friends..

yup yup...friends again, but this time, not only the sitcom but 'you have clowns for friends' group of friends that i have in blr...

i have watched friends everyday for 10 years now...i remember it started on Star World 10 years ago...it started, if i remember right, on the first day of my 12th board exams. if ur an Indian, you know what 12th board is, its basically ur career, and everyone, everyone is tense. ur parents treat you extra special, people call up on a daily basis to ask 'kevu gaayu exam aaje'...but their is also this hanging tension anywhere you go..ur home, ur friends home...the streets even. '12th na boards chale che' atmosphere anywhere you go....

anyways, which is a word i think i picked up from Friends, although the 's' at the end is mine, well anyways, i missed it the first day, and then negotiated with my parents that i will take a break between 9 - 9:30 to watch friends, and study the rest of the time. i loved it the first time i saw it, didn't understand it too much, but just friends hanging around all day long and having fun...used to laugh a lot, and that used to vaporise the tense cloud around me.

over the years...friends has been a constant companion, sometimes just to entertain, sometimes to support me. i remember watching 5 episodes back to back when i had my accident, and wanted to sleep but was too scared too....it started many conversations, one song, gave me many analogies and many lines.

today, after watching the re-run over re-run, and living through my life along side, i realize that friends was so popular, is so popular, because over its run of 10 seasons, i has all kinds of situations, everything that people just outta school, going to their jobs, living alone expect to experience, and so you connect. the best part is, it showcases each of that situation with a funny tone, there is always a line by one of those six which cuts through the tension, and u leanr that sometimes, always, laughing over ur situation is maybe the best way of living it.

i today have a group of very similar friends, we are 7, and we do all the same things. relationship crap, work woes, drama in life, and the individuals, each different, each very well defined.

and they are fun to be with, we have accept each other, questions each other on the way we are, but always to make each other better, never imposed. we know mostly everything about each other, all the gory details, we know that some are a bit perverted, that some are selfish, that some are kiddish, some are drama queens, some are too rigid, and almost all have a level of kaminapanti...but we all are great friends. we share and have fun.

and we entertain each other, there are small time situations happening on a daily basis, and there is huge drama around each situation, but each such situation is handled with a level of humour which makes the situation fun, easy to handle. ofcourse you also get support to handle that situation.

i never wanted to belong to a group, but here, without even knowing it, i do. and its been a life saver many times.

cheers to my friends...to sandha, dude, shogo, kauky, shaitan, mai, me and some more who come and go...and to friends, i hope never to get bored of it!!!

best friend / boy friend

'Marry your best friend, nothing is better' - i read this long time back in an article...

Someone asked me, what if you are more compatible with your guy best friend, more then ur boy friend...

and that led into a series of conversations on the topic.

Well, i think a boyfriend and a best friend are two different things. your expectations are different. you expect support from the best friend, you expect the best friend to question you, advice you...

you expect security from the boy friend, you expect him to be possessive about you...

ur expectations not satisfied by a best friend don't hurt that much, but not the same with a boy friend, simply because you feel a 'haq' on him. you feel he owes you that.

If you go shopping together with ur bestfriend, and the two of you will mostly argue on it, but with a boy friend, there will be a sense of disappointment, 'ah you don't like this' kinds.

also, it would be ideal if ur boyfriend is also your best friend, very ideal, but doesn't happen often. guys anyways are dumb idiots, i was giving an example that the fact ur boyfriend hears ur rants for an hour on the phone, is a big thing for him. stop cribbing about him not understanding what you are saying.

but boyfriends need to be trained, tuned to ur frequency, and that takes patience...this is one thing which perfects over a lifetime, if its perfect at the start...it'll become boring afterwards...

Soulmates is what i believed in, believe in...but someone told me about soul people group, basically meaning you can't everything from one person...but a group of people...makes sense sometimes. but yea nothing better then finding ur soulmate.

sorry for the girl talk, am gonna visit an auto show later in the day, so will write about some macho stuff soon...;-)

later.

ank

its not my cause...

recently there was a some major events, almost a blitz of events celebrating LGBT movement in my workplace...and i was asked many times to join. i didn't

the celebrations and what they asked for was very valid, acceptance, and the same treatment as everyone else. and i totally agree with it. i don't know if its a natural choice, or something acquired, what ever it is, its a choice, and there is no reason to question it.

this blog is not about LGBT, but more about why i didn't participate in it. i just didn't think it was a worthy cause, i just didn't think it required to be given as much importance, as much hooplah, as many other problems we face.

there was an article in the TOI today, a politician was asked if his taking the oath in Hindi instead of Marathi, and all the noise around it, had taken the focus away from other issues, the performance of the govt as one. and i think it did. agreed, the right to take an oath in Hindi, which also talks about bigger issues, is important, but compared to the performance of the govt, not that much.

But then i don't blame the politician, or the LGBT, it is their cause, they need to highlight it. and someone needs to write about it, the media that is.

but my problem is with the media who gives undue importance to issues which make the news, which sell.

there should be a regulator for the media, its been debated, and yes i think there should be a regulator. whether the regulator should decide on the importance of a story, well no they shouldn't, but they sure should be verifying the facts being reported. because frankly, what is reported becomes the truth. for someone sitting a hundred miles away, truth is written.

as for me not participating in the LGBT thingy, well, i just don't think its worth that much importance, i am not sure about how much percentage of the population are LGBT and go through the social stigma associated with it, but from perspective, can't be larger then the kids dying of hunger, or lack of education or environmental issues. But LGBT is a controversial issue, it gets eyeballs, it is easy to sell. and i truly believe, we shouldn't sell what is easy to sell, but what needs to be sold.

again, no offence to LGBT, i am only against undue importance given to a lot of things when looking from a macro picture level.

my first controversial post...but this i had to write.

take care

ank

after a long time...

i have written about association before...am just developing another theory!!!

associations are nothing but part of habits, if you take habit as a process, which is done without any thought put into it, by instinct, then associations are the triggers to this process. there are routines in the process, lunch break-teammate-smoking is a routine, with team mate being the association...

doesn't make sense i know...anyways what i am saying is that i have been trying to quit for some time, every friday evening i smoke my last....every monday morning i have to stop at the coffee shop and i have to smoke. its an association i have...well i broke that and then discovered that there is another association, my teammate invites me for a after lunch sutta everyday, if i refuse he is disheartened, i thought he was just offended but its actually disheartening for him, this is his only sutta of the day, and its not the same if he doesn't have company...so i have to smoke.

so i basically have to make him give up his one break of the day for me to stop smoking...

i love those days where is like dawn all day long...

so once you start discovering one of a kind, u start discover many...its amazing in how, a very short period you start frequently noticing something of the same kind, which in all the years gone, you never ever have. 14th Nov the date, in ten years i have discovered so may people with their birthday on Nov 14, its weird. discovered two more today...

well not a very good example of the funda there, but the funda is actually true. it works with words, u see a word which is new, and then u start seeing it more and more...

maybe u just become more sensitive to it, u notice it only because its in ur head, and we look for things which we know, its gives us the 'aha' feeling.

another thing, to start with u like a persons physical apperance, but soon, very soon, if ur like me, it trancends that...and then the physical appearance doesn't really matter....more later.

PS: It always irritates me when bloggers don't blog for a long time, and then when they come back, they start with a huge 'i am sorry, i was doing this and that...' posts but were really just being lazy...so even though tempted, i am limiting it to just the title... :-)

and yea...happy birthday!!!