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This is the second part of a novella “The Confession”.
Read the rest of the novella here – [Chapter 1 - Memories].
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It had been a couple of days since David had regained consciousness, and in these two days, the doctor had suggested some tests to be run on him. Based on the results of these tests and the way he interacted with Ram, it was quite clear that David had suffered from some form of temporary memory loss.
While he was able to remember basic facts about himself, his childhood, his parents, his schooling, his college, his memories started getting fuzzier from around 4-5 yrs ago after his graduation. David had done his graduation in journalism and had joined one of the leading newspapers as part of their campus placement program. While he remembered this part, the rest of the events after this were more than a little fuzzy for him.
Ram, being a good friend and a colleague of his who worked for the same newspaper, decided to help him out. Ram didn’t know of any family that David had given that his parents had died in a car accident around 15 yrs ago, and in the three years that they had been room-mates and friends, David had never even mentioned any other relative even in passing. He therefore took it upon himself to take David home, and gently ease him into his normal life.
The doctor had clearly instructed Ram to go easy as far as trying to bring David back to normal was concerned. Anybody who experienced such temporary memory losses would find it hard to live normally especially when events related to the timeframe or people that they had forgotten about would be involved. While the rest of the world would move on based on these events and people, the person who had forgotten about these would need to re-learn and if possible re-experience these events which would cause a great deal of anxiety in them.
Ram therefore approached Senior Management at office and requested them to give David a six month sabbatical during which time he would hopefully recover his memory and be back to work. Given that David was a star performer and a valuable asset to the newspaper, the management acceded to the request.
Four days after the accident, the doctor declared David fit to be discharged from the hospital, but he once again reminded Ram to handle David with kid-gloves especially given the fact that none of them knew the extent of memory loss that he had suffered. The doctor also advised Ram to try out a few things which might help David get back his memories. He instructed Ram to take David to all the places that they frequently hung out together, do things that they normally did, and try to lead a normal everyday life so that David could gradually get back to his old routine, which would hopefully ease the memories back into his mind.
Ram therefore took David straight to the MTR Restaurant on Lalbagh Road which was on the way back home from the NIMHANS hospital from where he was being discharged. MTR had been the duo’s favorite haunt for breakfast on most days and invariably they would head there at least 4 days a week.
Walking into the restaurant David did feel a little nostalgic inside. And when the rava idlies that Ram ordered arrived on the table, he did feel a rush of euphoria inside him. The piping hot idlies served with the lovely vegetable sagoo whose smell wafted up him did kindle something massively familiar within David. And when David immediately pushed the coconut chutney aside and asked the waiter for an additional bowl of the sagoo, Ram knew that his initial experiment had proved to be a success.
In the last three years that they had been coming to MTR, not once had David eaten the coconut chutney that was served with these idlies, he would always return it and ask for an additional bowl of sagoo. Ram smiled quietly, happy with the knowledge that the foodie inside David was alive and kicking and this would prove to be helpful in the journey of rediscovering his memories.
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This post has been written for the Write Tribe Festival of Words 2 where today’s prompt had to be about food.
This is the second post in a novella “The Confession” that I am writing trying to correlate the same to the Write Tribe Festival of Words 2.
Read the rest of the novella here – [Chapter 1 - Memories]
