The more important F-word

Great! Just friggin' great!! Somehow, my Google related sites are loading so slow that, I have gotten very fed up with it. Please, the-guys-at-Google, do something about this. I can't stand it at all. And in case you are trying to see if I can live without the Labs in Gmail, forget it, I really can't :P. So, anyway, I'm kind of going through a "phase" in my life; isn't that what people say when they can't explain their behavior in recent times? If yes, I'm pretty much spot on! That is my problem exactly. Now, about this post: All the contents of this post are figments of my imagination and I haven't (so far, at least) come across any of the phenomenon I explain in the following lines/paragraphs (I really don't know how long this post is gonna be :D). So, anyway, this post is about the one word that can make us bunk classes, go to movies we know we're gonna hate, make us laugh 'til we cry or vice-versa (no big difference, no?), can make your day, can change your life, can give you the push you need, can make you live hell (or heaven, yes, heaven sounds better; what say? :P), can do literally, anything!! Somehow, I don't know why I haven't written this post before. And yes, the word, what say? Any guesses?? (no prizes for guessing, though... :P) Actually, this doesn't work so well on a blog...really, you can't keep the suspense for as long as you'd like...Anyway, the word is FRIEND. On a totally unrelated note, check out "Tu Hi Haqeeqat" on the Tum Mile OST, the lyrics are awesome!!



Back to the "f-word". I'd love to, actually, not love, but like: as friends :P, to express my views about real friendship. Thing is, my perception is slightly twisted as compared to the conventional way in which people usually say what friendship (PJ alert : can anyone tell me why it i called that and nor friend-car or friend-plane) is. Actually, you might as well get used to this kind of wry humor all through this post (just something I wanna give a try :D). What is a friend? You could look it up in a dictionary and yet end up not knowing what one is. Hell, some people even lead their whole lives without any real ones and assume they know what a friend is. Well, let me not get into semantics. Anyway, a friend is someone who... (kind of a clichéd beginning, so I'm discarding it :D). If you think a friend is someone who understands your predicaments and keeps you comfortable at all times, you cannot be farther from the truth. Seriously, if you call people who do that your friends, a better word would be acquaintances, or may be, well-wishers. Point number 1: Friends are not well-wishers. They are so far away from being that that, they appear to be the exact opposite (sometimes they actually are.. :D). I'll tell you clearly what a friend should be like: When you are feeling down, instead of trying to cheer you up, he/she must make you feel worse if you deserve it and try to make you cry out loud (tests have proven that, it is a great way to relieve feelings...whoever does those tests?? I'm just making it up...). Anyway, a friend should be someone with whom you can share anything, and when I say anything, I mean anything, literally. It should not be like: 'hey, that guy doesn't have the security clearance yet, may be in a couple of years...'


Ergo point number 2: No Secrets. It might be that, you have a crush on his girlfriend (my being male is totally limiting this...but you can understand...), or you spreading a funny albeit may-be-hurtful kind of rumor about him/her, or anything like that. It just boils down to not being all touchy and stuff. It really pisses me off when a friend takes these things seriously, c'mon, you listen, you laugh, you forget, right?? Anyway, somehow, I've totally gotten over GRE style writing and keeping the natural flow of writing i.e., writing as it comes to mind - I'm happy for me :D.


Hmm...Then there is this thing about fealties. You know, a friend is not expected to declare his allegiance to another (no, being in a serious relationship doesn't count as friendship and hence, allegiance is necessary there...). In layman's terms (not that you are a layman...) your friendship with one person should not engender hatred or ennui towards another; for heaven's sake, we are humans, not super-powers, third world countries or stuff like that. If you have something with someone, keep it to yourself, why deny the chance of being another person's friend to another friend (kind of a sloppy sentence, but I'm sure you'll understand...). Hence, point no. 3: No rules, period. No conditions about being a fan of a celeb or something like that: no strings attached, literally.


I'll jump straight away to point no. 4: Don't be a sissy. Rephrasing it: trust your friend. If your friend says you can have fun if you bunk a class, you do it, no questions, no doubts. I might be coming across as pretty wound up now, but I'm sure it is OK. Just be with your friend. Next, be yourself. You know what they say : Do in Rome as Romans do (no pun intended), yeah, for once, they were wrong. Do what you want to do, not what your friend wants (man, this is tough, I'm opposing myself, but not intentionally...).


Next point: No apprehensions. Don't fear your friend: that is totally antithetical to being a friend. If you don't like a person, just ignore (as opposed to hate :)) or tell it on their face (I wouldn't recommend this, though... :D). Anyway, if you want to ask anything, play a practical joke, throw a dirty pun or anything, no fear. If you can pull this off totally, I assure you, you have a good friend indeed.


Putting it succinctly, a friend is a person who can complete your sentences before you are even half done, a person who can understand you so much that you ask him/her what you are yourself, a person so important in your life that you cannot stay even for a minute making fun of his/her short-comings and yet, the person loves you all the same, like you that is, as a friend (all this confusion because of movies where love can only mean a relation...). Anyway, I guess that is all I gotta say. If I remember something, I'll surely add it in some post :D (no, i'm not gonna leave you so easy...).


Anyway, my posts only seem to be getting longer, brace yourself :D.

Way to go!!

