Sunday, September 16, 2001		Life Ties

ON the surface, Gurpreet was a people’s person. He made friends easily and was part of the city’s jet-set crowd. Envious onlookers were convinced that for this rich bloke, life was one big party. Every night he boogeyed into the wee hours of the morning, party-hopping from one venue to another. His dad had a sprawling construction business which ran on its own steam. Professionals headed different divisions. Gurpreet was officially the CEO of one of the companies but his involvement was limited to making stray visits. He would saunter in on a day of his choice, throw his weight around and balance time remote control via his mobile phone.

He had lost his mother when he was young. For his father, an uneducated but highly ambitious and hard-working first-generation entrepreneur, nothing existed beyond work. He loved his son in a limited sort of a way. His logic was that since he had suffered so much, having worked night and day, dealing with all kinds of people, compromising on his values, he wanted to protect his son and give him everything that he didn’t have. So right from childhood onwards, he showered Gurpreet with unlimited money, gave in to all his demands, encouraged him to be happy while keeping him away from the ‘tensions’ of business. Even his bride was like a trophy. She was beautiful, with impeccable breeding.

They were poles apart. While she was a serious, intense person who loved reading and being with herself, while Gurpreet was restless when he was alone. He had to be surrounded with people at all times of the day. She found it painful to go out for parties every day, meet the same people, make inane conversation and lead what she felt was a disrupted life. Gurpreet, on the other hand, found nothing wrong with his friends or his lifestyle. They worked out a comfortable, non-confrontationist arrangement either wherein she would not stop him from going out and getting his friends over and he would not resent her staying at home or joining up with a group of like-minded people who were into more meaningful things like spreading consciousness about preservation of archaeological monuments.

His large circle of friends, drawn from all walks of life, worked hard to be associated with him for very specific reasons. Budding designers, interior decorators, society reporters, advertising honchos and ambitious entrepreneurs wanted to gain entry into his select celebrity circuit. By cultivating him, which was easy enough, they gained access to people who mattered. They had vested interests and Gurpreet childishly believed that they were singling him because they had taken a liking to him.

He was extremely demanding with his friends. Being Gurpreet’s chosen pal meant being constantly on call. The only thing he wanted his friends to do was to be there for him at any time of day. Initially, people complied because it was a nice change to have fun at another’s expense. But, when they saw Gurpreet becoming too demanding and impinging on their time and privacy, they started resenting it. If they chose to tolerate his overbearing manner it was only because they still saw some benefit accruing from his end. The moment they had extracted what they wanted out of him in terms of introductions to bigwigs—they dumped him. This was something he never quite accepted. Gurpreet would get nasty when a ‘friend’ tried avoiding him. It was as if by paying for his clothes, wine and food he had a stake on him. How dare he say no or not come when he was summoned. Whenever there was resistance, Gurpreet would get angry, throw tantrums, blackmail and threaten to have the person blacklisted from the social circuit. This usually worked for a while. The ‘friend’ would continue to be at his beck and call while looking out for an opportunity to make a hasty exit. It was then that Gurpreet would change his behaviour. From being angry and menacing he would turn gentle, coercive and loving. He would try to put emotional pressure on the person to return to being his best buddy. Sometimes this worked and sometimes it didn’t. People often used his this desperation to get a parting-gift from him. It was almost as if they wanted to squeeze the last drop of juice from him. When they finally left him and the realisation that they were not coming back sunk in, was when Gurpreet went into a short phase of depression. Fear gripped him till he found someone else who was willing to be a ‘friend’.

While he was unwilling to accept it to himself, deep down he knew that people were sponging off him. Yet, he was a willing sucker. He allowed himself to be wooed and discarded time and again. Why was he not selective about the people he picked out as friends ? The truth, as he was well aware, was his fear of being alone. From childhood onwards, he had been in the company of ayahs, baby-sitters, drivers and home tutors. They were trained to meet his physical needs for which they were paid handsomely. Since no one ever addressed his mental and emotional needs, he never ended up developing that side of his persona. How he pleaded with his classmates to play with him. When he was old enough to realise that money was a big drawing-power, he worked on enhancing his image not because it boosted his popularity ratings, but because it made him better ‘friend material’. He recalled how he had urged his father to bring the latest digital video projection system from the USA which enabled him to have one of the earliest home theatres in the city at that time. This, he knew, he could use to tempt his friends from coming and sampling exciting new fare. When he saw how effortlessly they responded to status symbols he started treating them to freebees like home-delivered pizzas, chauffeur-driven cars being sent to fetch and drop them, Swiss chocolates and hand-held video games as gifts and ensure a steady supply of ‘friends’

The thought of being alone with himself paralysed him with fear and forced him to go to any length to avoid such a situation. The evenings he would not be invited out to, he would call up people, (even those he knew only vaguely) to come over and have a drink with him, tempting them to stay longer by offering to take them out for dinner to the swankiest restaurant in town. The afternoons he had nothing to do and no one to turn to, he would go out shopping. At such moments, his compulsive shopping decisions were not based on any real need but to just spend money,

The day his wife decided to leave him was when he was truly panic-stricken. When he saw that her mind had been made up and all arrangements for a study course in the US tied up, he felt that the ground was slipping from beneath his feet. He knew that no amount of pleading and threatening was going to work. Her brother was there, ready to take her. According to her, they never really had a relationship so to speak. The only difference was that she would no longer physically be present in what was ‘his’ home. And that was precisely the point. He had, all his life, wanted only the physical presence of people. Although his wife had not made any demands on his status or money, she had been there for him. It was a secure and comforting thought, though he had never really banked on it. He had always preferred to fill his hours with mindless activity and useless people. Her exit forced him to see how shallow his life indeed was. Her parting advice to him rang in his ears. She had said: "Learn to love yourself because ultimately there is no one who can fill the lonely hours, the ups and downs of life but you yourself. Once you have that control over your mind and life, you will find people treating you with more respect and love. Also the way you are going, spending your father’s money, the day is not far when you will be alone, irreversibly so, unless you use your personal skills to create loving relationships and give meaning and direction to your life."