Friendship: Then and Now

I am a self-confessed Facebook addict. If I’m not doing anything better, I’m surfing around through Facebook-scape. It’s like my Ethernet access has shrunk down to accommodate only this one particular website, like a house cut down by a cruel bulldozer to just a room. While I pace up and down this rather cluttered room of mine, I bump into many vestigial relationships. I’m talking about my friends who used to mean a lot at certain points of time, but have dissolved somewhere along the way. Many of them unsubscribed from my life when school was over, and there were many that I couldn’t keep track off. I must admit that I made little or no effort to do that, because migrations are necessary for many.

When I look at them today, I find it hard to reconcile their present with the memories of my past. I find it hard to figure out when I spoke to them last, and if I can somehow remember that, I cannot save my life to tell you what we talked about. It’s like we lived in a village that has been ravaged by the keepers of time. And then we settled elsewhere only to meet at a village fair many years later. By then we have transformed into self-sufficient units and can feed ourselves. We no longer need to join hands for a cause; we no longer need to come together again.

Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not saying that I do not like connecting with old friends. But there’s so much that has happened over the years that the person I work with knows more about me than the friend who was in the school Literary Club with me. It seems like a gigantic task to fill them up with updates, force the drab details down unwilling throats. I feel that friendship, like all other relationships, has a shelf life. Once you drag them beyond their span, you feel the burden and the weight crushes the fond memories you have. I’d pick my memories any day over reconciling myself with a stranger who looks like my long lost friend.

Ode to an Office

An incomplete poem I started writing long time back. It's about an office I worked in...

It was not a long time ago,
That I got an opportunity
To add my spirit of usefulness
And contribute toward an exercise in quality.
There exists a Gothic building,
That stands like a figure imposing;
To know more about this den,
Let's start meeting its merry men.
Guarding the door is a sentry gentle,
He neither smokes, nor chews beetle.
But he has got quite a curiosity,
And asks questions with feverish tenacity.
If you want to get through the gate,
Better come early, or you'll surely be late.
After climbing up the stairs few,
You are greeted with a solemn view.
With computers black, people sit in rows,
They work with perpetually quizzed eyebrows.
Work is not the reason for this gloom,
It's just that on the right is the boss' room!
It would not be safe to talk about
Some of these merry men,
Should they come to know of this,
They'll surely knock out my brain!
So let's go only to the harmless men,
They are nice, they are timid, they are sane.

Belong to Books

Books have always been great friends and companions to me. I grew up without any peers in my house or in the neighborhood. The only friends I had were in school and connecting with friends during the vacations or off-days were not so much in vogue, as it is nowadays. Today there are better, advanced methods of communication, and cheaper rates to use them. Add to it the whole idea of hanging-out with friends for movies and shopping didn't happen back then in the small town I live in. As a result, I had to remain holed up in the house and find ways to keep myself sane.

I never liked TV much. Listening to songs was great, but I got bored of the same songs after a certain amount of time. There was no FM or MP3. Writing about those days now, I feel I'm talking about some pre-life! So books were what I took to, other than the daily newspapers. I feel uncomfortable if I have not read the newspaper even today. My parents never asked me to put down a book that did not belong to my syllabi, even if I was reading it on the day before an exam. That built in me the faith that reading books was one way in which I can keep them contented. And so began my love affair with books and I would not hesitate a nanosecond to say that books are my first love.

I read a lot of Hardy Boys and Enid Blyton stuff in middle school. I think I have read all the Hardy Boys' books! We had a lot of them in our school library. There was a group of Hardy Boys readers. We were allowed to have only one book per week. So we exchanged books between ourselves and read about three books every week! In high school I took to Jeffrey Archer and Sidney Sheldon. I have read almost all works of Archer and quite a few of Sheldon. It was only in college that I began reading Bengali literature and English books that had depth in content.

When I started teaching English to high school students in private, I was appalled that they had never read a book except the ones that they were forced to read, thanks to the school syllabi. I pushed books from my own collection under their noses, but still they would not sniff at the alluring fragrance. I lost a few books because I forced them to take my books home and read. They never returned them, lest I quiz them. I told their parents to encourage their children to read more, but they did not pay attention. They want their children to get marks, not learn.

Books can make a life out of the mess you may be in. To anyone who does not like reading, I say that it is akin to not liking the process of breathing. Lack of education and knowledge even among people with degrees and scholarships under their belts are making things worse for the society we live in and also the future we are heading towards. I'll elucidate on this in my next post.