A friend of Mine who became a BUM

It's a meta-narrative about an experience in friendship which turned shallow and sale

He was a budding companion all through my school days. I used to share all my days of fun and frolic, gifts that I could afford and be with him all the time. Since he took History as his major, in his youth, he started developed his intellect and we became lovers of a hedonism that we could afford. It was after that he completed his MA in History--- a girl well settled in the US doing a profession in surgical technology came to native shores to get married. The normal procedure for a girl, well settled in US is to find a groom, a one who is professionally well qualified, normally an engineer or a doctor. I would call this phenomenon an Indian expatriate cultural prejudice. Professionally qualified Indians in USA would never hunt for a groom coming from an Arts or Literary background. But by an act of strange coincidence this girl met many prospective grooms and to her taste they did not appeal to her. By chance my friend was given an opportunity to talk to her and to his God aided freakish luck, he was found appealing to her. One reason was his simplicity and the frankness of his candor. They married and left for greener pastures in the US. It was at this time my friend was proselytized into Pentecostal faith. He and his wife and his two kids baptized and became devout born-again’. It took many years for him to establish himself in the US. Initially when he used to come to India he used to visit me. Out of gratitude he would give a deodorant or a pantaloon. How I wish that bum would have been decent enough to buy two bottles of Jack Daniels and a carton of Marlborough’s. But still I held nothing against him. I respected him and I accepted his conversion into Pentecostalism.  After many years passed, he became well settled. Though his wife and children became citizens, he retained a green card. This he did because he wanted to buy real estate in India and he did. During his latter visits when he became financially sound, once he met me on the road. He asked me what my beliefs are. I said I believed in existential, nihilistic, agnosticism with affection for hedonism, wine, booze, women and cigarettes. He advised me to stop reading and threatened me that I will end with a stroke. I stared at him like an empty wall, treating him as Pink Floyd’s Wall. He said he will come and visit me in my home. Nurturing old sake affections I thought what he said will be true. I waited by counting days. Finally I learned from his Pastor in Kerala that he left for America. I wonder why he sounded so sincere and then lied to me. I was not expecting him. But when he said he would come, I thought to my heart that it would be true. I did not want anything from him but only respect as an old time school buddy. The truth hurts! Many USA bound Indians exhibit this curious sickness as a cultural archetype