Friendship!!

What is friendship?

Is it a relationship of convenience or is it another biochemical reaction in the neural centre of our body? (a complex reaction just like love but with lesser intensity and more catalysts to aid it) Is it about being there for someone in need with hopes that the reverse never comes to pass, or is it about wanting someone to be there for you with hopes that you can be there as well when needed? Different people, different philosophies and all seem to be correct in their place. So how does one define it then?

I can't define friendship by words but can only describe it by a scene I witnessed in my hometown. Career, fame, ambition, money – everyone needs them but sometimes that very one also needs a break to continue the chase afresh. So after a decade since I started out from my hometown in search of a future, I returned to my land for a couple of days. And that too I returned in the days of the festival of lights. Everyone was happy, friends, family and me and the entire world seemed to be happy along with us. Lights and crackers, sounds and smell, colours and beauty – everything seemed to glow in a light of its own, rendering the artificial diwali lights feeble in their brightness.

And among all that light I saw the two of them walking down the street hand in hand. They seemed to care the least about the world while they enjoyed everything around them. Or was it, ignorant of the surrounding chaos, they relished the sweet moments of each other's company, I know not. But whatever it was that touched their hearts, it was something really ethereal for its infection could be found in the people around them. People instinctively forgot their petty quarrels to enjoy the rare moments of happiness that one gets on beholding something so natural and so pure. While the world schemed and plotted, these two merry men kept wildly gesticulating and speaking to each other, smiling incessantly and laughing out loud once in a while. I don't know what people thought when they saw them, but the only thing that flashed before my eyes were scores of faces who had come and gone in my life, contributing in little or significant parts to what I am, faces who had once called me a friend but who had either vanished in the cacophony of my life's events or had simply ceased to exist for me because they were not on orkut, facebook or my mailing list.

Well you must be wondering what is so special about these men that evoke such potpourri of emotions. To tell the truth, there wasn't anything at all special about them; in fact God hadn't given them quite a few of the special gifts that we so naturally enjoy having. Maybe that is why the two of them compensated their shortcomings with the special bond we call "FRIENDSHIP". After all what else can you name such a deep bond between a blind man and a grotesquely deformed spastic?

The fight of generations

It's a common scene in cars, buses, trains and trams nowadays to find a septuagenarian to be cursing the current generation for being the way that it is. Well, it's not just the current generations' dressing sense that has become an eyesore for the older generations but also their lifestyle, music, behaviour and their mere existence seems to be a curse of God. And I being an inhabitant of the modern world had to face it quite often and felt that there was need for this to be discussed. So as a spokesman of the innumerable maligned co-members of this generation, I fire up the debate here.

To start off, people were never born they way they are today. Their environments – that at home and outside home, that at school, college or office and that at society – influence them and mould them into the men and women that they are. So if a kid of 15 today utters a phrase that is sociably unacceptable, then we do not deem it necessary to find the roots of this behaviour in someone of the previous generation who had passed on this legacy and instead behave as if this rotten fruit has fallen from the sky. If a boy of 10 is found cheating at school then we do not even bother to think that maybe his behaviour is being influenced by what he sees his father doing at home and office, taking bribes and neglecting duties and whiffing off any mention of it by saying "Everybody does it". If a teenager of 16 is found smoking or drinking, then have the people who are cursing this generation stopped to think that he might be just emulating his father, brother, uncle or the friendly neighbour next door; a person of the previous generation. The blame game is on and the few perpetrators of all these heinous activities seem to become the sole representative of the modern generation.

I would say if today's generation lacks the basic courtesy and moral fibre, then it has been a failure of our previous generations in passing it down to us. We were not born with that learning that we are to give our seat to an old person or a lady while travelling by bus. We learn it from our previous generations who are well versed with the ways of life. So if we have failed in inculcating these civil norms then it is the whole round failure of our previous generations in guiding us the proper way. In fact I myself have been a victim of my good upbringing. Once travelling by bus in a journey of 4 hours, I saw an old man boarding the bus. The way that I have been brought up, I courteously got up and offered my seat to the man and stood hanging in front of him in the sweltering heat of the Indian summer. After about 30 minutes of the bumpy ride, the couple sitting to the right of the old man stood up to get down and I took position to squeeze myself into one of those seats. But to my utter dismay and that of the people around me, the old man had put his hanky on the seats and was busy calling his grandson and granddaughter to sit beside him. Well, after that day, I have been careful enough to offer my seat to only SINGLE old men – i.e. someone unaccompanied by such relations.

