FriendShip of Life

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."
- Anais Nin

This is probably the best quote I found about friendship, when I decided to write a post about Friendship Day. Friends are the best (or the worst in some cases) gift to us. So I thought of remembering the old times.

Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

School Days: Probably the best days of anyone’s life (most would agree), when you were carefree and were always upbeat even after a bad mid-term result (which was such a regularity with me). I spent my school days at two places, Delhi (Primary education) and Gandhinagar (Secondary & Higher Secondary). I was a thin, dark and shy boy back then (Not much has changed from then besides my weight of course). It used to be so much fun although we didn’t have any multiplexes or malls to go around. Today’s teenager’s expenses for a day were our pocket money for a month or two. We didn’t have bikes or scooties, but we had bicycles (geared ones were a rage back then). Although many now live in different cities, we are still in touch because of Orkut first and now Facebook of course (I met couple of friends from my Delhi school after about 10-12 years..Pretty amazing)

College Days: College (A-square P C-square i.e. AA Patel Comm College) was not much different from school for me. There’s a famous idiom in Hindi “Aasmaa se gire khajoor mein atke” well that was our situation back then. We left school in hope of being free and do all the fun stuff shown in movies, but all our dreams were shattered when we reached college. First of all, college was in same education complex as our school secondly it was guarded like we were prisoners in the jail. Anyways, I found quite a many great friends here and we had lots fun (details of which can’t be disclosed in this post…let’s just say read my earlier post Four Question Marks???? to get an idea). I had probably one of the best friends in life during this time. We were like brothers. It was amazing.

Pune Year: Honestly speaking I didn’t have any idea about life till I came here (Not that I still have a good idea…just a better one). My life was limited to a small city called Gandhinagar, cricket and friends. I actually didn’t want to go, but brother dear almost dragged me there to prepare for CAT and MBA exams and I will thank him for that all my life. I was scared. Yeah scared, of the big city, the traffic, so many unknown people, not being able to fit in, the list just goes on. So I enrolled for CAT coaching and in Diploma in Journalism there. I was living with my brother here in sort of a bachelor’s hostel. So I learnt to, clean my room, dishes and clothes and how to be self-reliant. With not much to do here, books became my best friends (I didn’t even have a mobile phone back then). Friends here were totally different from what I had seen till now. Firstly, they were older (in some case 5-10 years), then more mature, knowledgeable and intellectual. I learnt to understand things here. And slowly and steadily started to have my own unbiased view about things, issues and subjects (about anything). The city also gave me a new hobby- movies. I became a total movie buff. My departure from Pune was very sudden because of a family emergency, but I still remember the days that really made me a different person.

The fun MBA: When MBA finished I felt man it should have continued for couple more years. Yeah MBA was fun. With lots of event participation (and wins), it felt even better. Made a lot of friends here (friends for life). We had a big group of about 10 people in college and we had loads of fun. These guys were special and I just love them all. There were others whom I can never forget, can’t name them all but they all are super people. A special mention of my grand Project Partner here (he is a dude), without him god knows where my project would have gone.

Kreadiots: Well, part of the MBA group, Kreadiots is made up of four people. All four of us like to call ourselves creatively idiotic. This is because we bring creativity to idiocracy and have fun in the process. We also have a group t-shirt with our nicknames inscribed at the back. Yeah sounds childish, as I told you we do idiotic stuff creatively. (Some of that stuff can’t make it to the blog).

Working Days: Many of my friends tease me by calling me “Krishan Kanhaiya”. This is because six out of my nine colleagues are girls. You can do the math. Jokes apart, all of them are great individuals and really good friends.

The Pen Pals: Have had couple of pen pals since 2000. Well, you can’t call one of them Pen Pal actually, we are more of SMS, chat and FB friends. Other one is probably my second best friend I have ever had. Both of them are really awesome gals.

Just in case you were wondering who my best friend is, well she lives in Gurgaon. She is my best friend and has been so from the day I came on earth. She is my sister. Words can never explain the relation we have. We don’t need to say things to each other, to convey our thoughts. It’s just awesome. (Love you sis).

So that is me and friends. 

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What is Imp? Money or Joy?

I and few of my friends have this habit of having long threads of emails being exchanged about various topics. (Dude you still use emails???Why??Don’t you have any social networking accounts?? Yeah for some we might sound archaic for still using out of fashion emails). We have email threads running over hundred at times. Well, in college days we had 40 minutes of discussions in college canteen but since it’s not possible for all of us to meet often because of various problems (like distance & time), we make full utilization of our employer’s internet connection. (So enough for the background of this post)

So like innumerous email discussions it all started with a different topic and boiled down to something else. One of the friends (‘HeMa MataJi’ our very own melodramatic aunty) had seen the movie Zindagi Naa Milegi Dobara, and got nostalgic about the time our group spent during the 2 years of MBA (she wasn’t the only one though because I know at least half a dozen people who felt the exact same way after the movie). Anyways so the thread started. I and few others joined in and so on it went. Then one of our friends (we fondly call him ‘Tara Singh’ of Gaddar fame…don’t remember how the name stuck though), sent us a mail with the subject line “What is Imp? Money or Joy?” Although I replied to it yesterday noon only but the question still stuck in mind, and so I thought of writing this post.

It’s quite a simple question you might think, but is the answer to it really that simple? Often in life we have to make tough choices…choices where your mind and heart are in opposite teams and fighting for your acceptance. Whom should one listen to? The Practical mind or The Emotional heart? I for one, always have this eternal confusion about almost everything. And often I make wrong choices which I rue later. I guess almost all of us go through such situations in life. (At least I hope so I am not the only one). Anyways here’s what I replied back to Tara Singh:

“Wats Imp?Money or Joy?...well ans in most imp is thyself....so put urself first...choose wat u want Money joy or nethg else...cauz nethg cn b imp dependin on d situation!!!u tuk d rt decision cauz dats rt 4 u...evrythg else will fall in2 place if ur happy wid ur dec!!hai ki nahi..”

Life is as complex and as simple as you make it. Agreed we need to make tough choices many a times in life, but will these choices be so hard if you have put yourself first and decided what’s right for you. ‘It sounds so selfish’ many would say and being selfish is not a virtue is what our elders have always told us. But think about it again. Aren’t all living beings selfish? I feel we all are selfish and there’s nothing wrong in that. If we aren’t happy how can we make anyone else happy? Now don’t get me wrong it doesn’t mean you take a gun and ape Anders Breivik, and go on a killing spree. Absolutely not. What I mean to say is one should be happy to take a decision and not force self into taking a decision they don’t want to.

Now, it’s not a one solution fits all problem kind of strategy. Depending on the situation and what you want you should take your call. So you could be chasing money or joy/happiness depending on the situation and what you really want.

Another thing we might do, is weighing ourselves down. That is, carrying unnecessary baggage over our head. We all carry these baggages from our previous experiences. But we forget that experiences are meant to facilitate our judgment and not completely overtake it. I have seen people who are so engrossed in their past that they aren’t able to navigate through their present. So it’s important leave past in the past. That’s the best way I feel.

One more baggage that we carry is the baggage of expectations. Especially we Indians have that extra expectation pressure from our families, which again weighs us down. But family should be your pillar of strength and not the anchor of a free-flowing boat. In any decision in life, if you cannot convince your family to accept it, believe me no one will. So if tackled properly, one’s family can be convinced. And then again if you are happy and if your family sees your decision working for you, they will accept. Like I said earlier, one needs to make thyself happy before making anyone else happy.

So this is what I thought……..(till now that is). I know most of you might have their own view (same or opposite), so why not share it. Use the comments to put in your views. So till the next post Asta la vista.