The Times of India

 

 

On sunday, after a sunny morning of thinking, talking and reading in Kensington Gardens. I came home to a message from our American visitor to London, inviting me to dinner at Rules. I was excited at the prospect for at least two reasons. One, the chance to visit the oldest restaurant in London, and two, I looked forward to a non-stop adventure in ideas. My friend, Charles, is an "ideas man", and he shares his thoughts generously and his tastes expensively.

Literary friends in India will recognise Rules from Charles Dickens. Thackeray and other eminent Victorians who used to frequent it in the 19th Century. It also appeared in the novels of Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene and John le Carre. Situated in Covent garden, Rules looks like a men's club. It is famous for Game and  it has its own estate in the Pennines. It oozes with history, and its walls are filled with marvellous pictures and caricatures of the famous who have eaten there ever since 1798. As we sat down beside a fireplace, and even before the drinks came, Charles opened his gambit with a Jewish story about two old friends who meet after an interval of many years. One asks the other what kind of life he has had. "A very happy one," is the reply. "On the whole, life has been good to me. And you?" "Not bad. I have nothing to complain about. But to tell the truth if I had it all to do over again I would just as soon not have been born at all". "Ah yes," the other sighs, "but who can be so lucky?"

At first I laughed: then I felt a small pain in the gut. having recently turned 50, I had found myself asking the same question in the park that very morning.

"Come, come. You aren't going serious on me before the soup arrives," said my companion. "here come our drinks". With considerable pleasure he put two ice cubes into his glass of Glenfiddich, took a deep breath and drank appreciatively.

"Everybody wonders at some point whether life has any meaning," he continued. "But we are often misled by an abstract search for the 'meaning of life' instead of asking simpler questions that may actually help us to lead meaningful lives.

As I was agonising over ordering grouse or smoked pheasant he said, "Good God, do you see those pictures on the wall? Olivier, henry Irving, Chaplin, Clark gable - this must have been the 'green room' of the entertainment world".

 

 

 

 

SUNDAY EVENING AT RULES by GURCHARAN DAS