The Chapel

He doesn't speak to that many people these days. When the presence of stupid scum of planet Earth gets to his nerves, he packs his bag and goes to see the Monk, to seek solace at his abode. He is on his way there now.

The Monk lives in a big city, where dogs sleep atop benches, in the smelting heat of the afternoon, and men lie beneath them, in their shadows. Here, dirt has replaced air as the principal requisite for respiration. Countless flocks of men are herded off to different points in the city by a sluggishly strong metro-train service. He has to traverse through the sweat and phlegm of these co-passengers, who won't smile or acknowledge their discomfort at causing him inconvenience, to get to his destination. 

The journey ends at a small apartment on the second floor of a five-storey building, hidden from the immediate vicinity of a road. But the noise can’t be escaped from, here in this city, no matter where you go.

The Monk reaches home at midnight, after toiling hard at a multinational corporation, earning millions for his employers. In return, he is provided with enough dough to accommodate for his rent, his cable TV subscription fee and his electricity bill, contributed to, largely, by a refrigerator that houses bottles of Bacardi Limon and Beer any given day. He buys more of them tonight since he has a companion. Beer-cans of a bygone era and bottled remains of other sacred liquids lie neatly arranged on the floor of his kitchen.

The Monk calls out to The Organ Donor, which is what he calls the principal character of this work. He will be referred to as TOD henceforth. TOD gets up from his semi-sleep and goes and sits on the Nilkamal chair. Limon oozes out, white drops on a dark night, and flows into glass tumblers. TOD is young and naive, his idea of brashness is to consume alcohol at one go.

The Monk talks about his work and the power at his disposal, one that could wreak havoc on the reputations of big financial institutions, if he decides to break bad. He talks about women, the details of which the writer desists from letting out, out of deference to the great man’s privacy. He talks about the paycheck, three quarters of which he gives away to people he doesn't care for. And finally there is the motorcycle, his beloved companion, older than himself, which serves as the elixir of his everyday life.

At two in the morning, The Monk rolls up a joint and lights it up.

‘This one is from the Dude’s stash’ he says.

‘Hey. The Dooood...'

The Dude was a former resident of the apartment. He was something of a guy’s guy. A greek God in appearance and jovial by nature, this guy was a center of activity. On a previous occasion, arriving at the apartment after a tiresome journey, TOD learnt that the two of them had gone on a cycling expedition to a beach 92 kilometres away, at a time of the year when a drop of Sun’s ray on your head burnt like Hydrogen Sulphate.  

'Where is he now?’ TOD asks him, happily recounting the past.

The herb’s powers are extraordinary and the pace of conversation becomes slower. There is much happiness around. They start singing.

In the morning, TOD wakes up to see an empty apartment. The man has gone to slog it out for another day. He leaves the apartment's key behind. TOD spends the morning wandering through the aisles of the nearest Landmark outlet, picking up books after thoroughly inspecting its contents. He observes the proceedings; customers walking in, inquiring about a book, the disappointment on their faces and their subsequent muted inspection of the shelves. Housewives and college students form the larger group of visitors. A dad walks in, picks up a children’s book, pays off in a hurry and leaves the premises.

After lunch, he returns to the apartment and checks out the mini library there. He adds the book he bought to its inventory and goes to sleep reading a 1980s Reader’s Digest. 

He dreams of the Siberian peninsula and peacocks strutting atop melting ice-glaciers. The white desert has a cricket stadium on it, empty and deserted. As it begins to grow dark outside, he wakes up. The bed is soft and mushy, and the air-conditioner produces a low mechanical hum, insulating him from the harshness of the outside.