Once Upon A Time - Short Story Collection

Anamika

                                      1

For nearly ten years I was his accomplice—sometimes destroying reputations of restaurants unaware, or sometimes giving a helping hand for good food joints. Getting confronted on the streets, abused on the phone or social media, warned with expensive libel cases, were all part and parcel of his life. The modus operandi was simple, I would meet him at either his residence or his office, accompany him to a restaurant and eat food.

He was a restaurant critic and usually reserved tables under assumed names. He, however, never resorted to wearing disguises such as a floppy hat covering his impeccably gelled and combed hair, over-sized sunglasses masking his enigmatic eyes, or a different attire than his usual dressing. I, well, I sometimes posed as his notes keeper or as his assistant or a fellow food critic or a date and dressed respectively.

"...you are my ghost," he said time and again whose criteria I seemed to satisfy. Besides, I liked being a nameless person in this wacky arrangement. I ate with an insistent love that forced me to make food the focal point of my thoughts, at all times. I inhaled through my nose with deliberate fondness to understand subtle flavours that would activate my olfactory cortex compelling my right hand to reach for the eating implement. Over the years, I became a conduit for his editorial creations about restaurants.

The reviews not only involved the food tasting —though it was primary—rather described the restaurant in detail—reception, ambience, menu options, décor, the suitability of tableware, napery, speed of delivery, value for money and apparent assurances by owners or staff.

"We are a great team," he often said while transcribing my clinical notes into eloquent expressions of praise or food declared as conceited claptrap. He indeed had an articulated gift for words.

                                      2

How I met him was a long story and here I need to narrate it in gist with the stipulated word count in my mind. Shortly, then, we met through my food blog—regarding a write-up on Anosmia, and my analysis on how to please Anosmics. The strangest thing about this strange journey is that it began with a word, this word, which was an amalgamation of two Greek words that meant smell-blindness. He wanted to meet me in person, and we made plans for the next day.

I travelled by the metro and used a shared-auto to reach the restaurant — where he had reservations — with sweat dotting on my forehead, shirt stains around perspiring armpits, barely-there makeup and frazzled hair. But he took no notice of my appearance and graciously helped me with my seat at the table.

I had never met anyone so eccentric and ostentatious — like an exotic Indian peacock— with an elaborate mantle. When he fluttered his arms the rings on his fingers flashed in a collection of gems — all the navaratans. He wore a form-fitting suit that had opulent, satin lapels and paired it with a rich silk cravat. There was a platinum wristwatch on his left hand that temporarily blinded me with its dazzle.

To my wonder, the waiters fawned over him and attended to his polite command with strange eagerness. He ordered fine preparations, took a thoughtful whiff in what appeared to be genuine appreciation and proceeded to put a tentative spoonful into his mouth.

We ate in meditative silence as I took time to appreciate the most striking flavours that resulted from a complex sense — a synthesis of gustation, olfaction and tactile senses—that swirled in my mouth.