The last few days have opened up old doors and closed others half ajar, for good. I came face to face with much from my past. Some gently incidental, some purposeful and deliberate. Life works that way. You probe a little bit and then it is almost as if you have unleashed a torrent upon yourself. But there was no flood, just a small trickling that came to me in the form of faces and voices, words and an unopened box of relics.

It was unforced and yet I can see now, that I had faced my fears, now old from the years spent in grief over them. Scratched at scabs gingerly and found to my surprise that no wounds reopened. They left scars by their closing, but it didn’t hurt to touch there anymore.

Some sounds still had the power to move me to silence; old Hindi songs and hundred rupee meals by the seafront. Beloved, long-forgotten voices, and the gentle eyes of a past love that still evoked an old sadness within. And incomplete completion.

Sitting on the kitchen floor under the stark yellow light, I found myself surrounded by pages and pages of carefully creased Economic Times newsprint from 8 years ago. These had been used to wrap the beautiful antique plates my grandfather had hidden from the family and saved for me secretly while he was still alive, determined that I and only I should have them. His favourite pieces.

As I sat I felt the years and years of life that had happened to me and to those others who had come and gone, pass me by. Felt them touch me one last time in a gesture of gentle farewell and move away from me. Time had healed. The wounds were closed. No tear spilled over any scar. Two days of deliverance, and the only evidence found was in newspapers from 1999 and delicious bubble wrap.