Well, somehow, I have grown up. Assignments don't seem important, nor do may other things like exams and stuff. I don't even know why I feel that to be "growing up". Anyway, I was thinking about something today (well, a tiresome part of "growing up", no other job to do, right!). So, I got to the point where you go on thinking about why people behave the way they do. For me, it seems un-construable how people lead all their lives hating others. It is important to love. Not in the crass sense though, I mean the love you show to mankind. Well, here, I'd like to explain how my mind works. For me, whenever I meet or rather, get to know someone (however shortly) they start in this gray area (like the one between black and white...). Virtually none move onto the "black side". Somehow, I find myself inarticulate to explain this, but, I'll try my best...They say hate is the opposite of love, I beg to differ: Indifference is the opposite of love, although that isn't the gray area I was talking about. So, as I was saying, I don't hate people per se, but sometimes, I hate being around some people. It might seem pretty much the same thing and I'd love to explain this... I don't hate people for what they are, no, neither for what they do, neither for what their effect might be on me, no sir. Being around people, sometimes that makes me uncomfortable and/or some sort of ennui I cannot explain in words. It simply makes me not feel good. This is a totally different list of people on my mind (the others being those who I like and like being around, and those in the gray area, and the black area which is virtually empty). And the interesting pat: I do not hate the people as separate persons, just keep me away from them and I might even enjoy knowing them as humans. So, moving forward, as I come to know more about people, my mind decides (I hardly have a say in it, kind of an alter ego issue...) into what list to put the person into. So, roughly speaking, if I know a hundred people (hypothetically of course, I know over 200 from my college alone (just trying to prove I'm not anti-social :P)) around 55 would be in the gray area ie., they are just acquaintances, around 25 in the white area and around 20 in the don't-be-around list.

So, why am I telling you this? Let me get to it, I have seen people hating others for all their lifetimes, seen people abuse and degrade others because of really small reasons (don't even get me started on this, at any point of time...). I mostly hate to stay around from such people mostly because, you cannot talk reason into them, no one can. As Gandhi rightly says, "Be the change you want to see in the world", I'd like to start off by staring to know better of these people who cannot listen to reason. It is important to love, to like and to promote the universal message of peace. It is a need. A smile, a salaam, a wave, a hug, a hand-shake,whatever, why have we become so "sophisticated" to forget such basic human traits, to forget how much your attention can mean to some people?? Why do we hesitate to move forward when we meet someone new? Why do we judge people by being so narrow-minded? Why don't we try to be in the person's shoes before saying something bad or affecting about them? WHY????? Why have been brought up to doubt everyone? Why have we no trust in another person? No, I'm not asking you to trust everyone blindly, every person deserves some amount of trust and it is your duty to give it to them (sorry for being so hard, but I am pretty much toeing the line of my irritation because of seeing people around me hating most of the people around them...).

The answer to all the above questions can only come from inside our hearts and I still emphasize that, it is important to love your fellows. I hope this post, more than any other reaches your heart and you act on it. Spread the love, because life is too short to be spending hating others. You're not gonna get out of it alive anyway, you might as well make others smile in the short time you have. I know this is probably not one of my best posts but, I tell you, it is straight from my heart, this was a long time coming. I just urge you to try to love everyone you meet, even if that's not how my mind works, I'm trying hard too...

Love y'all!!

Nightie Night!! :D

In relation to...

Well, after a long time, I have found something worthwhile to write about. The holidays are kind of an oxymoron for me right now. They are both boring and entertaining. Feel like running away to some place and enjoy. But then, even that would become boring after a couple of hours or so. Being the kind of introvert I believe I am, I've decided to be something more sociable a.k.a an ambivert. Seems like the GRE classes are finally getting on to me, seeing that I've started using complicated words while talking and my friends are finding it hard to understand :). Being an ambivert is not so difficult. You simply need to talk to people (be rather verbose!) when you feel like it. All the other times, you could switch back to the same old introvert-like behaviour! The best place to start is,  indeed, friends. I've been trying my best to do that, and have, let me be honest, had moderate success. Trying to get out of your cocoon is not so easy as it is to write about it, take my word for it.

Then after a few more tries, I took a break and started thinking about human relations. I was almost immediately wondering why every relation has to have a name. Why do we need to justify ourselves and the world about the kind of relation that prevails between two people? That was a rhetorical question, and I certainly don't expect an answer from any one. I once had a conversation with a friend which was something to this effect.

"Well, bro, I don't believe in friendship."

I was a bit surprised and I asked for an explanation. And the explanation was good (bit rich coming from me, right!)

"Simple, people tend to strike that chord and use you. I don't like being used. If I like someone, I'd rather call them my siblings than friends. The sound of friendship freaks me out."

Indeed, this kind of perspective on his part has led to a petty paradox in his social life, we all usually choose to ignore that.

Then, I realised that, I don't believe in naming relations. Seriously, how can you blanket the intricate levels of comfortability and closeness under a single common noun friend? Every relationship is unique. Period. I don't think this even needs an explanation. You can't say that an acquaintance is actually a friend. This perspective of mine leads to a complicated scenario where you find it hard to explain to people. But then, we can always live with that. Any day! And anyways, who cares what people think! :) Seriously, I feel it insulting if you call someone who's very close to you just a friend (and yes, no matter how may adjectives you add before that, it still sounds the same.) So, simple concept. Stop naming relationships between people. For all we know, they might end up completely different from your expectations. :)

Rock On!!!

P.S. : For more details about that friend of mine, contact me. :) (I'm sure he's not gonna like it!)