Kishore Singh: Not quite flush with success

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You’d think that with the markets straining most people’s fiscals, there would be less teen patti being played this Diwali, but that is not true, of course. Last evening, for instance, we visited some friends in our modest neighbourhood to find probably the only group of people left in the world who seemed to act as if they had no knowledge that there were others out there who were taking pot-shots at themselves because of their inability to pay their mortgages, or finance their yachts, or buy their fraction of a Lear.

It’s a sad world out there, but the auntiejis were oblivious to such sorrow. “Play, play,” one cajoled another who seemed inclined to pack her hand, “what’s five hundred rupees — just ten dollars, na?” Put like that, I suppose it made sense: all those crisp five-hundred and thousand rupee bills being flung into the bowl were nothing but a fistful of dollars. Or another way to look at it — simply imagine that you were losing in dollars but winning in rupees!

If you really want to understand people, you have to see the way they play cards. Office bullies turn into meek puppets; women play their hands more aggressively then men; and while professionals on fixed salaries tend to be cautious, those in business seem most inclined to give their wealth away in bundles of black money and — for all you know — fake notes.

Still, this year seems tamer than most. There has been no news yet of industrialists gambling away their farmhouses or mistresses on a trail of aces. No one, it seems, has lost even their EMI on a business jet, which makes for a sorry Diwali, for what good is propitiating the goddess of wealth without a Bentley won or a villa lost?

Because I don’t know how to play flush (and because I don’t have villas to spare), leave alone the multiple versions played in most homes with “counter” moves, and “variations”, or the sequence that is highest, or salami (no, not the meat but something you pay), I do what any sensible person ought to do — I opt to play “blind”, that is, without opening my cards which, if you are uninitiated, means you pay only half of what everyone else who has seen their cards, does. Of course I lose — yes, always — so it seems better to lose a half-dollar than a full dollar, especially in these times when increments appear to be something you read about as a good thing that happened in days long gone by.

My wife is a sore loser. If she isn’t winning — which sometimes happens — she simply ignores her cards and turns to what she does best: gossip. Soon everyone is trading stories, which allows me a breather from losing the family fortune, and it also allows me to think of distractions that help me escape from the game for some more while. I help the hostess pass around the snacks — noticing that those with strong cards wave away anything that takes attention away from the suit in their hands. I refill glasses with stiffer-than-usual drinks, also noticing how women who do not usually like alcohol want a “sweet cocktail” when they’re playing Diwali cards. It makes them reckless, but I’ve never seen one lose money yet. It’s always the men who do that.

This year, though, hasn’t been all bad. My daughter, who has only just started playing cards, has been on a winning streak. My son, who plays recklessly, has been busy with exams. Which makes me think it mightn’t be a bad idea to hang around — perhaps there might be an EMI going cheap on a boat or a plane that someone’s lost in flush.