From the title story in Happiness and other Disorders, published by Key Porter Books in 2008.

. . . who came on his Vespa wearing an army cap and fatigues, and smelling of rose attar, and I asked him, look, I had this problem in the States and the doctors there tell me that it’s deep-tissue trauma, are you familiar with Swedish or deep-tissue massage, yes, sir, yes, sir, of course, of course, he says, grooming his moustache with a tiny comb, Swedish, Russian, and English massage, any type, even Hungarian and Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian, so why don’t we go into your bedroom, hello, what’s this, my bedroom, and when I am there, locks it and says, please lie . . . face down, oh, this all right, I ask, yes, good, says the Swedorussoanglomagyar masseur, please take off your top, good, my father was Hidayatsahib’s bar­ber and masseur, he used to massage all his brothers too after their cricket matches, very famous sportsmen, all five dead now, just in their thirties, sad, I go every week now, his father was like my father, and when he used to scold me, I used to really like it, and please now untie your pajamas and roll them down, down, down, eh, say I, what are you doing? sir, everything is connected, if I touch something down there, then, sir, it helps something else up here, in that case, I say, please try to grab the connection from the top not from the bottom, er, I mean, not from down there, let me hitch them up, OK, sir, I liked chemistry best in school, sir, carbon-carbon double-bond, how do you like my oil, I make it myself, very good, I say, very excellent indeed, although to me it looked and smelled just like Vicks, it’s my own secret formula, says this man, but I make just 15,000 rupees a day between my three clinics, I know you’ve been to America where they make much more, I ask him, were you in the army and when he says no, I say but the cap is very nice, oh, fashion, sir, from film with Shahrukh Khan, he says, Fendi, how much for it in the U of SA , I’ll be damned if I know but I cite an astronomical sum and he looks pleased, look, I have a bad injury, you have to get through several layers of muscle, and he asks, sir, do you exercise and I tell him I try to, and he goes, sir, sir, you are doing it all wrong, all, all wrong, the muscles are all wrong, okay, fine, I got that, well, do what you can, I have several knots which you need to press down on until they give up, but he says no, sir, I don’t think I should press down, nerve damage, I don’t do that, never, never, never . . .