He drove his friends up the wall. We got him projects, and he never landed up. He would rather utilise his time discussing Fellini or Sartre or the theory of relativity. In fact, that’s how I met him. A bunch of us had gone to watch a Russian movie at a film festival. During the intermission, we were having coffee and discussing what did that scene mean and what did that piece of dialogue signify, when a large bearded man walked up and said: “See, there’s so much of Catholic semiotics in Tarkovsky’s films that unless you know the sources, it’s difficult to get his films fully.” The bell rang. As we hurried into the hall, he said: “We’ll talk about this after the film.” We didn’t meet after the film (in fact, we did not want to), but we met later by accident and became friends.

We forsook him often, because of his infuriating focus on self-destruction. But early morning of the day my daughter was to be born, he, a total atheist, went to the nearby temple, and prayed for my coming child. It was the height of winter, and he ended up with a completely stiff back and neck. I have never had more enjoyable and intelligent conversations with anyone else. In the good times, we would meet almost every night.

Some years ago, while leaving my home, he wanted to borrow an Umberto Eco novel I had just bought. I agreed, on the condition that he had to return it within a week. I knew that he had a habit of disappearing for weeks, sometimes months. He wholeheartedly agreed to my condition and left. I never saw him again. I changed house, very far from where I used to live, he did not have a phone, we walked away into our different worlds.

... contd.