Pratik Ghoshal was facing writer's block. "It happens," he heard many a non-writer say with utmost apathy. "How can they understand? Those that know nothing about the pain, joy, exhilaration of fleshing out a story from the bare bones?" Pratik had fumed in his mind. His frustrations were becoming visible and vocal these days. Whispers were growing louder. Has Pratik Ghoshal lost his Midas touch? People's memories are notoriously short-lived. Pratik feared becoming yesterday's celebrity writer, a has-been.

Travelling by car, Pratik grit his teeth, recalling the past hour. He had been almost obsequious. He had stooped to make small talk with this publisher. Another first in his career was that he had travelled to the publisher. He could not remember the last time when he had gone at the beckoning of a publisher. In the recent past it had always, always been the other way round. If this news leaked out, the hyenas would laugh louder. Obituaries about his end as a writer would find enough takers among the detractors. After all he did have haters who had been whetting their knives for a while now. He jolted out of his unpleasant reverie when his head hit the front seat with a sharp painful thud. The car swerved dangerously before shuddering to a halt. "Aahammok! Kon dike nojor thaake, rascal!" He yelled at the driver who looked visibly shaken. "Axel broke, Sir. It was not my fault," the driver mumbled. "Shouldn't you have checked everything before we started? You knew we had to travel a fair distance." Growling at the driver, Pratik Ghoshal exited the car. It did not seem incongruous to him that he accusing the driver about something that was not a result of his negligence.The heat hit hard.They were on the open highway. Since it was afternoon almost no vehicles were visible. It was so quiet. 
Bapi, his driver, suggested meekly that he take the local train back to Kolkata. The railway station was nearby. They had seen the tracks parallel to the road when they had driven down the highway. Pratik Ghoshal realised that that was the best option for him. He could do precious little about the car. Anyway, Bapi was paid a good salary. Let him do the needful. He boarded the Howrah-Katwa local from Patuli, the nearest station. He even managed to secure the aisle seat. Sitting opposite was an old man trundled up in an old shawl, seemingly dozing. Ghoshal ran a cursory, disinterested glance around him. His reverie was broken by the ringing of his mobile phone. "Drat, it's Subhadra Majumdar again. I have to take the call now. I have avoided his last few calls but now it is getting obvious that I am trying to avoid his queries. This is not the time to antagonise him," the ticker tape ran in Ghoshal's mind. He took the call and couldn't get a word in halfway as Majumdar launched into a tirade. Ghoshal could feel the throbbing on his temples, the bile of annoyance rising in his mouth even though he had decided to play it cool. He does end up having a heated conversation with his publisher who enquires relentlessly about the manuscripts. Fobs him off with vague promises of impending scripts. The old man overhears the conversation unabashedly and suddenly speaks directly to Ghoshal, "You can get back all that seems lost right now." Ghoshal is taken aback and feels irritated that the stranger had eavesdropped shamelessly. How was he getting enmeshed in such situations these days? He wondered how life had turned sour for him with provocation. He realised too, that he was turning petulant, almost childish in his mind. Refocusing on the old man, his curiosity was piqued when he suggested a remedy. Ghoshal's interest is stoked enough for him to acquiesce to the man's suggestion. He tamely follows the old man to his house. The old man asked the author to wait in his room and walked out. Wrapped in old newspaper, he handed something to the author. Curiosity got the better of the author. Opening the packet he found a peculiar mixture which the man advised to be taken every week for a couple of months. Upon being asked what the mixture contained, the old man smiled enigmatically and asked the author if he wanted to start writing again. The author realised that he was being snubbed gently, took the hint and became quiet. He realised he had nothing to lose. He gazes  around the man's room. Frugal and spare like the man, the only interesting objects were a set of bottles in beautiful colours, such as nothing he had ever seen. They seemed to contain something luminous, giving off a glow. Catching his eye, the old man quickly bundled him off to the station to take the next train to Kolkata. He asked the author to come back for more of the same mixture if he found it helpful.
The author returns back to his reality without much hope but does consume the mixture every week by mixing it in a glass of water. The first time he makes the potion, he is taken aback by the changing colours in his glass which reminds him of the bottles in the old man's room. Glowing and luminescent. He hesitates before gulping it down. What does the mixture consist of? His gut feeling of some sort of witchcraft creates uneasiness in his citified mind. God alone knows what these village folks are up to! However, the relentless hounding of his publishers and his own incapability to write join hands to force the mixture down his gullet.
That night he wakes up with a start. What a fabulous idea just crossed his mind! He decided to write down the idea immediately. What if he forgets it when he wakes up in the morning? The next few weeks, he works feverishly, with a passion that had gone missing. He is amazed and delighted with the output. His publishers are happier. Their milching cow is back in the business. The next few months pass in a haze of productivity. Till he realises that the mixture is finishing. By now he is totally convinced that the mixture is indeed magical, giving him back his lost creativity.
Taking the next train to Katwa, he alights at Bhandartikuri. He remembered that the old man had alighted with him at this station. He walks hesitantly down the path remembering the shops and landmarks. 
The old man didn't seem surprised to see him back. He smiled quietly and asked the author to wait in his room. After a while, he came back with the newspaper- wrapped packet as the last time. It contained the same mixture. "What is in this mixture, Old Man?" "You have benefited from it. Be happy, Kotta. Why do you want to know what it is? How does it concern you?" The old man dismissed the author and almost shooed him away. 
The author was both grateful and annoyed in equal parts. The same trajectory of life ensued. He was being lauded as the best writer of his times. His books, hitting the best seller list with a sickening regularity. Money pouring in from publication royalties, book releases, literary fests. Adulation reached dizzying point. Women gave him a massive ego boost, life had never been better. Greed grew. The author realised that he needed all of the magic elixir that the old man had. He hated the superior air of the old man. He was the only one that knew that it was the elixir that had created the author's popularity. Ghoshal too, was convinced that it was all because of the mixture. He was able to create outstanding works of literature due to the effect of the strange, exotic mixture. He wanted it all. 

