Friends!!

I am a typical Libran. It takes me a lot of time to make friends. I like people who are simple. I am allergic to show offs and cunning people.

First of all, in today’s world, it’s pretty hard to find such people and then it takes me a while to trust them with my inner thoughts. By the time I am convinced that I have made a good friend, its time for the person to move on. At least that’s what has happened to me since childhood.

I found it very difficult to make friends even in school. I used to take a lot of time in knowing and trusting them completely. When I would make a close friend, something or the other would happen that would distance us. This has not happened just once, but many times. A close friend of mine shifted to another city, one left school to join a boarding school somewhere, one just disappeared into oblivion without enough reason, and another one went abroad for higher studies. Once my friends moved away it was very difficult to keep in touch with them. We exchanged letters with fervor for some time, but then just drifted apart slowly. I am in touch with a few of them even now through emails, but it’s not the same anymore.

I can never fathom why this happens to me again and again. My husband tells me that friends are there in our lives to just give us company for a while. They come into your life for a purpose and then disappear once the purpose is solved. The only permanent friends you have are your parents and your spouse. I know he is right in a way, but I still miss my friends. It still hurts every time I lose a friend.

A frustrating experience in office

If someone sits and listens to all the bullshit that goes around the office about data, stats, processes, implementation, quality, and creativity, he/she will realize how much is being spoken about it, and how less is actually done. All of them pose as if they know what should be done and are experts in it.

There is no process documentation and nobody has a clue as to what should actually happen. All they do is guesswork. If it works, great; otherwise, it results in some re-work - offline. Nobody gets to know what happened to the quality and timeliness that is preached on the organizational level.

They allocate you to some project for the entire day, but you have nothing to do. Somewhere, some team is working on the project and you are still in the project to clarify their doubts and just be there incase they need you. You can’t fill in that time as ‘No Projects – Self-learning’ coz you actually are in some project. If you put in your days work in some weird category under your project, the Project Manager rejects it saying it is unnecessarily increasing the project cost.

You try and raise something as an issue in the team meeting; you get the work to improve the process. You feel glad with the new responsibility you have been given. You slog day & night to establish what you think should become the standard in the organization. The next day you try and get it approved. Guess what’s the reviewer’s reaction? “No No No No, you don’t understand. This is not we want. I asked you to document the stuff coz I thought you were senior enough. But this is really bad work! This is shocking! Please re-work on it and send it to me.”

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ…………

When someone fights with me...

I know lots of people who can fight with ease and say the right thing at the right time. They can recalls what happened decades ago and bring up those issues in a matter of seconds. Even if they have made up with the other person in past, they will dig out the same issues and faults and intensify the fight. I am one of those fools who can’t even fight intelligently.

When someone screams at me uselessly or picks a fight, I go blank and start thinking why the other person is accusing me of such a thing. I get so engrossed in the thought and find the situation so unbelievable that I can think of not a single thing to say in my defence. It is only in retrospect that I can think of 100 things to defend myself and counter-accuse the person.

There have been so many times when someone has accused me of emotionally not handling a situation properly or reacting in an unpleasant way, but I have never been able to explain my ground to them in time. I have only felt frustrated at that point of time and later cried to release my pent up emotions, never been able to defend myself and prove that I was right.

One more ‘problem’ of mine is that I can never retain my anger. I happen to cool down so fast that it acts against me. It doesn’t leave me with enough frustration to stick to the fight and make the other person’s life miserable. My irritation or dissatisfaction at not having the last word in the fight remains for a while. If the other person asks for forgiveness in time, I forget all about the issue and make up. But, in case the other person doesn’t, he is included in the list of the people I dislike for a certain period of time. Once that irritation wears off or the person in question doesn’t act unpleasantly again, I forgive and forget him.

Is it OK for a happily married women to have male friends?

