Experience is a master teacher
And life indeed gets much richer;
Genius is he, who knows from postures
And disguised is his ways to beat the masters!
Naiveté were we in virgin years,
only to be skinned alive by the predator.
The Probability theory of being tortured/harassed by a mere presence of a friend is almost a null set. Most of us sane people would agree with that without going for third-party arbitrations.
But please do verify with people who had lived that kind of lives. I admit I was one among the survivors, no pun intended. It was kind of hell. It was like, you were suffering and you had no detectable diagnosis. It was like, you saw a crime but you had no tangible proofs to prove it. But all along, it was getting quite unbearable. Every second of the ticking clock added woes intolerable.
The dry man is, as it always happens, a sweet-natured guy with a circle (never less than a continent long diameter) of friends. Do not be surprised if he happens to know all the who’s & who’s you mention (only to curse yourself of your big mouth later), or all the topics you smartly raise for an intelligent brainstorming or the latest gadgets hitting the market, …or the latest trends of fashion fever…..the bill, hotly being debated in the winter session of the parliament, the latest chick in town (either she is his friend or his relative or an aunt’s daughter’s son’s cousin….and being unable to connect or understand you end up concluding/surrendering that the whole world is a joint family……with pyramidal hierarchy of relatives, and that must be a major contributing factor for a majority of my friends to be still bachelors….I somehow unsubscribed my membership from that exclusive high-profile Club)
He ain’t telling no lies or he ain’t telling no truths. He can’t be judged and he can’t be questioned. His conscience never worries him because he never hurts anyone visibly, and nobody seems to be aware of it and he would definitely be the last person to be aware if any such Awareness Campaign does even exist!
He practically sleeps your bed, eats your meal, breathes your air, showers your bath, shits your shit and symbolically replaces your shadow. He laughs your laughter, cries your tears, & echoes your views. You become his fashion idol, an icon…a role model. You see yourself when you reluctantly look at him quite hating the reflection it mirrors you back, though. He silently but forcefully starts pushing his stories….a sympathetic opening to a aggrandized closure…for that matter, there would never be a closure…ALLAH willing.
His reputation spreads like wild-fire. Monday, he is the protective brother, Tuesday, he is the submissive brother, Wednesday, he is the good-natured neighbor who runs your errands, Thursday, he is a sports enthusiast, Friday, he is collecting rare unreleased garage recordings by FRANK ZAPPA, Saturday, he is spiritual & Sunday, he dabbles with Metz. Weeks go on with no repetition of activities detailed above but with a different trending unique. His everyday is a regular day for a different person he emulates.
So, it always remained a challenge to try on the new pair of WOODLAND shoes you lovingly bought, or to try the latest RADIOHEAD’s Pablo Honey which was the coolest thing to do so. It was hard to sport that new hair crop you had wished for quite a long time lest you found your dry man standing before you as an alter ego.
Flying Beans 