Not Those Average Friendships.

My mother just returned from a reunion with her high school friends. They have met after twenty long years. Though some of them are in contact, a major part of them have gotten in touch a few weeks ago only because of Facebook, and of course, the WhatsApp groups. The internet is a wonderful thing. Sometimes, I am surprised at the remarkable things it introduces to us.

When my mother got in touch with all her high schoolmates, I did not fathom that their whole class would come together for a reunion. Twenty years is a long time definitely and one cannot be convinced that the entire class would actually come together. Well, they did. All of them. All thirty of them. My mother did not stop talking about her friends after she came back. Just like in all high schools, there is the helpful one, the planner, the envious one, the bully, the class leader, the conversationalist, the high achiever, the low-key one, and you get the drift. Looks like the 1970s and 1980s weren't so different after all.

I've always imagined that after you reach a certain age, you stop having friends, mostly because you move on with the other phases or life or move to different cities. I'm afraid, countries! But the fact that two of my mother's friends flew in from the USA, practically shattered all the myths I've built around the reality of friendships. I mean, we are clearly talking about people that withstood twenty years of friendships without any issues whatsoever about geographical restrictions. It gave me a new hope that no matter how old we get, and how well we master the art of pretending that we are all grown up, there is always a child within us that yearns for childhood. It makes us yearn for the high school days because what's more eventful in anyone's life than high school?

This brings me to another thing, it is people who make things like this happen. Not the Internet. It is just a highly powerful medium that amazing people use to their advantage. It's spectacular, right? The kind of things that friendships make us do!

And oh, this time, I have a song for you: You're My Best Friend by Queen

Love Has A Universal Echo, Okay?

There was a point of time when I would write poems on anything. The last time I wrote a poem was for a boy who is not my muse any longer. I cannot write poems that often now.

Today, the internet connection at work was pretty cranked up and I was forced to pick my pen and journal to gather my lost thoughts.

It is said that love has a universal echo. I am also a firm believer of it. Most of the people too claim that they believe in it. Then why are we against homosexual couples, same sex marriages? With the Internet flooding with the thoughts, memes, petitions against homosexual couples, multi-coloured profile pictures on Facebook, maybe we must realize that there is nothing unnatural about people from same gender falling in love. Maybe it is high time even we progress with the world, and maybe this is just another evolutionary process.

Sure God created Adam and Eve, but God also created love and I am guessing it is the people who lay out these rules. Nope, not God. He has better things to do. However, I do not want to get into the nitty-gritty details of the human creation, but here’s the deal --there is nothing unnatural about it. And if you still say it is unnatural, well then let’s have it this way, nothing that is beyond our comprehension deserves our contempt.

It deserves curiosity perhaps, but not disgust.

My attempt might be futile, but this is a tiny poem (I am afraid I cannot even call it a poem) I have written on this:

Tainted and broken, he looked at the world with an uncertainty,

Misunderstood and mistreated, he fervently hoped for a miracle,

But when he walked down the aisle for him, he was no longer blemished,
In love, he found answers to all his questions.

Love certainly has a universal echo and let this be a beginning to a lot of positive changes in the world.


P.S. Talk about this instead of changing fancy multi-coloured display pictures on Facebook.

***

Picture: This picture has been taken from one of the wedding shots of Neil Patrick Harris (Our lovable Barney Stinson) and David Burtka.

No Internet. Just a Getaway.

“We refuse to turn off our computers, turn off our phone, log off Facebook, and just sit in silence, because in those moments we might actually have to face up to who we really are.” 

― Jefferson Bethke

What happens over the weekend stays with the weekend.

I've always wanted to say lines like these when I was a teenager, but even as a teenager, I was a pretty normal (Actually, boring) person who really chose books over anything.

This weekend, I've tried doing things a little differently. For starters, I traveled to a place I love a lot. And I've survived two whole days without my phone and laptop. 

I would not call the experience overwhelming. But it was a much coveted break from my otherwise monotonic weekend.

I read, ate, consumed copious amounts of coffee, watched TV (Actual TV. I do not know when was the last time I actually enjoyed watching TV), played Scrabble on board all by myself. I did all these things without taking pictures for Instagram, or tweeting lame stuff like, "Coffee time!"

Of course, things like eating ice-cream go unsaid. Because I just cannot do without it.

I watched the sunrise and the sunset without any filter. I scribbled a lot of things in my notebook, and read a magazine without any interruption from WhatsApp. 

I made real time conversations with people. I have decided, no more WhatsApp for me. If I want to make conversations with people, it has to be in person. If people want to make conversations with me, it has to be in person or over a call.

Perhaps a year ago, I met this man who suggested me to try not using WhatsApp, but I mocked him in his face, and I still remember he was a laughing stock for my group of friends and me for at least a week. He did not have a Facebook profile or WhatsApp account.

Looks like he wasn't entirely wrong!

Ever since its inception, Internet has been killing our imagination. All I do on the internet is read some good articles (which is a great thing), watch movies or sitcoms, but I waste most of my time on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.

And I think, I will stick to enjoying the aroma of coffee rather than posting it on Instagram! (Not all the time, of course.)

I've made a resolution to keep the Internet (My phone and the laptop too) off every weekend; I do not care even if the world is falling apart, I will not waste my time on the Internet on Saturdays or Sundays.

I'd rather live them for the simplest pleasures of life!

P.S. It is Monday. I am on the Internet and I hate it.

New Year's Resolutions??

I have secretly sworn on following *SIX* resolutions that I took on this New Year and I must admit that I have failed miserably. Not everyone can follow the resolutions and the person who follows them comes into the category of “I-don’t-know-what”. Okay, they call it "the survival of the fittest" but hello, who cares?

So yeah, what are we good at? Making and breaking promises? Hell yes! :-D Nevertheless, it’s good to have resolutions; they make you feel important and you almost hallucinate that you are following a certain set of guidelines. Period.

And here I go-the six resolutions that have already taken a toll on me and I ended up un-following them just in three months:

1) I will drag and throw away all those clothes that I haven’t worn since an year. I will clean up my closet.

Was I an idiot to make this as one of my resolutions?

2) I will NOT get connected to Internet, Google, mobile, laptop, YouTube, twitter etc. I would rather do some real time tasks.

Okay okay, facebook too. Happy?

3) I will learn all tricks of good cooking and will turn into a master chef. And I turned into a master hogger.

4) I will maintain a diary. Yes, I will. I will make an entry of all my major goof-ups, daily misnomers, and the lessons I have learnt. I have always wanted to maintain a diary since I was a sixth grader and almost all the diaries ended up as the rough copies for my math practice. *Sigh*

But hey, does a blog constitute for a diary?

5) I will stop adding “super” in front of every damned word. I feel like a stupid teenager every time I use that word but I cannot stop using it. :|

 

6) Focus! Focus! And focus! I should be able to focus and complete all my articles on time before the deadlines sneak. Yes, I will not procrastinate. I will complete my pending work instead of opening my word document and log in to Facebook and day dream.