Friends

A few days back, I updated my orkut profile. From living “with parents” to living “alone, friends visit often”. ..Friends are family now. More than any other relation in the world, friends brighten up your day, day after day. They are the people with whom you share every joy and pain and lay bare your deepest desires and fears. I like what Anais Nin said about friends:

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.

In a Utopian world, friendship would be only based on the kind of person you are. But fallible people that we are, glitter sells more than gold. Trivial things like the way somebody dresses or looks, matter. Else, we cage ourselves with shackles of our language or region. The other day, one of my friends asked-“Aren’t boys better friends? They aren’t selfish, jealous or gossipy. True, you can’t ramble on about emotions and feelings to them but, they’ll help you in need even after you’ve had a fight.” I asked back-“Why aren’t you thinking beyond stereotypes? It’s a person’s values and not their gender that determines good friends.”
As he caught the word “friends”, another friend observed-“You know why I love being with my friends. At times, when I am upset about something, and sit silently; my family will nag me about it. They’ll want to swoop out of the sky like Superman and solve all my problems. Even when they don’t understand. But with friends; with my friends I can just be…”
When I think of friendships, another thing that comes to mind is that why don’t people let a guy and a girl be just friends? A small spark starts a fire of gossip that can char a platonic friendship. Somebody please tell them to give it a rest.
At times, you have a friend so cherished, that nothing could ever dissolve or even threaten the bond between the two of you. For a friendship to be a nonpareil, friends should not be absolute copies of each other. Their basic plane of thinking should be same, otherwise they won’t find any joy in each other’s company. But, in other domains, they can be starkly different and still be happy together. Celebrating differences makes you grow more than closed cliques.
When friendship takes root in one’s heart, love blossoms. Platonic love does not bring with it the sweeping winds of teenage love. It is more the quiet intimacy of a couple celebrating their silver anniversary. Like true love, true friends are also hard to find. But, when you do find one, you no longer wonder what an angel looks like. Somebody who’ll always be there for you, before everyone else and even when everyone else has turned their back on you. A shoulder to cry on, a listening ear for life’s troubles. Just the thought of them brings a smile to your lips. They can make you smile through your tears. And they are the ones who’ve seen you crying out of happiness. And that somebody is so much a part of you that the thought of going away….It’s just too hard to bear.
Hard indeed it is when a friendship breaks. A broken friendship is a stinging wound. A wound that takes too long to heal. Misunderstandings and pent-up anger can break the bonding thread so easily. The bond shatters like glass when trust is broken. There’s an element of trust in every relationship, which when broken once, remains a scar forever. Have you ever lost a friend to things that need not have happened? A day ago, there was the joy of companionship; a day later, there’s a void. You are left behind with memories of shared laughter and tears. Had you been a child, you would have wiped your tears and extended a friendly hand, but, now egoistic adulthood has closed the doors.
“Ask and it shall be given unto you, knock and it shall be opened”. Sometimes in life we think we don’t need anyone. But sometimes we don’t have anyone when we need….So, if you have been keeping to yourself; go out and seek a friend. And…your world will become better.

Note: I had written this article for Sizzling Sands 08, BPGC annual magazine which came out in print last month.

Studying Economics

Taking a transfer into economics is one of the best decisions of my life. I amn’t doing all economics courses this sem, but still even two of them are enough to make me happy. At least I have things like POE (Principles of Economics) to look forward to when GAN (Graphs and Networks) or maths makes me feel like running away from college.

People still comment on my quitting chemistry. People includes, as u can guess, people from the chemistry dept. One of the seniors called me an eco spy who stayed in chem. for a year. Another prefers the term “dhokebaaz”. :D Surprisingly, even the faculty loves the game. When I was registering for economics, unfortunately every faculty at the desk was from chem. One of them says “you hate us, don’t u”. My protests were silenced. The truth is I do like chemistry; it’s just that I like eco more. Even today, when I passed one of them, he said “so, studying economics”. What am I supposed to reply?

I will be doing only economics courses in the third year. This sem, I have just two of them, POE and DYSOC (Dynamics of social change). A smaller name for it would be sociology. It is like going back to tenth standard social science and English again even though the course content is totally different. Till now we’ve done things like sociology of religion where we actually debated the origin of religion and the rise and fall of Hindutva. Getting to study all this in a technical institute gives a whole new meaning to diversified education. Most of my friends dislike, no, hate the subject but I happen to be an odd one out.

I also got another morale boost today when I read my eco Prof’s blog (yes, she writes one). Her classmates sure have done well in life. gvkumari.blogspot.com

So, that’s the world of eco for me.. .. .u r welcome to comment on it.

So Happy to be home

It is wonderful to be back home after four and a half months.
The best part is the welcome that you get after coming home. The kitchen cupboard is filled with the foodstuff I like. The fridge has all the chocolates and delicacies I like. And my mom has even remembered every brand correctly.
खाना रोज़ मेरी पसंद का बन रहा है। हर दिन menu पूछा जा रहा है। चिंकी आज इंदौर से वापिस आ गई है।
There's broadband in which a site actually opens when u click on it.
So, all I am doing is eating , sleeping (like a log) and surfing.
In short, Life is BLISS.....