The Confession – Chapter 5 – Travel

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This is the fifth part of a novella “The Confession”.

Read the rest of the novella here

[Chapter 1 – Memories]               

[Chapter 2 – Food]

[Chapter 3 – Books]

[Chapter 4 – Music]

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When Ram came home that night, he found what was left of one large Dominos Country Special cheese-burst pizza on the dining table and knew that David was somewhat back on track as far as him recovering his memories was concerned. This was because this particular pizza was one of David’s all time favorites and one cursory look at the leftover also clearly suggested the presence of extra onions and a lot of chilly flakes on the pizza just like he loved it.

He knocked on David’s bedroom door, slowly opened it and peeped inside. He found David dozing peacefully on his recliner, with a copy of the latest Newsweek on his chest. Not wanting to wake him up, when Ram started closing the door, David opened his eyes and smiled at him.

“Sorry bro, didn’t mean to wake you up. So, how was your day?” he asked.

Although David couldn’t quite remember the exact dynamics of their friendship yet, he had warmed up to the fact that Ram seemed to be quite a good friend of his. If anything Ram seemed to be trying as hard as he himself was to regain his memories and go back to living a normal life.

He called Ram into the room and asked him to sit on the bed. “I know I shouldn’t ask you this question, but bro, did you have any luck remembering anything at all?” asked Ram to which David just smiled and said nothing.

Taking the hint from his friend’s silence, Ram changed the subject.

“You know what dude, forget all this. It is December, the Christmas season, the time of year to be happy and jolly. Let’s do this, we have a long weekend coming up with Monday being Dec 25^th and the office being closed on Dec 22^nd due to the local elections here. Let’s do a road trip to Chennai to my folks’ place.

Ever since they came to know that you had an accident they have been worried sick about you. It’s just that they are not calling your phone as they don’t want to worry you in this situation, but you have no idea as to the number of calls that my parents are making every second hour to my phone man. And Priya, I haven’t seen her so worried in her life ever, not even during her board exams dude.”

“Priya” David interrupted.

“Oh sorry dude, you don’t remember her, do you? She is my younger sister, the little brat. She will be thrilled to see you safe and sound when we go there this weekend. So pack up dude, we will leave early tomorrow morning to avoid all the lorry traffic at Hosur and reach West Mambalam by lunch time. I will call Amma and ask her to make your favorite Semia Payasam and Masala Vadai for you tomorrow.”

Although David was not too thrilled at the prospect of introducing newer characters into his already confused mind, Ram’s infectious enthusiasm for the road trip rubbed off on him and he got up early the next day and the duo got into Ram’s Honda City and started driving down to Chennai.

On the way Ram started talking to him about all the road trips that they had done over the last few years. He talked about how they had braved the North Eastern monsoon rains in and around Tamil Nadu and had done a bike trip all the way from Chennai to Kanyakumari and also asked him to look for the picture in his iPad which he had packed in his backpack. And funnily enough, although David recognized himself and Ram in the pictures in the album on the iPad, he couldn’t remember any part of the bike ride itself. He didn’t mention this to Ram as he didn’t want to dampen the enthusiasm and the good mood in which he was right now.

However, when Ram wanted to take a break and asked David to take over driving for a while, when David held the steering wheel something was kindled inside him. As he started cruising at a decent speed of 90-100 kms on the wonderfully laid 8 lane highway between Hosur and Krishnagiri, the hum of the car, its gentle roll on the curves, the trees lining the highway, the 24 hr McDonald’s outlet just outside of Hosur town limits, all of these brought a warm feeling to David’s heart.

Was travelling down this road bringing back a flood of memories to him? Not really, but a few gears in his head started moving and a few pieces of the jigsaw puzzle seemed to be aligning themselves to fall in place shortly.

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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 music.

This is the fifth 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]               

[Chapter 2 – Food]

[Chapter 3 – Books]

[Chapter 4 – Music]

The Confession – Chapter 4 – Music

Image courtesy : Google image search

This is the fourth part of a novella “The Confession”.

