|
Magazine
The writer as a young man
DOM MORAES
WHEN I attained my 40th birthday, an event that in my opinion was more to be mourned than celebrated, a kind person in Bombay told me that I could not now expect to make any new friends. ``Up to the age of 40,''said this philosopher, who was a decade older than I was, ``you easily strike up friendships with other people. But after 40 you find that your friends are all dying off. Then you become wary of friendships, because they only bring you closer to death.'' His remarks made me feel even worse than I already did, and also unimaginably ancient.
But at about that time I became the consultant to a literary magazine in Bombay. I appointed two young men as associate editors. They turned out to be quite other than constant reminders of my mortality. In fact, since they both treated me as though I were their own age, in the early twenties, they acted as my defences against death. They were brilliant, cheerful boys. One of them, Dhiren Bhagat, was killed in a traffic accident in Delhi, with most of his great promise unfulfilled. He was driving his own car, since his driver hadn't turned up on time.
This was a great waste of a valuable person. But David Davidar remained alive. He was a tall, coltish, bespectacled young man, curiously lovable. While Dhiren had abstained from most of the pleasures of the world, David was — at least then — very susceptible to them. He drank a lot and liked to fall in love. He was paradoxically a devout Christian. At that time he lived in the YMCA in Colaba, not far from me. He would often drop in for Sunday lunch. I discovered that he usually stopped at church before this, to attend the morning service.
Our magazine turned out disastrously. The proprietor was a small, tubby Marwari, and a determined alcoholic. He soon found out that he could not afford the simultaneous upkeep of the magazine and his favourite occupation. The printer's bills and the contributors' payments fell into arrears. Finally he ceased to pay our salaries. I made a very strong protest on behalf of the staff.
After this he appointed a former army officer to keep his editors in order. This man, whom we irreverently called Alfie, attempted to enforce military discipline on all of us. The month after his appointment, I once more protested to the proprietor about unpaid bills and salaries.
The next day David phoned me at home to say that Alfie had locked the staff out and ordered everyone to leave the premises. Some people had left property inside the office and David refused to leave till it was returned. ``Alfie says he'll call the police,'' he chuckled happily. ``Shall I break the door down?'' Seriously alarmed, I told him under no circumstances to move a muscle until I came. After a quick phone call I hastened to the office.
Here Alfie and several policemen were arguing with David and the rest of our people. Pieces of the office door were strewn all over the floor. ``I couldn't resist it,'' David explained to me with the smile I always found irresistible. Alfie seemed to resist it without too much difficulty and told me we were all under arrest. The call I had made to my friend the Police Commissioner now bore fruit. A senior inspector arrived, and ordered the assembled constables to leave. Soon after this minor triumph, we also left the premises, never to return.
After this David became an associate editor of Gentleman, together with Harish Mehta. The two young men invented a monthly feature. They took turns every month to interview a beautiful film starlet or model over an expensive, often candlelit dinner, paid for by the office. David's first such dinner, with a then famous model, caused him to tell me enthusiastically that he loved her. I was not unused to these confessions. I suggested that he should declare his emotions to her, not me, and should start by asking her to a meal that he paid for himself.
Later David came to tell me the lady had accepted his invitation to dinner. He was to pick her up the following evening. I advised him to be particularly careful about the impression he made on her father, and to take her flowers. He said my ideas in these matters were unoriginal. It was Easter. In the patisserie of a hotel, he had seen a life-size Easter bunny made of chocolate. It cost a lot and with a lavish dinner would exhaust his month's salary, but it was worth it. As to her father, he expected to have a man-to-man talk with him over a drink.
This rendezvous was not a success. Through nerves, he arrived far too early, carrying his gigantic gift with difficulty. The reaction of the family had been one of amusement rather than awe. While the girl got ready, the father rather grumpily offered David a drink from his last bottle of Scotch. In those days a bottle of Scotch was much prized by its owner. But the girl took time to dress, David's nervousness increased and by the time she appeared the bottle was empty. The father was by then no longer grumpy, but positively hostile.
Later requests for a date were firmly turned down. Soon after this David left Bombay. I missed our long talks about literature, and his youthful presence. He wanted to be a writer and showed me his poetry. When he returned from America he told me he wanted to write a long novel about his clan in Kerala. This has now been published, a decade after he first mentioned it to me, and has been praised. He is already the CEO of Penguin India, but I think he will be more pleased with his book than with his position, and I am pleased for him.
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Magazine
|
