The second sense (Short story)

The second sense

Krishnan Iyer was intensely uncomfortable. He was the vice president purchase of Bowden and Baker, the internationally famous fragrance suppliers. His whole career had been spent in the company of exotic and beautiful smells, perfecting one, twiddling the other, until he came out a particular smell he could sell to various companies, for making soaps, perfumes, oils, deodorants and such olfactory treats. However, over the past few days, he had been troubled by finding terrible smells wherever he went. He shouted at his wife because there was a terrible smell of decomposing flesh in the house, he shouted at his driver because there was a disgusting stink of sweat, tobacco and hair oil in his car and he shouted at his secretary because there was a pong of burnt milk and uncleared kitchen waste in his office. What really aggravated him was that no one was in the least sympathetic to his plight. They claimed that they couldn’t smell anything, and that the whole thing was a figment of his imagination. His wife finally got irritated and told him to hold a handkerchief to his ridiculously sensitive nose, his driver passionately defended himself saying that he neither smoked, nor applied hair oil and had taken a bath in the morning. His secretary just looked at him and walked out silently with her nose in the air. The funny part was that nobody else in his house or office could smell anything. He got a lot of suggestions to solve his problem, ranging from the practical “hold a scented hanky over your nose”, to the sarcastic “breathe through your mouth” and ending at the ridiculous “start smoking to reduce the sensitivity of your nose.” Out of desperation, he jumped at the opportunity of a business trip. “At least, with the change in atmosphere, the smells will go away” he thought. He was to go to Nepal to speak with a fragrance supplier there. He had traveled all over the world, but had never gone to this neighboring country. It was not like international travel at all, he thought. No passport, no visa, no foreign currency…the whole thing was most unusual. Even the plane timing was unlike the usual unearthly hours of an international flight, as it was at two in the afternoon. His driver dropped Krishnan to the airport, and as they reached Sahar airport, the strangeness of the trip struck him again. He had never seen the international airport in the day, and at that hour it was totally empty. Earlier, he had always associated the airport with nighttime and huge crowds of travelers, well wishers and irritating taxi cabs all over the place. Now it was basking the warm sunshine, and looked calm, peaceful and deserted. After getting down from the car and giving him instructions for the next few days, he walked into the airport. As he walked to the Royal Nepal airlines counter, he was again struck by a terrible smell. Oh god, not here too, he thought. At least here the smell was identifiable. An employee was walking around with a smoke pump that was spewing out a fumigating chemical to kill mosquitoes and other pests. What a smell - kerosene, DDT and poison. Due his fragrance training, Krishnan habitually remembered scents through associations – Warm sun, fruits, citrus, cedar wood, eucalyptus, rose, cologne, romance…- but the only association he could achieve here was… “Death” “Excuse me?” said a startled  man next to him, and Krishnan realized that he had said it aloud. “No...No…nothing…sorry, my mistake” stammered the embarrassed Krishnan and walked away, with the man staring after him. Krishnan got his bag X-rayed and watched, bemused, as they ruined the shape of his expensive leather bag by tying it with an ugly nylon strip. Then he went to the Royal Nepal counter, where a slightly decayed looking Nepali took his ticket. After carefully checking the ticket against his list, the Nepali officer looked at him. “Sir, you will have to wait.” “Why?” “3.30 sir.” “Eh?” Krishnan was confused. “I mean that the flight has been delayed till 3.30 sir.” “Only one and a half hour, eh? That’s not too bad. Just like our domestic flights. Heh heh.” Krishnan laughed. “Heh heh.” The Nepali laughed along with him. “3.30 in the morning sir. Tomorrow.” “What! Fourteen hours delay!” “Yes sir. But don’t worry sir; we will put you up in a hotel.” As his driver had already left, Krishnan felt that it would be a good idea to take up the offer and spend the day in the hotel. At least he wouldn’t have to tolerate the stink of the pesticide spray in the airport, he thought. The airline officials herded all the travelers into a battered minibus, which took them to their hotel. The hotel was OK, but as soon as he entered, Krishnan was assailed by a terrible smell of cheap phenyl and naphthalene balls. He reeled, but recovered and completed the check in process. Again, he noticed that no one seemed to notice the smell except him. “Wonder what’s happening to me?” he wondered. “I have heard that people develop extra ordinarily sharp sense of smell when they quit smoking, but I