One should mourn the closing of their favourite bar for only a month. It's written right there on page 67 of The Manual of Life. One month, no less.
After that, you are being emotional. Of course, you now know that Calypso Bar on Nairobi's Ole Dume Road closed down almost a month ago today. It felt like a tragedy then, but now it feels like the passing of time.
The end for Calypso was as unremarkable as death itself. Men and women who had called it home for 11 years gathered on a rainy evening to raise glasses. It felt like we were raising glasses for ourselves. For being here. Alive. For now.
Talking of which; a short story about Calypso. After I lost my best friend (he rammed his Mercedes into a stationary trailer at 120km/hr) and stood over his body in the morgue, staring at a tag dangling from his toe, hearing his only brother weep in a way that has never left me—a weep that transcended pain itself—I came straight to Calypso and sat alone with my double bourbon.
It was midday but felt like midnight and the sun would never rise. I was afraid. Afraid of death because that was the second time death had brushed up against me. (First time was losing my mummy).
Someone once asked me, "Biko, why do you tell personal stories in that small bar column? Why don't you just review bars?" Well, who the hell wants to read about bar decor? Who cares?
It's because drinking isn't just about drinking. It’s the moments around it.
We drink to celebrate victories, to ease sorrows, or simply to fill the silence when the music stops.
So when a bar closes, it’s not just the doors that shut—it’s the quiet end to countless memories, to shared laughter, to grief, and to conversations that might never happen again.
