It isn't every day the British high commissioner condescends to invite the hoi polloi, so it pained me to turn it down, but then I hadn't received a proper invitation in the first place.
The voice at the other end of the phone that wanted to know if I would be attending his reception for the Pravasi Bharatiyas later that evening, refused to believe that no card had been delivered to me.
And even given the tardy system of distribution of mail in the office, I did think Her Majesty's representative should have served enough notice, instead of asking me to hop to it "by seven, seven-thirty", according to the lady on the phone.
"I can't," I said, though what I wanted to say was "I won't". "But all the famous NRIs will be there," the voice continued to coax me into accepting.
Lakshmi Mittal?" I asked, perking up. "No," she responded, "but Karan Billimoria will." "You want me to accept a last-minute invitation to come meet Karan Billimoria?" I couldn't contain my surprise.
"He makes Cobra beer," she said, somewhat affronted. "And a singularly poor choice of name that is," I admonished her, "no matter how well it's doing."
Now don't get me wrong, at any other time I would have been delighted to meet Ol' Blighty's country rep, and wouldn't have minded some back-slapping with the young Billimoria -- not quite childhood pal, but known to me since our young days -- but to be asked to step to meet a couple of people for their non-resident status stuck in the craw.
"I definitely know I won't be able to come," I told my quasi-hostess, even though I had no other engagement planned for the evening, "but don't forget to tell the high commissioner not to take it personally, and to make sure to invite me another time with a little more notice."
"But why wouldn't you go?" my wife asked me later that night as I sat brooding over a drink. "Because I don't drink beer," I responded waspishly.
"Oh, don't be ridiculous," said my wife, "the high commissioner keeps a good bar, as many of your ilk will testify," referring I hope to the freeloaders who constantly enforce their presence at the capital's diplomatic parties, and not to fellow hacks -- though sometimes it's difficult to tell them apart.
"Actually," I said, "I can't understand what the whole fuss is about? If you've gone abroad and made a lot of money, then the government wants you to come back so it can get its share of what is not its to begin with."
"Isn't that a cynical way of looking at things?" asked my wife. Waving a hand to silence her, I said, "And if you've got the money, no one minds that the Indians -- who are now Americans, or Fijians or Martian for all I care -- are gratuitous with advise."
Seeing that my wife was beginning to protest, I continued: "Why should the government listen to an Indian who's not an Indian simply because he's got more money, when the Indian who hasn't got away yet can't get in a word edgeways about the state of governance?"
"Really," said my wife, "I think you've had too much to drink." "Forgive me," I said to her, "but if I complain about potholes on the road, that isn't being patriotic, but if an NRI does it, he's being realistic!"
"I see that you have a point," my wife said, "but can you tell me truthfully why you didn't go to the high commissioner's reception?"
"Well, if you must know," I sighed, "I'd ripped my kurta earlier in the day and couldn't go to the high commissioner's residence in torn clothes, now could I?"
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