Splitting hairs over small beer

Absent friends, may they stay that way. Christopher Hitchens.

I ran into an old friend the other day. Acquaintance might be a more accurate word as I had not met him for the best part of twenty-five years, so we had to pick up the pieces gingerly after the usual round of ‘Good God, surely you can’t be…’ and ‘You are? I would never have believed it. What happened to your hair?’ and that sort of stuff. You know what I mean. Truth to tell, he wasn’t that great a friend of mine. He just happened to be in the same social circle that I moved in during my early working days. I will allow that he was more than a nodding acquaintance, but once you had said that, there was not a lot more to be said. Anyhow, I always knew him to be a hard-boiled cynic. Nothing was ever good enough for him. The glass was always half empty. Obviously, decency prevents me from revealing his real name, which I had completely forgotten, till we reintroduced ourselves.

I shall therefore refer to him by the monicker we employed behind his back, namely, Scoffer, on account of his unfailing tendency to scoff and sneer at just about anything and everything. For the record, and I am not doing this to show off, it is believed according to legend that, ‘a cynic was a member of a school of ancient Greek philosophers founded by Antisthenes, marked by an ostentatious contempt for ease and pleasure.’ Boy, am I glad to get that off my chest!

So there was Scoffer and here was I, bumping into each other, totally out of the blue. As I had indicated earlier, after the initial bumbling around, recognition dawning slowly but surely, we pumped hands and decided to get nostalgic over a tall glass of the chilled, frothy stuff. I was not expecting this tête-à-tête to rise to the level of a feast of reason and flow of soul, but one had been well brought up and one had to be civil. It was clear from the outset that I was buying the beer. He made no protest, not even for form’s sake, so that was that. Perhaps he had fallen on hard times. He did not seem in particularly conversational mood. Nursing some secret sorrow, I daresay.  I decided to break the ice.

‘So my friend, good old Scoffer. Fancy running into you like this. I say, you don’t mind my calling you Scoffer, do you? Force of habit.’

‘Whatever,’ he responded laconically. ‘You never called me that to my face, always behind my back but I shall let it pass. After all, you are paying for the beer.’

Perhaps he did possess a grim sense of irony, not that I ever had an inkling of that earlier. Still, the passage of time can bring about changes. Like balding. I clung on to this hope.

I pressed on. ‘What have you been up to all these years?’

‘This and that,’ he mumbled.

I was not letting him get away with this. Or come to that, that. ‘I thought you might say that Scoffer, but exactly what kind of this and what sort of that?’

‘To cut a long story short, I have been dabbling in all kinds of things. Couldn’t hold down a job, marital status a bit wobbly, if not actually on the rocks, played the stock markets recklessly and am deep in the red. Net result, I am suffering from hypertension and do not make for very good company, I am afraid. Not the ray of sunshine you might have been expecting.’

Frankly, I did not know what to expect, but this was proving to be a right, royal dampener. A wetter blanket, you would have been hard pressed to find. I was already regretting this accidental reunion. He appeared so forlorn, any moment I was expecting him to start blubbing into his beer. If things continued like this, I might have had to pop across to the nearest chemist for a strip of anti-depressants myself. I decided to take him out of his lugubriousness and engage him in some matters of current interest.

‘Right Scoffer, I am sorry to hear that. Marriage on the rocks, did you say? My commiserations. Why not chase that beer down with something stronger on the rocks? No? All right, let us shelve your sob story for now and turn to something more cheerful. I know you were a cricket buff, a Kapil Dev fan, so what did you make of the World Cup final? 2023, not 1983. India fashioning defeat from the jaws of victory?’

At this abrupt change of subject, Scoffer brightened up. ‘Are you out of your mind? Were you even following the game? How do you mean fashioning defeat from the jaws of victory? We were never in with a shout. The blasted Aussies had us by the jugular from the outset and never let go. Get me another beer.’

This was better. He was properly riled, but at least, he cast off his morose shackles and became animated. That’s what cricket does to people in our country. I signalled for another beer and goaded him on.

‘Yes, yes, I am aware of all that, but we lost the toss which was a bit of a blow. At least, that seemed to be the opinion of most Indian commentators.’

Scoffer remained unimpressed. Took a large swig revealing a lush, frothy moustache and continued, becoming much more voluble. ‘Stuff and nonsense. The big occasion got to our players and we played like sissies. All very well gloating about having won 10 matches on the trot. Got a bad case of the trots when it mattered most. Who ever remembers the runners-up? Everyone recalls Edmund Hillary as the first to climb Everest. Who remembers the second guy?’

‘Tenzing Norgay?’

‘Of course, you know the name, as do I. We won quiz competitions in Calcutta, remember? How about the rest of the world? I rest my case.’

Scoffer was now in fourth gear, cruising. I got back to the original subject. ‘All right, but I must say it was good of our PM to lend all the players a shoulder to cry on after the game. Dressed in blue as well to go with the players’ dress code. In any case, they got the blues after the defeat. The PM would have loved to hold aloft the trophy with the Indian team, that too in his home town Ahmedabad, in a stadium named after him. Big photo-op denied.’

‘You can’t have everything,’ countered Scoffer. ‘Anyhow, since you brought up the PM, the smiles were certainly back after the recent assembly polls. Whose side were you on?’

I was not really prepared to get into a political debate, especially in these polarised times but I kept the conversation going, hedging my bets. ‘What more can I say than that the ruling party swept the polls?’

‘Swept the polls? scoffed Scoffer, ‘you could say that, which is stating the bleeding obvious. They wiped the floor with the opposition. Make no mistake, The Man is coming back in 2024. God help the misalliance.’

‘And God help us all. Dear me, I can detect those capitals a mile away in your emphatic prediction. The Man, eh? You could well be right, but those poll numbers, they were off the charts. Should we be worried about EVMs?’

Scoffer became so agitated, he knocked down the empty beer glass, stood up unsteadily and gave slurring speech, as though he was addressing the entire pub along with the huddled masses. ‘Look here, we lose a cricket match and you blame the pitch and the toss. The PM’s party trounces everybody else at the assembly elections, and you start talking about EVMs. How about Telangana? I have had it up to here with you. Goodbye, and may our paths never cross again.’ Scoffer stormed out, literally frothing at the mouth. At the exit door, he tripped over the threshold, was helped up by the liveried doorman and limped off. I was left to settle the bill, but I bore no ill will towards my misanthropic friend. He was more to be pitied than censured.

 Cricket and Politics. Two topics in India that can bind or break friendships. In this case, this Scoffer disease was never a friend to start with and I deeply regret the fact that he is well ahead of the game, having quaffed several beers at my expense. Not cricket. And not very politic.