Read the rest of the novella here –

[Chapter 1 – Memories]               

[Chapter 2 – Food]

[Chapter 3 – Books]

==========

Ram helped David settle down in his bedroom, gave him some money and the phone numbers of the closest Dominos outlet, Nandini restaurant and a few other dining options who delivered food home, and then left for office. After all, he had articles to write and deadlines to meet.

David walked up to the bookshelf and picked up one of his all time favorite books and settled  down on the recliner in his room when something poked him in the butt. When he put his hand to check what it was, he pulled out his favorite blue iPod Nano from there. Looking at it he smiled as this was one gadget he clearly remembered and loved a lot as well.

Just like books, David’s love for music went back a long way as well. His mother, Nancy was an extremely good singer and also played western classical piano as well. She was a regular part of the choir at her church and even otherwise was found constantly humming her favorite tunes as well. Her taste in music ranged from gospel music to the latest chartbuster which the teenybopper kids of the day enjoyed. David’s love for music therefore was quite genetic in nature given that he had been exposed to quite a fair amount of music even when he was still in his mother’s womb.

The fact that he grew up in what many consider the golden decade of R&B music meant that he was exposed to a lot of variety of music growing up in 80s India. His tastes were quite eclectic and varied from Madonna and Michael Jackson in pop to Iron Maiden and Led Zeppelin in hard rock, from Kenny Rogers in country music to Kenny G in classical instrumental music.

Further, his cosmopolitan upbringing in Bangalore and all the Tam Brahm friends he had meant that he also enjoyed his fair share of Carnatic classical music as well. While he didn’t quite understand the nuances of the craft of Carnatic or Hindustani classical music, he had enough of an ear and sense for music that he was able to appreciate the beauty of the rhythms of the same.

He switched on the iPod and saw that all his favorite tracks were on it. He swiped the Click Wheel and saw that it was as smooth as he could always remember it being. And when he hit on the Hold Switch, the feeble click that he heard was ‘music’ to his ears. He navigated to an ‘all weather favorite’ album of his, Michael Jackson’s Bad and started listening to the tracks in the order in which they appeared. Looking at the Album Art of this particular album, his mind was taken back to his teenage years, when he used to enjoy these songs on a music cassette with his then favorite Sony Walkman.

The sad part was that while he could remember something from 15+ yrs ago when he was a teenager, he couldn’t quite remember the last few years of his life. The irony of the situation was not lost on him as he looked at Michael Jackson in the iPod and smiled melancholically at him. The funny part was that he could clearly remember that the King of Pop died sometime in 2009 and that was only 4 yrs ago. But as hard as he tried, he couldn’t quite remember how he met Ram or became friends with him at all.

It was quite frustrating, trying to live a life not knowing what exactly you were expected to be doing with it. All these thoughts and emotions flooding to him all at once resulted in him getting a headache. He therefore decided to take a small nap.

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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 music.

This is the fourth 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]               

[Chapter 2 – Food]

[Chapter 3 – Books]

The Confession – Chapter 3 – Books

Image courtesy : Google image search

This is the third part of a novella “The Confession”.

Read the rest of the novella here –

[Chapter 1 – Memories]               

[Chapter 2 – Food]

==========

After having had a good breakfast at MTR comprising of David’s favorite rava idlies and vegetable sagoo, Ram took him home to their shared apartment at Pebble Bay apartments in Dollars Colony, Sanjaynagar. Despite the fact that it was only the two of them who stayed together, they had rented out a three bedroom flat in the apartment complex. Given that both of them were quite well off financially and were also earning quite well in their journalist jobs, they liked to live the good life and as a result their flat was quite well furnished with contemporary furniture and top-of-line electronic gadgets.

David, while being more tech savvy and gadget friendly still continued his longtime love affair with the written word, and more specifically in the form of physical books. In fact, he had converted one wall of his bedroom into a lovely contemporary book shelf which stored all his favorite tomes. These books were going to be Ram’s next choice of therapy in his efforts to bring back David’s memories.

