost energy, slept when his eyes could hold no more, and painted. He mixed mediums, created dyes by dissolving pigments into binders, and deftly etched lines into the canvas. And one day he was done. He got off his stool, walked to a distance and watched with satisfaction and critic at his creation. It was exactly at that moment that the old familiar urge to smoke stimulated his tired brain once again – a quick smoke.

In midst of his paints, spirits, and fumes, he lit a cigarette. As the match stuck the prosperous, a ball of fire engulfed the air and exploded into a burning ball of raging flame. Joel choked on his breath, the oxygen in his lungs sucked out, and his vision blurred to nothingness.

Later in the day, when the firefighters had come and gone and the flames brought under control, someone observed that if it were not for the tragic accident, the gutted warehouse with its watery floor and sense of loss would have made an excellent theme for a grim painting.

The Call

The other day I received a phone call and was asked to report at a swanky address in Banjara Hills. She must be around 38 years old and had dark cycles under the eyes. She told me she was not interested in doing “it” but just wanted to talk. Now why the fuck would someone pay to talk? What are shrinks for? As if I care as long as I am being paid.

She was tall; a little wrinkled from the years and had this very intellectual look about her. She wore glasses, very sweet looking, not the type of woman to use the services of a male escort. She was more like your housewife next-door, rich, but not sophisticated and I mean it in a good way.

She told me to relax and offered me a drink. I settled for a cup of tea. She was dressed in a mauve bathrobe and smelled of lilies, fresh from her bath. She told me her husband was a good man – he owned a business which was profitable, took care of her and the kids, enjoyed a single malt whisky before dinner, and still squeezed in a good bout of sex every night, well, almost every night. He had a healthy appetite as far as sex was concerned.

I relaxed a little more and stretched back on the sofa, the cup of tea untouched. She continued. She told me she was bored, very bored with her life. Though the family went on vacation twice a year, mingled with friends and relatives, attended social functions, and invited friends over, yet her life was boring, predictable.

I smelled the tea. It smelled of cardamom. She crossed her legs; she was naked inside. Something within told me her soul was naked too, devoid of any sense of being - craving for the unknown. I looked at her trying to demystify the moment but gave up. She told me that one afternoon she was feeling so empty that she felt like killing herself. She was sitting on the bed, her mind an absolute blank, when she noticed the laptop on the side table. Although she knew how to use a computer, she never had the inclination to be online. She never thought of it until this moment. On the other hand, her husband was online every night.

She flipped open the laptop, switched on the power button, and watched with soulless eyes as the computer came to life. She did the things she had to do until she was online. A message blinked on the instant messenger. “So how are you today?” asked the message. She realized that her husband must be talking to someone and the person mistook her for her husband. “I am fine”, she replied. “I have uploaded all the pictures you sent last night. Check the site,” blinked the message on the computer. She clicked the blue link to the website that came with the message and waited as the window opened. A jolt shook her from within as if a high voltage naked power line touched her body as the window opened to reveal pictures - her pictures, thumbnails, hundreds of them row after row - in the nude.