My bridge over troubled waters

Yesterday morning, I received the heartbreaking message that one of my closest childhood friends had been snatched away by Covid-19. Last week, it was a retired colleague who was staying one floor above me in my apartment complex. The week before it was another dear friend with whom I had played a round of golf just a month earlier.

My Facebook page is also becoming an obituary column these days.

What is going on?  Have the Chinese unleashed biological warfare on us, as some experts are saying? Or are we simply inept, incompetent and incapable of handling the situation created by the pandemic?

There are hundreds of opinions in the market. As regards the black market, it is simply thriving and making hay while the Covid- sun shines, conquering ever-newer horizons–antivirals, hospital beds, oxygen concentrators and even oxygen itself, which we always took for granted!

A few months back, most people had not heard of Remdesivir, but now they are exchanging WhatsApp messages on where it can be procured if the need arises.

Everyone is battle ready, so to say, but survival of the fittest can be a misleading axiom. Burning calories and developing six-packs may not save you. You will not know when, where and from whom you can get infected.

Survival of the cautious is the new ‘mantra’. Lock yourselves indoors to keep the virus out of your lives; isolate yourself from the herd till there is herd immunity (another expression now getting embedded in our current daily lexicon).

However, this is easier said than done. Apart from mundane needs such as groceries, there is the problem of ‘ennui’.

Staying indoors for days on end can be so boring! A near septuagenarian like me can read, watch TV, exchange WhatsApp messages–but is that all?

No, there is a wonderful game played with a pack of cards which is called bridge which brings great cheer to me and many others in these Covid-stricken times like nothing else. Warren Buffet had famously said “Bridge is such a sensational game that I wouldn’t mind being in jail if I had three cellmates who were decent players.”

For the uninitiated, let me say that Bridge is the best intellectual exercise which doubles up as an engrossing game. You face new situations every ten minutes and make decisions based on what you think is rational. You weigh gain versus loss, doing calculations all the time while playing the hand you are dealt. The strategy involves deducing all the information you are provided by your hand and then keeping on adding to that base of information as things develop; you modify your approach as you get new information as the hand is played out.

Like bridge, chess is also regarded as an intellectual game. Comparisons are sometimes unfair, but let me recall that in 1996-97, there were two six-game matches between Gary Kasparov, the reigning world champion and Deep Blue, an IBM supercomputer. Kasparov won the first match, but Deep Blue won the next. Deep Blue’s win was seen as a sign that artificial intelligence was catching up on human intelligence and could defeat one of the great intellectual champions of the human race. However, artificial intelligence has not been able to completely master the game of bridge, and human capability reigns supreme in this sport which has been described as a game that combines strategy, communication, creative deception, and of course, devilish tactics.

In these Covid-dominated times, how does one get the three other players needed for a bridge foursome? As they say, a friend in need is a friend indeed. My laptop provides the solution, for there are sites where you can register and play online bridge. I play on a popular site called ‘Bridge Base Online’, or simply BBO. I cannot describe in mere words how it has converted what would have been hours of boredom into fun-filled hours of enjoyment.

Of all the sporting bodies in India, one keeps hearing of the Board of Cricket Control (BCCI), but it has also been taken out of the action by Covid; the much-hyped IPL has been postponed indefinitely as BCCI looks on helplessly. In this grim scenario, a retired IAS officer Suresh Sundarshan, President of the Bridge Federation of India (BFI) has stepped in like a knight in shining armor, challenging the might of Covid and providing an amazing entertainment platform. Through his initiative, the Bridge Associations of various states have created several daily tournaments where people like me can play for as many hours as we want, competing for master-points and thoroughly enjoying ourselves without having to leave the safety of our homes.

In his message to bridge lovers, Sundarshan said: “The Second wave of COVID-19 has witnessed severe damage to human life and its activities with its reeling negative effect for the past few months. Our fellow bridge players have been patiently waiting for this pandemic to ease out and only online bridge has been a soothing medicine to most of them.” Moving beyond this, he also says: “In extreme cases for those suffering from COVID-19 infection, BFI under the current stressed environment will endeavor to seek financial assistance from its well-wishers towards meeting their medical needs so far as possible.”

Thus, the BFI has taken on two enemies at the same time-Covid and boredom. People like me can stay inside the safety of their homes and still enjoy themselves to the hilt. Sundareshan and his BFI team are Covid-warriors of a different kind, coming to our aid in these dismal times.

I would like to end with another quotation from Warren Buffet: “If I’m playing bridge and a naked woman walks by, I don’t even see her.” Well, I do bring a great deal of concentration when I play, but can we lesser mortals ever aspire to be a Warren Buffet?

Your guess is as good as mine!

(The author is a retired diplomat)