haven’t quit…I don’t even smoke…” Still lost in his thoughts, he went up to his room. He had been given a single room on the third floor, while going up he noticed that the rest of the passengers got off at the second floor. As he got out of the lift, there was a new smell – old stale carpets and rat droppings. He made an effort and ignored it. After a bath and dousing himself with perfume, he came down for lunch in the coffee shop. As he entered the coffee shop, he reeled and almost fell down as the extremely offensive smell of rancid fat and rotting vegetables hit him, almost like a physical blow. The whole atmosphere was redolent of disagreeable food smells- frying fish, acrid pork, musty boiled cauliflower and many others. He wondered how anyone could eat in this atmosphere. But being a diabetic, he was under strict medical orders to eat regularly, so chose plain bread and butter as the safest choice. But even the bread smelt stale and the butter rancid. He quickly gobbled down the food and bolted out of the coffee shop, as he couldn’t bear the sights and sounds of people eating in that stench. He went up to his room and tried to relax with a novel he had brought along. But he found that he couldn’t concentrate on the story. The room seemed to be permeated with a smell that was growing all the time. He couldn’t precisely identify it, but it seemed to be something like wet carpets, rat excrement and mildew mixed into one. Krishnan called up the housekeeping and demanded they do something about it. But when the housekeeping boy came up, he coudn't smell anything. “How surprising!” sneered Krishnan sarcastically. “No doubt you can’t smell the musty old carpet smell in the corridor either.” The boy was totally taken aback. “Old carpet smell sir?” “And not that disgusting phenyl smell either, I suppose?” Krishnan roared, his temper rising. The boy fled, and came back with the duty manager and an aerosol of room freshener. He sprayed while the manger tried to mollify Krishnan. By that time, Krishnan was tired of the whole thing, so paid no attention while the manager said something about new carpets and no usage of phenyl in the hotel. He just mumbled something and herded them out of his room, and then crashed on to his bed, and tried to sleep. But sleep eluded him, he had a terrible afternoon, as the smell around him grew and grew, until he felt he was going out of his mind. As evening approached, he left his room and tried to go for a walk. As he went down to the lobby, he bumped into a fellow traveler. “Hi Mr. Krishnan, how are you? You are looking rather ill.” Krishnan was rather taken aback by this solicitous inquiry from such a casual acquaintance, but was grateful too. He was feeling quite miserable by now. “I…er…yes. I am a bit under the weather…the air…er…” “Oh, how sad. I understand. It feels bad to feel ill on the verge of a long journey. Come, have a drink with me.” Again Krishnan was taken aback, but then he reflected, why not? He agreed and they turned towards the bar. “My name is Chaudhary, by the way.” They settled into their seats and ordered drinks. Krishnan carefully sniffed the air, and was extremely relieved to find no disagreeable smells. The relief was so great that he started drinking with enthusiasm. But after a few pegs, he realised with dismay that he was again getting a bad smell. This time the smell was amazingly bad, and entirely indescribable. It seemed to be a mix of rotten eggs, urea, hydrogen peroxide and overflowing gutters. Mr. Chaudhary was telling him an anecdote about work, when suddenly the smell over- powered Krishnan, and he vomited all over the table, and almost collapsed on the floor. Chaudhary was shocked, and the waiters came running to help. As they cleaned the table, Krishnan recovered slightly, and started moaning. “I… I am so sorry…” “Nonsense, don’t worry at all. It happens, just relax and don’t say a word.” Said Chaudhary, as he wiped Krishnan’s face and clothes free of vomit with a damp towel. “But I…” “No, no please, Mr. Krishnan, don’t say a word. There is no problem. You need to rest. Please allow me to help you to your room.” Krishnan was feeling too weak and miserable to protest, as Chaudhary supported, almost carried him to the elevator. The whole lobby seemed to be watching him. The waiters and the manager came to help, but Chaudhary waved them off. The next thing that Krishnan knew, he was on his bed in his room. He opened his eyes and looked around, and saw Chaudhary sitting on a chair nearby. “Wh…what happened?” “You blacked out for some time.” “How did I get here?” “I brought you.” There didn’t seem to be anything more to say, so Krishnan just lay there collecting his thoughts. As he looked at Chaudhary, he started to wonder whether he had seen him somewhere before. Chaudhary just looked at him impassively, his green eyes shining like a cat’s. Suddenly Chaudhary started speaking “You are in the business of smell, aren’t you, sir? Have you ever realised the power of smell?” “Eh?” “All living creatures have 5 senses – Touch, smell, sight, taste and hearing. I frequently wonder which sense is the most primary. Some experts say touch, and I tend to agree with them. Especially mammals are most tuned towards touch as they spend 9 months inside the mother’s body, and the entire consciousness of the foetus is gained through touch.” All his talk seemed to just flow a notch above Krishnan's consciousness, as he still wondered where he had seen this man before. Chaudhary continued his monologue. “However, mammals are a small part of existence. For the rest of all sentient beings, the most pre-eminent sense is smell. Smell is hard wired into the consciousness, don’t you agree? Plants attract insects by smell; insects attract mates by releasing smells. Mosquitoes find you by your smell, butterflies find flowers by smell. Many lower order insects have no seeing apparatus, but only a sense of smell. Predators find and hunt their prey by smell. Smells can take you to great heights. Haven’t you ever gone into a temple and instantly been transported to a spiritual plane by the smell of incense, sandalwood and flowers? Haven’t you ever gone past a kitchen, and suddenly become hungry by the smell of food cooking in there? Haven’t you gone outside in a thunder storm, and been refreshed by the smell of ozone?” Krishnan was staring at him. Finally he blurted out, “Who are you?” Chaudhary leaned forward in his chair and looked at him. His green eyes seemed to be on fire, and gleamed unnaturally in the dark. “Haven’t you gone near a woman and got attracted to her by her smell? The scent of a woman? Haven’t you been turned on by the smell of her sweat, the smell of jasmine in her hair, the hint of perfume on her arms, the seductive smell of her being?” Krishnan stared at him with horror. “You are Pranab Chaudhary? Sarita’s husband?” “What was the smell that attracted you to my wife, Krishnan? Was it her perfume, or the smell of her underarms? Was it her aroused smell that got your hormones flowing? The henna in her hair? The smell of the perfume that I bought for her? What?” “It wasn’t me…I swear…she came on to me…I didn’t make the first move…” “You preferred the second move did you? That’s OK, because the last move will be mine. Because smell can be used either for good or for evil. A good fragrance can take you near to heaven they say, but a stench can take you near to hell. But, haven’t you experienced it already, my friend?” “Wh…what do you mean?” Krishnan croaked. Chaudhary leant even further towards him, his eyes boring into Krishnan's very soul. “It has been 2 weeks now that you have been suffering the torment of smell isn’t it? It is ironic that a man who deals in smell should be killed by smell. Or should I say stench?” “Killed by smell?” “Oh yes. I have developed a machine, which acts on the exact centre of the brain that recognizes scent, and I can control it by radiation. Want to see?” Chaudhary reached into his pocket and took out a small machine, the size of a mobile phone. He showed it to Krishnan and twiddled a knob. Immediately Krishnan recoiled, as he was swamped by a terrible stench of old sweaty unwashed socks. His whole being recoiled, he couldn’t think, and started sweating profusely. Chaudhary pressed another button and Krishnan shrieked and vomited his guts out as another stench of rotting meat hit him. His eyes were watering, his head started bursting with pain and he started vomiting again and again, all over himself, as he was unable to move. “Ingenious, isn’t it? It can be targeted on to a specific person, and can be effective from upto a kilometer. It acts through walls and other barriers and leaves absolutely no evidence. I actually developed it as a murder tool for a government agency. I have tried it on various lab animals, but you are my first human trial. I must say that I am quite gratified by its success. Don’t you agree?” Krishan made a desperate lunge towards him, but Chaudhary just moved away and increased the intensity on his machine. Krishnan stopped in mid lunge and screamed, his hands tearing at his nose and mouth. He vomited again, and then looked at him with fear and desperation. “Y…you won’t get away with this”, he screamed. Chaudhary smiled. “Oh, but I will. Every body saw you acting strange during the day, and then drinking like a fish in the evening. Then you got disgustingly drunk and vomited in the bar itself. Later some one will find dead, choked in your own vomit, and they will say – oh that old sot. He got dead drunk and choked in his own puke.” Chaudhary got up and walked towards the door. At the door he paused and looked back as he twiddled his machine again. “You know, the only thing the police might say, when they hear about your odd behaviour over the past few days? They will say that…” Krishnan tried to take a step and fell forward on his face and vomited again. “…That some thing smells funny about this case.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This story appears as part of my short story collection Bombay Mixture on the Kindle store on www.amazon.com