Fair-weather friend
noun
A person whose friendship cannot be relied on in times of difficulty.
Also see: an Islamabadi
The Rendezvous Square, as we would like to call it now for the sake of sweet nostalgia, is the classic example of Islamabad’s short-term memory. As Islamabadis, we all have the fondest of memories of Rendezvous, when it was shiny and new and buzzing with teenagers who didn’t have a single care in the world. There were champagne showers but with virgin minty blue margaritas, baggy jeans dangling down, converse sneakers and sheesha smoke adding to the musky ambiance along with a self-serving crowd drawn in by a strange, unexplained, almost bizarre magnetism.
To understand what went wrong, we must go back to the beginning.
The buzz started off with Civil Junction or more commonly, CJ; a basic cafe with anti-common culture/political satire as food items list on the menu and host to many encore performances for underground bands in the city. One would find the best sausage and cheese samosas here and the cheapest sheesha which was a pretty sweet double-deal. Herds of teenagers, in sixes and eights, would huddle over one sheesha pipe, inhaling and exhaling thick, white clouds of smoke all the while dipping those tiny squares of samosas in mint and green chilli chutney. Mmmm.
There also stood, in all its might, Golden Dragon – home of the Chinese, for the Chinese, by the Chinese.
The restaurant space included one window with a view of the kitchen and a small, oriental space with basic furnishing, but none of that would matter once you had the taste of their Sweet and Sour Prawn, the ultimate peace-offering to the dragon-gods.
Fast forward a few years to the era of Rendezvous, the glorious heydays.
The square metamorphosed into a massive crowd puller, especially for the younglings. The power-quadruple: Rendezvous, Hotspot, CJ and Gelato Affair was where you wanted to be every evening up until the wee hours of the night. It had transformed into a snazzy spot for girls doused in Nina Ricci perfumes and daubed in kajal accompanied by boys in gelled-spiked hair and first generation iPhones. There would be some parading in their uniforms, a commonplace after-school ritual. Some would be seen frolicking around with their Sony Cybershots and a couple dozen helium balloons; not a day would pass by without the off-tune chants of “happy birthday to you” in the vicinity.
The pre-set order of the hierarchy was such that the high-born “You can’t sit with us” lot would be at Rendezvous, the payless-get-more would automatically set base at CJ, the one’s holding on to the fragmented facade of being cool would assemble at Gelato Affair and then the self-proclaimed “Hotspot loyalists” would be the unlucky ones who didn’t find a spot at the aforementioned.
But all good things come to an end.
One would argue that the sheesha ban caused the demise of Rendezvous, but that would be factually incorrect. While Islamabadis did migrate from Rendezvous to Rock Bistro to Blak Lounge to Gloria Jeans F-11 to Cloud 9 to Hotspot, Rendezvous died long before.
Something just stopped clicking with the cliques.
Once a clutch of the young and wild and free, now a long forgotten ghost-town. We knew this was it when Rendezvous started to draw in the kitty party crowd of aunties for their afternoon get-togethers over hi-tea. They even opened an outlet at Centaurus Mall but when you know you know.
The Islamabadis thus wrote off Rendezvous like they did Le Olde Hangout, buried amidst the carcasses of broken dreams. Should we blame “The Establishment”? Probably not. Islamabadi ‘IT’ crowd is easily bored and easily amused, at the same time, venturing into unsailed waters while anchoring to a select old and familiar. The friendship is mostly self-serving, driven by the behavior of The Collective.
So long, Rendezvous.
With Love,
Fair Weather Friend.