I recently saw a movie called Life in a Metro, which had a very interesting storyline. A married woman whose marital life has gone a little bitter finds true love again in form of a friend who travels with her in train everyday. They have a few common interests and enjoy being together. Thought she feels guilty at making a male friend and enjoying his company, she can’t stop herself from indulging in this little pleasure that relives her of her everyday life pressure. They first take this as a harmless, platonic friendship but then as their friendship blossoms and they build trust in each other, they find that what they share is more than friendship.

Thus, when it is said that a man and woman can’t be ‘just’ friends, it is right to quite an extent. Usually, when a girl meets a guy and finds him worthy of her friendship, they exchange their contact information and stay in touch. Over a period of time, they interact, get to know each others likes and dislikes. If they still happen to like each other and appreciate some aspect of each other's personalities, they try and stay in touch constantly. This strengthens their friendship and helps in building trust. If this couple happens to be unmarried, things are simple, they have the freedom to carry their friendship to the next level and fall in love.

On the other hand, if they are already engaged or married, things take a different turn. If one or both of them are in unpleasant relationships already, this pushes them to rethink about their current relationship and give in to the temptation of taking the new relationship to the next level. This was also seen in the movie Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna. Both Rani and SRK are seen to put an end to their marriage and marry each other. Whereas, if they are in a healthy and happy relationship with their spouse, they can remain good friends and also be faithful to their partners.

This is what I think, what do you think?

My Ten Guilty Pleasures

1. Eating French fries and potato chips
2. Eating chocolates and pastries
3. Eating puchkas and samosas
4. Drinking my favourite cola or orange drink
5. Shopping for expensive cosmetics, clothes and shoes
6. Getting an expensive skin or hair care procedure done
7. Chatting and making friends online
8. Lazing around doing nothing
9. Skipping my workout to laze around
10. Watching a silly movie in a multiplex just for the heck of it

Dasvidaniya - Movie Review

Dasvidaniya is a sweet and simple movie. The simplicity and the pace of the movie might have bored a few people, but that is the USP of the movie. The simplicity and beauty with which an ordinary, middle-class guy handles the hard fact of his fatal disease really melt my heart. It shows how this character, Amar Kaul, leads a very simple life of an average individual who tolerates a routine job with an overpowering boss just because the jobs helps him in earning enough to sustain his middle-class lifestyle. He has very few aspirations and wants in life. But, then the story takes a turn and he is diagnosed with a terminal disease. He then takes a hard look at his life and then decides to give up all the things that were tying him down all his life and live life king size for the last time.

He then makes a list of all the things he wants to do before he dies. He lists all the things that he always wanted to do but couldn’t do because either he was too shy to do or thought it was a luxury. He then goes on to fulfil his desires like buying the car of his choice from the money he gets from settlement after quitting his job. He also starts learning guitar from a professional.

Of all the things he does in his last few days on Earth, I like the way he gets in touch with his old flame and his best friend. These three were very close friends in their school days and stayed in the same residential complex, but couldn’t stay in touch after college. This girl whom he was in love with since childhood, is shown to have liked him as a friend, but nothing more than that. Whereas Amar is madly in love with her. He remembers all the little things they used to do and share as children. He finds out her contact details and pretends to meet her by chance near her workplace. This girl is shown to be equally excited to meet this guy. She then takes him to her house to meet her mother and to catch up with him. There he meets her daughter and husband, and realises that he has been too late in confessing his love for this girl. In her enthusiasm, this girl keeps telling her husband about the good time they spent as children and how he was an expert at a game they used to play. Amar and this girl used to be partners at guessing the name of movies in the game of Dumb Charades. She asks her husband to give him a name of a movie, asks Amar to enact it and then tries to guess it. He is then shown to enact it and she guesses it successfully in no time.

After spending some more time at her place, he waves a goodbye to her and her family with a heavy heart. But, after sitting in his car he realises that unless he confesses his love to this girl, he wouldn’t be able to die peacefully. He then rings her doorbell again and by way of Dumb Charades makes her guess the words ‘I love you’. The way this sequence has been picturised really melt my heart.