Well, returning to where I had left before visiting the nasty 'daddu', it is not always the fault of a kid that he is like that. A girl of 16 is chastised for wearing short skirts. But where did she get the idea of wearing it that way? If it's the media to be blamed then isn't it someone from the previous generations creating such content, and if it's the parents to be blamed, then isn't it two members of the previous generation again who were too self-centred enjoying adult content while forgetting to shelter the unadulterated mind of their little kid from such influence. If kids of today do not respect their elders then isn't it a reflection of the scheming mentalities of their parents that they behold every day scheming against their own parents, siblings, relatives, bosses, neighbours and everyone imaginable. The last aspect of so called modern insanity is music. Music of today has been founded on the fundamentals of yesterday. So if the music of A R Rehman, Anu Mallick and Vishal Shekhar duo seems jarring and unmelodious then one should stop to consider that their inspirations lie in music composers like R D Burman and S D Burman from the past.

So, it has been a natural progression of time and an evolution of the present generation from the combined efforts of the previous generations. What we are today is what the previous generations have made us. And I'm not proud of what we have become. Hence, the older generations should now stop blaming the current generations and trying to wash off their own responsibilities. It's high time that they accept their failure and constructively work with the present generation to repair the damage done till now. Let us each make an example of ourselves and lead by example instead of shrugging off responsibility and putting the blame on others.

Correct usage of the wrong words

 

"Fuck Off dude", "Fuck You!!", "Screw you man" or "Go to Hell"; common expressions of casual banter that we find in the lingo of the modern educated intelligentsia of India. Because of my sadistic bend of mind and my usual hobby of bheja frying my serious thinking friends, I do get a whole lot of these beautiful phrases dipped in various extents of emotional cocktail. However, in recent times with the exponential increase in the usage of these phrases I started analysing their favourite words. So here's a snapshot of my ongoing research that might help all and sundry by improving the usage of these words:

1. "Fuck Off dude" – Hey people, just hold on for a second. Whom are you telling this? Fucking is supposed to be an extremely pleasurable activity. So if you're telling someone to fuck off, you are actually telling him "Pestering me is a waste of time. There's a whole bunch of pleasurable activities that you can do. Just go and try them". That actually should be a statement of irritation or a mild playful reproach for someone who's bothering you more than you had bargained for. So use it correctly. And be careful; never use it with Profs or bosses. You got to be the most defective piece of the almighty's handiwork on earth to wish something so good for them.

2. "Fuck You!!" – Again a proper usage of this phrase needs to be done. The usual usage being to say that "I DON'T AGREE TO WAT YOU SAY". Well good enough. But then why are you wishing him to do something abysmally more pleasurable than eating your head.

3. "Screw you man" - Still under research. As of now, you can use it as and when you want in whatever proportions you want. Wait for the updates when I get a hold of it.

4. "Go to Hell" – Man, you need to see some ads. Well, hell is the next happening place. And you're wishing the person to go there. Oh wow, u must be a real good buddy of the person. Anyways, so if you want the person to really suffer then use "Beg in Hell" or "Rot in heaven".

Now, with every research there are always some expected and some unexpected results. Some of these outcomes later on go to be big inventions while some peter away unnoticed. The following phrases have been a part of the ongoing thought process to improve the English vocabulary. So here are a few more phrases that you might find handy according to your mood.

Go Rape Yourself – Well that's a pretty nasty way of telling someone that you wish him/her to "leave you and do something infinitely more painful in the most dangerously lonely way". Wow, that feels really good! It's the ideal statement to whiff off some pestering pest or to give words to the exploding mass of anger dying to come out of you.

Hang below heaven – That's better than go to hell. After all you don't want to send the person to a happening place. So you ask someone to be continuously be tempted by the beauty of the 'apsaras', bored by the monotonous music, irritated by the cleanliness all around and yet not be able to do anything since your hanging for your dear life. Wow that's torture of the 4^th degree.

Rot in Heaven– "Isn't that LEGEN – wait for it – DARY", as Barney would have said it (please refer to the sitcom 'How I met your mother' for a more visual explanation of the previous phrase). Can u imagine a worse thing happening to someone? A place where people are partying without a trace of anything even remotely gray, you are rotting. Just imagine the hatred that you would be emanating from your more physically sound compatriots.

I hope the modern guy and gal has been really emancipated by the tons of B***S*** that I have written before.

Statutory warning: The aforementioned passage was written when I was extremely frustrated with life, love and work and did not know how to while away time. So unless you are absolutely without any possible work to do, read it.