Friends

I’ve always thought of myself as a fighter, or rather a striver to be more precise. I’ve always put in a lot of hard work to achieve things. In the 27 years that I’ve been here I’ve learnt and benefited from my association with everyone.

My closest friend ever has been my knight in shinning armor. He taught and showed me that a person’s inner turmoil or difficult & seemingly unsolvable equations of life must never be allowed to be the cause of a frown on one’s face. I’ve tried to live like this for a long time now. Trying not to allow that frown to caress my forehead. I’ve been successful and then unsuccessful. But, I’ve tried nevertheless. And, feel proud to say that I’ve given it my best shot.

Off lately (the last couple of months) I’ve been under tremendous pressure on more fronts than I could possibly imagine and handle. And, needless to say that I’m trying my best to come to terms with them all and emerge victorious. Sounds gallant, ehh!! Lols!! But this is not what I want to achieve by writing this.

A rather strange but not entirely unforeseen turn of events has made me stop, look back, ponder, analyze. I’ve asked the rhetorical question only too often to myself “Am I doing something wrong here?”

A popular saying goes something like this ‘it is at times like these that the true potential of an individual comes to the fore’. When you are trying really hard, how often have you asked yourself, if for once you can go out unshackle yourself and shout from the rooftop, that ‘Here I am’, come and get me for all I care? But, then you don’t unshackle because so many people depend on you, so many people have hopes from you, so many people hold you in high regard. And you continue your battle or you “Live to die another day’.

At times like these when you can’t share things with your parents as you know they’ll never understand, you think of banking on your friends.

‘Friends’ in today’s world is an unsolvable conundrum, a paradox of sorts.

People who call me friends and whom I call friends are numbered. I’ve always lent my best possible ear to them. I’ve always thought of myself as a good listener, always trying to empathize with the ones that I like or would want to like [:p]. I know more secrets of people than they can possibly imagine. I’ve heard them rant and rave about nothing and everything; in essence I do this ‘cause I like them and truly feel for them.

I consider myself a man of few words when it comes to talking about me. I rarely give vent to my feelings, unless ofcourse when I’m too drugged. On one such occasion I chose to talk about the problems in my life that I’m struggling to counter and that too after a constant nagging by someone. And post that I was called a ‘sympathy-seeker’. This one day I was shocked and actually pondered over the events of the day to see if I’m indeed a ‘sympathy-seeker’ and the one to be blamed or has the ‘friend’ in picture misunderstood.

In the end I’ve realized that it was my fault, and I’m the one who needs to stand corrected. Aye aye Sir!

But just when I was closing the chapter, I did a peek-a-boo at the life of some close friends of mine. And what did I find? Surprise! Surprise! I found that almost all of them were struggling with vicissitudes of life. A close friend of mine broke up with a long time girlfriend and he didn’t even tell his friends. Instead he chose to write about it on a blog. Another close friend instead of talking about his love life wrote about it; again on his blog.

I found similar stories emerging out of closets of friends; in droves when I delved. It was then that I realized that the talk of the world in 21^st century as connected is all crap. It is not instruments/gadgets that can bring one to be truly connected. It is genuine caring and being there for friends for even the most simple and naïve of things that will make on truly connected with friends. I’ve realized this and will work towards being more connected in the near future.

So friends, watch out for me! :-)