A connoisseur of chocolate you are, not a single moment can you stop craving for more, your taste-buds revel in the company of a dark brown portion of uncontrollable gustation, your tongue scrounges for sweet joy as it mops the cocoa smeared succulent lips like a mower taking care of pastoral copses. The more you have the more you want and whilst you are in this cycle of chocolate induced passion, the lord, almighty himself, pleased by your devotion to the umber beans, grants you a blessing you could never find a parallel to. Without supplication, he proclaims, “You shall have the tastiest chocolate of the world, in all its flavors and forms, a perennial supply of the wooden-ambrosia you always long for”. And like how all divine forms add a little after-clause, God continues “But you shant touch a morsel of anything edible solid or liquid, lest chocolate may never taste the same again”. You are not happy, but are rendered ecstatic...
We are surrounded by others like us, people, our lives often affected by how we barter our thoughts and feelings with them. Then there are some who are special, a few to whom we openly express our fondness and those who have confided in us the special status they accord to us, the best friend, the true love, pater-mater, the favorite sibling… We yearn to be pampered by our special people, to be treated with that extra dose of affection, to be approached with an ever accepting smile, to be there for us all the time, to be treated like how the connoisseur, your loved one, treats his chocolate, you…….
You thank the almighty for the boon and start feasting on chocolate. You cannot contain your ravenous appetite as you lick your fingers digging into more. Day turns to night and you sleep so satiated that the air around you reminds you of chocolate dust. The next morning you wake up, your breath lingering with the aroma of your indulgence and you lazily head for a cup of coffee, the concoction which kicks every single day of yours off and as your lips reach for the porcelain containing your daily dose of caffeine, you are reminded of the lord’s words. In an instant you throw the coffee away, cursing yourself. The day proceeds and you do the same thing with your buttered breads, your hot noodle- wonton soup and your spicy lentil rice. You still take to a little chocolate every now and then to suppress your hunger. But soon the angst and helplessness that follows every meal devoid of anything you relish is insurmountable and you give in.
“My loved ones don’t love me anymore”, you say to yourself, exasperated, “My closest chum chose to shop without me, my sweetheart didn’t return my calls, my folks want it their way at home and the sibling turns sour for he cannot share my chore”, acerbic dejection writ all over your face. “All the people I expected to be mine forever have deserted me”, you qualm, “The connoisseur doesn’t like his chocolate no more”, you conclude.
You know your love for chocolate hasn’t waned one bit. However you cannot survive on chocolate alone. You eat your meals, still, you lust after chocolate and would relish it like how you did previously but your temptation now is sifted through a sieve of reality. Why not subject yourself to the same sieve when dealing with your loved ones. Just because they are not at their alacritous best all the time and just because they don’t find the space to accommodate every whim of yours all the time doesn’t mean their love for you has diluted one bit. Just like how your desire for chocolate is intact even when you are devouring something else, your loved ones always have a special corner for you in their hearts despite their occasional indifference. And most importantly when the aftermath of one such unpleasant incident wants to make you turn bitter, think about how hell will break loose if God kept his promise and made chocolate taste sour forever. Not only will you never be able to appreciate it but it will also deprive the entire humanity of the magic of chocolate, just like how your meaningless acrimony towards your loved ones will not only strain your relationship with them but will also change forever the world's outlook towards you.
