"friends"

some time in 2002, i had casually mentioned to one of "the great", highly intelligent medical doctors of the department of physiology of mct about mr.B, a once upon a time friend of mine. lo and behold, within no time one mr.b met me in the coffee house. the highly intelligent indian pigs analysed the conversation and found that this probably was not the one i talked about; so like a highly skilled magician the chaarans produced another mr.B. this mr.b again met me as if by accident near the state bank of travancore medical college branch. in fact this was the person i mentioned to dr. budhiman of mct.

this mr. b was living with his family in trivandrum. under normal circumstances if you meet an old friend especially some one who is living alone you usually ask him over to your place - that is if at all he is your friend! mr. b never asked me. not only that when his daughter, a post graduate student in the kerala university, started coming towards us, he waved her off!

mr. B sorry dr.b, then told me that he wanted to come to my house. i explained to him that it is a rented house, i am staying alone, there is nobody else there and the place is quite far off. in spite of all the discouragement he got into my vehicle and sat there ready to go with me much to the amusement of one of his colleagues from the state bank who was standing by!

i knew his motives and why he was there and i told him i am not going to take him home. if he wanted to talk to me at leisure i can meet him in the museum grounds in the evening. i gave him no choice and based on the principle something is better than nothing he agreed.

we met at the stipulated hour near the coffee house and drove together to museum. he had the expected spies with him and he infact waved one of them off when this chaaran came too close to evesdrop on the conversation. i had an altogether different openion about this chap and he really did succeed in spoiling it by these gimmicks of his!

i asked him bluntly :"so what is your mission?" we had a long chat. my ideas about things are very clear and i talked to him without any inhibitions and gave him a gist of what was going on.

that was the last i saw of him. there was no effort on his part to meet me again and i consider it very sensible of him. i cannot say that about a recent addition to my list of "friends" who indeed landed up in my house a couple of months back.

this fellow had a relative of his in tow whom i knew casually. this "friend" of mine and his relative were talking utter rot and rather than ask him to vamoose i had put up with their whims. i was under the impresssion he will have enough sense not to come back. i was again mistaken - some body rang the bell a couple of weeks back and i opened the door and this fellow came in again and spoiled another of my evenings. you see i am busy for i have to do the cooking, dishwashing, sweeping and all such household chores on my own! and the fellow was talking to me as if he was doing me a favour!

this latest "friend" of mine has been in trivandrum althrough and i pointed out the matter to him and wondered how come the thought of meeting me occurred to him now and not during any of the last eleven years - we both were in trivandrum since 1995! the gentleman's answer was that he never knew i was here. i can assure you it is a black lie.

" - - so limited is his intelligence and his imagination that he is never puzzled for a moment.
one of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision."