A Beautiful Past

A Beautiful Past

8th April 2021, Thursday

5:00 PM

Dear Diary,
We had our first session with the relationship counsellor today. The counsellor, she was a pale-looking woman in her mid forties. As we took our seats opposite her in her spacious office, she placed her glasses on her nose and eyed us sharply. After a formal introduction, she asked us to talk a bit about our problems. Sure, she meant well, she wanted for us to talk it out. Yet somehow, it felt like she was compelling us to dig out the hatchets we had long buried and it took everything in me to go about doing that.

She is an expert at her job, well demonstrated by the way she spoke to us, her words thoughtful and kind but with a strictness to her gestures. Yet when she began discussing our issues in more detail, it was almost as if she was rigorously rubbing salt all over my deepest wounds and it caused me to groan inaudibly. She proceeded to give us some advice on how to address those issues and then urged us to reminisce happier times and rediscover our feelings for each other.

Almost at once, my heart was drawn to our courtship days, just the way the moth is drawn to the flame, knowing fully well that the flame is fated to bring about its doom. I recollected the little coffee place in Bandra we went to on several of our dates. It is called Coffee Culture and it still is in business although we haven't been there in years. The place, it has a raw and rustic air to it, a raw and rustic air that always soothed my soul. The tiny table on the right hand side corner, that was our spot. That table, it has borne witness to all our chats and laughter, our blushes and the soft pecks we placed on each other's cheeks. (Maybe that table still remembers it all. Isn't it lovely that it doesn't have to force itself to forget all of that, the way we have to?)

I recollected too, the times when he took my hands into his and I felt like I had every joy in the world kissing my feet. I recollected too, the way I got lost in the depths of his eyes, every time we slow-danced at parties. I recollected too, all the evenings we spent, taking walks on the Versova beach. Ah, the way we took in its beauty and tranquility as we gazed at the setting sun and talked of life. I wondered how that beach manages to maintain its tranquility even as it welcomes the crowds and chaos with open arms, day after day. I wished I could do that too, take in all the chaos and not let it faze me.

But then, it dawned on me that it was all in the past. A past that was undoubtedly beautiful but all we have now is a sad and tumultuous present. That realisation, it felt like someone had forcibly put a large piece of bitter gourd into my mouth, immediately after I had had my fill of my favourite sweets.

We have taken the counsellor's leave now and have come home yet the piece of bitter gourd is still in my mouth. I can't seem to know how to chew or swallow it and I can't, for some peculiar reason, spit it out either. So it stays in my mouth, its foul taste making me flinch from time to time. I guess it is going to stay in there and watch me fall apart, all over again. 

Meghana.

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