This time, Ghoshal decided he would offer the old man (strangely, even after knowing him for a while, he did not know his name) money, lots of it, unheard of amounts of it for the entire stash of mixture. He knew that everyone had a price. He just needed to know the old man's.

The smug condescending look on the man's face riled Ghoshal. His celebrity status meant nothing to this man. He knew he had recreated it for Pratik Ghoshal. Ghoshal felt like a sham, a total fake in front of him. The man's eyes seemed to strip away all ostentatious additions, seemed to look into the cankerous soul of the author. Ghoshal felt naked in his vulnerability, a feeling he hated as he was powerless before this man's control over his mind. He was adamant to drive his deal. He needed some respite from the man's vice-grip over his life. Pasting an ingratiating smile upon his face, Ghoshal enquired if he could see the place where the man stored the wondrous mixture. The old man' brows knitted themselves into a deep frown. "Why? What business is it of yours? You just be satisfied with what you are getting." He gruffly snubbed Ghoshal. Turning around, he marched off towards the back of his hut, little realising that Ghoshal was following him. When he turned around to go back with the newspaper-wrapped parcel, he found Ghoshal in the shed, ogling at everything with intense curiosity. The old man roughly pushed Ghoshal towards the door. Ghoshal's resistance was Swift, he pushed the old man. There was a gleam in his beady eyes. Such as nothing that the old man had seen before. "How much do you want? I can make you rich. You will have more money than you could have ever imagined. Your comfort in the old age secure!" Ghoshal rasped. The disgust was writ large on the old man's face. "You think I care a damn about your filthy money?" He hissed at Ghoshal. Ghoshal's hands found themselves wrapped around the man's throat. They seemed to have a purpose, an agenda of their own. They were trying to squeeze the breath out of the old man's body. A part of Ghoshal's mind was taken aback by his deed but the other part just wanted to squeeze with a violence that Ghoshal didn't know he housed. The old man was surprisingly strong. He broke free from Ghoshal's grip and hit the author on his head with something sharp. As he lost consciousness, he heard the man say with clotted malevolence, "You are all the same. Desirous of biting the hand that fed you. You want to know what the mixture contains? Why, the remains of the others who came with the same ailment before you! You, too, will become the mixture for some other fool to consume. Your soul, trapped in the luminescent bottles you were curious about in my room. Fools! Fools! All of you. And you wanted to buy me with money! Hahahahaha! I always have the last laugh, you morons! I feed off your greed." Ghoshal felt a sharp twinge and a lightness in his limbs. Looking down at his legs, his last glimpse, he was aghast to see them slowly melt on the hard, earthen floor of the old man's shed. Even his last scream was just a wisp of air that disappeared into the iridescent bottle which the old man's hand held.