“Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.”
~ George Bernard Shaw
Just as I was about to doze off on my siesta, I received a phone call on my land line. A man I had not heard from over half a century ago was on the line. He had found this blog while searching for something on Nashik and my last post on The Refugee Part 2 had a tag on Nashik.
I knew Prabhakar in Madras in the early sixties of the last century before I quit my job and went to Business School. Prabhakar was then working for a multinational oil company and was full of himself because of that and was very condescending towards me for not having graduated from a university and slogging away in the Madras heat. My friends and I thought that he was insufferable.
Naturally I did not like him much and would avoid him if we were accidentally in the same venue which often used to happen.
Prabhakar was all sweetness today and told me how he found me on the telephone book after finding our from the blog that I lived in Pune. He wished to renew our acquaintance and I almost could not resist the temptation to tell him to you know what! My curiosity prevailed over my dislike for him and I agreed to meet up with him. He now lives with his son in a newly developing suburb of Pune about 20 kilometers away from where I live. I suggested that we meet at a central place so that neither of us has to drive that distance and when I suggested that we meet at my club, I could sense that he was quite surprised that I was a member there.
Age has perhaps made him less condescending but I relished turning the screw a bit and said that I was lucky to have got the membership many years ago as now membership is closed though it is much sought after. And he took the bait and asked me how I managed to do that and I said that I applied, went through the normal high brow selection process and got selected because the selection committee felt that I would be a good addition to their membership.
We have agreed to meet up next week and I intend laying it on thick. It is a nice feeling after all these years to be able to be condescending in return.
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