(The author, Zbib, is a native of Bombay, and has occasionally been heard to say that the One which alone is real is spherical. The reasons for this are unclear, although Euclidean delusions and the residuum of a classical education are evident. He plays cricket and the piano with equal lack of proficiency. His tastes run to Brahms and Brubeck, and he usually fields at wide mid-off.)
One of the few things I cannot abide (said Patwardhan) is a man who vacillates. My old friend Satyanathan, regrettably, is one such. Not only does he vacillate, he is transparently off his head. Patently demented, the poor fellow.
Strangely enough, he wasn’t always this way. I can only conclude that some vital mental cogwheels came adrift recently. It shows up in small things, in his manic swings of opinion, and the myriad grand passions that melt ephemerally away. A few months ago it was shrimp-farming and, more recently, a collection of extravagantly bell-bottomed trousers in different shades of mauve.
What compels him to do this is a mystery. All I know is that his fetishes grow progressively more outlandish. And worse, their sheer arbitrariness is beginning to sap my morale.
About two weeks ago Satyanathan decided that it was imperative he smoke a pipe; this he predicated upon the risibly flimsy grounds that it was better for his health than cigarettes. Within days he had acquired 28 pipes, some evil-looking instruments to clean them with, and that grave and learned air so many pipe smokers seem to have. Completely bogus of course, because Satyanathan is approximately as learned as my little finger.
And yet here he was, swigging my tea, puffing away at a curved Sherlock Holmes model and speaking earnestly of the Unreality Of Separateness As It Relates To The Pure Suchness of Being. I lost the thread quite early, and concentrated on shallow yogic breathing to keep out the smoke — dense blue clouds redolent of everything from old omelettes to decayed socks.
And gradually, there began to steal over me a sense of great outrage. Not only at the vile miasma filling my home, but at the tranquil and scholarly look on Satynanathan’s face. I decided to tackle the blighter squarely.
“Satyanathan,” I said crisply, “why are you smoking that horrible thing?”
He raised his left eyebrow fractionally and gazed meditatively at the ceiling.
“Baudelaire,” he said at length, “once remarked that a wise man attributes to his pipe the sublime faculty of actually smoking him.”
I digested this worthless piece of information and volunteered something to the effect that Baudelaire might have been deranged.
“By all accounts, he wasn’t,” said Satyanathan simply and applied another match to his pipe.
“Think of the fortune you’ll have to spend on matches,” I urged, “the colossal national waste you’ll be contributing to?”
The man was unimpressed. He squinted cinematically and discharged another voluptuous gout of smoke.
“If the smell is anything to go by, Satyanathan, that must taste absolutely filthy.”
“I quite like it,” he said. “It has the smooth mellowness of a summer’s day in the Hindu Kush.
I laughed harshly. “Why delude yourself? You might as well smoke tea leaves.”
The wrong thing to say, obviously, because Satyanathan, in his largely misspent youth, frequently did smoke tea leaves. As a measure of fiscal discipline, he sometimes rolled cigarettes out of newspaper and tea, and smoked them with much ostentation. They must have been potent because he would reel around the room afterwards, then shamble off to play the harmonium for a few hours.
I tried another angle. “Think,” I said throbbingly. “Consider, reflect. Would Bogart have smoked a pipe? Would Bond? Bond went through a pack a day and took his chances like a man. He would have been ashamed of you.”
Instantly I saw that I had struck a chord. Satyanathan is a great admirer of James Bond (Ian Fleming’s version naturally, not the appalling burlesque of the movies) and he suddenly looked thoughtful.
Long moments passed. Then, wordlessly, he heaved himself out of the chair and tottered through the door.
He phoned this morning and thanked me brokenly. He was back, he said, to 25 a day and feeling a new man already. It’s gratifying to know one has been of service.
(The Indian Post, Bombay, September 15, 1989)
Excerpted with permission from A Surfeit of Blighters, Zbib, CinnamonTeal Publishing.
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One of the few things I cannot abide (said Patwardhan) is a man who vacillates. My old friend Satyanathan, regrettably, is one such. Not only does he vacillate, he is transparently off his head. Patently demented, the poor fellow.
Strangely enough, he wasn’t always this way. I can only conclude that some vital mental cogwheels came adrift recently. It shows up in small things, in his manic swings of opinion, and the myriad grand passions that melt ephemerally away. A few months ago it was shrimp-farming and, more recently, a collection of extravagantly bell-bottomed trousers in different shades of mauve.
What compels him to do this is a mystery. All I know is that his fetishes grow progressively more outlandish. And worse, their sheer arbitrariness is beginning to sap my morale.
About two weeks ago Satyanathan decided that it was imperative he smoke a pipe; this he predicated upon the risibly flimsy grounds that it was better for his health than cigarettes. Within days he had acquired 28 pipes, some evil-looking instruments to clean them with, and that grave and learned air so many pipe smokers seem to have. Completely bogus of course, because Satyanathan is approximately as learned as my little finger.
And yet here he was, swigging my tea, puffing away at a curved Sherlock Holmes model and speaking earnestly of the Unreality Of Separateness As It Relates To The Pure Suchness of Being. I lost the thread quite early, and concentrated on shallow yogic breathing to keep out the smoke — dense blue clouds redolent of everything from old omelettes to decayed socks.
And gradually, there began to steal over me a sense of great outrage. Not only at the vile miasma filling my home, but at the tranquil and scholarly look on Satynanathan’s face. I decided to tackle the blighter squarely.
“Satyanathan,” I said crisply, “why are you smoking that horrible thing?”
He raised his left eyebrow fractionally and gazed meditatively at the ceiling.
“Baudelaire,” he said at length, “once remarked that a wise man attributes to his pipe the sublime faculty of actually smoking him.”
I digested this worthless piece of information and volunteered something to the effect that Baudelaire might have been deranged.
“By all accounts, he wasn’t,” said Satyanathan simply and applied another match to his pipe.
“Think of the fortune you’ll have to spend on matches,” I urged, “the colossal national waste you’ll be contributing to?”
The man was unimpressed. He squinted cinematically and discharged another voluptuous gout of smoke.
“If the smell is anything to go by, Satyanathan, that must taste absolutely filthy.”
“I quite like it,” he said. “It has the smooth mellowness of a summer’s day in the Hindu Kush.
I laughed harshly. “Why delude yourself? You might as well smoke tea leaves.”
The wrong thing to say, obviously, because Satyanathan, in his largely misspent youth, frequently did smoke tea leaves. As a measure of fiscal discipline, he sometimes rolled cigarettes out of newspaper and tea, and smoked them with much ostentation. They must have been potent because he would reel around the room afterwards, then shamble off to play the harmonium for a few hours.
I tried another angle. “Think,” I said throbbingly. “Consider, reflect. Would Bogart have smoked a pipe? Would Bond? Bond went through a pack a day and took his chances like a man. He would have been ashamed of you.”
Instantly I saw that I had struck a chord. Satyanathan is a great admirer of James Bond (Ian Fleming’s version naturally, not the appalling burlesque of the movies) and he suddenly looked thoughtful.
Long moments passed. Then, wordlessly, he heaved himself out of the chair and tottered through the door.
He phoned this morning and thanked me brokenly. He was back, he said, to 25 a day and feeling a new man already. It’s gratifying to know one has been of service.
(The Indian Post, Bombay, September 15, 1989)
Excerpted with permission from A Surfeit of Blighters, Zbib, CinnamonTeal Publishing.
