Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
October 25, 2018

My friend Venky is taking his wife Padma to the Costa del Sol for a holiday for their anniversary, and he tells me with great glee that he got a great deal on the tickets.

Neel has naturally just bought a new high-end car, and he also has enjoyed a super deal, and Freddie has just sold his apartment for a hefty profit and even though the property market is down he - you guessed it -  has got a nice deal.

Why do some people get these incredible deals against the run of play while some of us sink like stones? Even worse when it is your friends who bask in the sunshine while you are trying so hard to eke out a living, a phrase that you can squeakily and with as much validity say ‘eek’ because that is how it feels.

Take me, for example. I spend most of my waking hours scribbling little sums that do not add up in the corner of the nearest paper scrap and hoping that the anemic incoming will have some relationship with the robust outgoing. Much of it is also based on the vain hope that money expected will be realized in time without surgical cuts and that cheques will not bounce for lack of funds. Those who owe you will honor their payments, and above all, the government will not give itself another raise and banks will not place obstacles in your path on the few days that they design to function. None of which transpires which is why it is called a vain hope. You have the vanity to believe that it is a perfect world.

Me, I have a family of one wife, two daughters, four grandchildren, and two ends. My two ends have not spoken to each other since 1992. They sulk in opposite corners, and neither threat nor bribery nor charm works. I tell them with a fervor that you do not have to meet each other like other people’s happy twins of ends, just at least recognize that you exist on the same planet so I can enjoy the illusion that you are in the same book if not the same page.

Ends, I say with folded hands, I have spent most of my life trying to introduce you to each other, and I have to say your attitude is non-cooperative in the extreme. Other people have friendly ends, ends that chat each other up and cross paths, ends that are a duet and sing in tune, please at least try to meet as I totter into antiquity. And then my tycoon friend Meetu calls and says, just made a killing on the market. His ends are into bear hugs.

(The writer is a Senior Editorial Advisor of Khaleej Times and the paper’s former Editor. He has also been the Editor of Gulf News, Gulf Today, Emirates Today and Bahrain Tribune)