I wanted to write this column about the great pleasure of meeting old friends after a long time. How we revert to what we were at some time in the past, unburdened by subsequent experience, untouched by the wages of time. You pick up from right where you left the dialogue, when you were much younger and more innocent, and no one judges anyone.

I wanted to write this column on that, except that last night my friend Punya called up. Arjun was a strange and unique person. One of the most intelligent and erudite men I have ever known, he made a hand-to-mouth living as a freelance advertising copywriter. He had held various advertising jobs, but could never hold them for long, because his incorruptible intelligence rebelled against the inevitable compromises that his profession needs to make to inferior intellects. He was brilliant, but unknown, unrecognised.

He lived in slovenly conditions as paying guest in a room not much larger than him. He drank, and when he drank a lot, there were incidents. I remember him throwing an encyclopedia at my face full-force. If he had been on target, he would have broken my nose. I remember reversing my car at furious speed while he ran after me hurling stones.

But he loved me and I loved him. When, in a drunken state, he climbed a tree and fell and hurt himself, he asked his landlady to call me. Punya and I took him to hospital, and it was discovered that he had broken the femur in both his legs. Lying there in great pain, he got into a scholarly discussion with the doctor on bones and painkillers. It was two in the morning.

... contd.