Next, he surfs the internet to find his best friend, Rajiv Jhulka. He finds him and sets up a voice chat with him. Then instead of saying ‘hi’, he addresses him as ‘Gun master G9’ which was their way of addressing each other in childhood and then starts singing one of their favourite tunes. Rajiv is also shown joining him in singing the song once he realises who is on the other side of the line. Then they greet each other and catch up with what is happening in their lives.

Amar doesn’t disclose his terminal illness to him. He only says that he will be coming to visit him soon. Amar then plans a foreign trip, which was one of the items in his ‘Things to do before I die’ list. He is then shown to fly to Rajiv’s country of residence and meet him with great excitement. The feeling is reciprocated by Rajiv. He takes him home and introduces him to his wife. Amar makes himself comfortable at his home. Meanwhile, Rajiv’s wife happens to find out of Amar’s illness. She misinterprets his intention of coming to meet Rajiv to a foreign land after not being in touch for 12 years. She explains to Rajiv that since he is a doctor, Amar has flown down to get a free treatment from Rajiv. Rajiv gets very upset by this and tries to make her understand that he knows his friend well and this couldn’t be the reason for his coming to meet him.
Amar happens to overhear their conversation, gets very upset, gathers his belongings and leaves their house quietly, without saying anything to them. He is then shown sitting on a bench near a bridge, thinking about what he should do next. He regrets his decision of coming all the way to meet his friend only to find out how his friend’s feelings have changed for him over all these years. While he is sitting and reflecting over the thought, a prostitute is shown to offer him her service. He refuses and tries to make her understand that he is upset and does care much about her offer. They are then shown to get into a fight and Amar then, terribly upset and dejected with life, tries to jump into the river to end his life. The prostitute then saves him, sympathises with his situation and takes him to her place. She feeds him and makes him comfortable. The plot then moves on to show how Amar, experiences love being reciprocated to him for the first time. He then spends a few days in her company and then bids her a farewell to come back to India.
The movie then moves on to show how he fulfils his other desires and then at the end, leaves some gift or the other for the people who had done him some good in his lifetime. The movie ends on a happy note, showing that he finally was able to do all the things he had listed to do before he died and thus died in peace.

Eating out: No more a novelty

Eating out has become quite a norm these days. It impossible to believe just how many big and small eateries the metro cities have these days. The busier people’s life is becoming, more people have started eating out. These days, since most couples have nuclear families and are busy working, it becomes pretty difficult for them to cook three meals a day. Also, there is so much variety in food available to people these days that eating out at least once a week has become a custom.

The flood of multi national food chains has made eating out a fashion statement and a status symbol. Nowadays, if you don’t give a birthday party of your toddler in one of these outlets, a question mark is put on your status in the society. When school going children discuss these birthday parties, it becomes a matter of pride for them to inform their friends that they are going to one of these MNC food chains for a birthday treat. When asked about their choice of place for celebrating their birthday, they choose one of these eating joints over home. They do not consider home cooked food as delicious. Home cooked food is an everyday fare, so they want to treat their friends to their choice of junk food and have fun.

A proof that this industry is a booming one is that every mall in the city has a number of eating joints. Some offering sizzlers, some North Indian fares, some South Indian delicacies, some multi-cuisine fast foods, some MNCs offering junk foods like pizzas, pastas, burgers and other food stuff, and some serving only Chinese, Mongolian or Italian specialities. There is no end to this list. Every restaurant tries to offer something that differentiates it from the rest. Each mall also has a food court that helps people in selecting different kinds of food from more than one outlet and enjoy it while sitting in one place.

Lives in cities have also become so hectic and stressful that a change of environment is welcome every weekend. So people tend to flock to these malls and eating joints every weekend to enjoy the ambience and the food being offered. Even if people don’t have proper meals here, snacks and other tit bits offered sell like hot cakes on weekdays and weekends. Vicinity to office complexes is another advantage to these malls. People step in at lunch time or come over for little celebrations with colleagues.