As soon as he went into the room and sat on his bed looking at the bookshelf, David started smiling nostalgically. His father had been an avid reader and had inculcated the habit of reading books in his only son at a very young age itself. Further, the fact that he never minded buying as many books as David wanted him to meant that the book collection ended up being quite impeccable with more than a few masterpieces thrown in. In fact, David believed that he first got interested in a career in journalism primarily because of his love for books and the written word from a very young age.

And it was not just the written word or the books that David was in love with, he also had this peculiar habit of doing something unique with each and every book he owned. While it was something as simple as keeping a neem leaf, a mango leaf, the wrapping paper of a toilet soap, an outer wrapping of a Diary Milk cover in between the pages of some books, some other books were reserved for his doodles on the margins of the first page and last page of the book.

Ram was aware of this peculiar habit of his friends by virtue of having borrowed a few books from him and having noticed something uniquely personal about each book that David owned. He therefore strongly believed that the more time David spent with his books, the chances of him regaining all his memories were that much more stronger.

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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 books.

This is the third 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]               

[Chapter 2 – Food]

The Confession – Chapter 2 – Food

Image courtesy : Google image search

This is the second part of a novella “The Confession”.

Read the rest of the novella here – [Chapter 1 – Memories].

==========

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]

The Confession – Chapter 1 – Memories

Image courtesy : Google image search

David woke up to the sound of the continuous faint beeps of some machine kept somewhere close to his ears. When he slowly opened his eyes, he didn’t quite recognize his surroundings and it took him more than a few moments to realize that he was in a hospital. The beeps were coming from a machine which was supposedly monitoring his pulse and heartbeat evidenced by the sensors connected to the machine from his chest and the small clip-like device on his left index finger. Feeling his face, he noticed that he had a couple of bandages on his left forearm and his head was also bandaged with an injury on the left side of his forehead.

Once he got over his initial grogginess, he looked around and noticed the other guy in the room. He had propped up a second chair to put his legs up and was dozing away. When David cleared his throat, the other guy opened his eyes and looked at him. On seeing David awake, the guy broke into a big smile.

“Hey dude, welcome back!” he said, getting out of the chair and coming up to David’s bed. “You had us worried for quite a while bro.”

David didn’t quite know how to react. For whatever reason, he simply couldn’t recognize the other person at all. Although he felt some degree of familiarity with him, David couldn’t quite place the other person or figure out why exactly he felt so familiar.

When David didn’t register any emotion or say anything, the other guy asked him “Hey David, dude, are you ok man? How do you feel now?” and when he didn’t get any answer, the other guy pressed the switch to call the duty nurse into the room. And when the nurse came in, the other guy went up to her and asked her to inform the doctor that David had regained his consciousness.

After five odd minutes, the doctor walked into the room, all the while smiling at David. “So David, you had us all worried for quite a while now. How do you feel now? Does your head still hurt?” he asked. David mumbled “I feel fine, kind of…”

“Where am I? What happened to me?” he asked.

“You were involved in an accident around 36 hrs ago. You were brought in by the policemen, who managed to call your friend Ram here based on the last dialed number from your mobile” the doctor replied.

David looked a little perplexed “Accident! But I don’t remember any of this.”

“That’s ok, you just need to relax, take some rest. Just lie down and try to get some sleep” the doctor put his hand on David’s shoulder and told him.

He then took Ram outside the room. “It looks like your friend might have had more serious internal injuries than we initially suspected. Let us run a series of tests to verify the same, but my initial suspicion is that he has experienced some form of memory loss.”

“That is why he reacted the way he did. It was almost like he didn’t recognize me!” Ram exclaimed. Given that David had been his room-mate for almost three years now and they were quite close friends, Ram had been disturbed by his reactions over the last ten odd minutes since he had regained consciousness.

“Don’t worry Ram, these kinds of things are quite common in accidents involving head injuries. Let’s not jump to any conclusions yet. Let’s run the tests first and then we will be in a better position to figure out what is happening to David. Ok.”

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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 memories.

This is the first post in a novella “The Confession” that I am writing trying to correlate the same to the Write Tribe Festival of Words 2.