There is a Bengali Saying whose English Translation is exactly casting pearls before the swine.
Whom do I argue with? On what subjects do I argue?
I argue with people whom I want to improve, and so I argue with those I love and therefore I want to improve.
I argue on subjects that can be improved (as per me),
By this very reasoning I will also argue with my bosses and my management for improvement of the organisation I work for. The day I do not do that is the day I have made up my mind not to work for it anymore-- give a chance....
So I think a person who argues with his loved ones will also argue with his bosses.. A person cannot be different in different situations if he not a fake.
Problem is therefore---> Who cares for your arguments?
None!!
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Friday, January 20, 2006
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
What is Happiness? [Imaginary Letter to Friend-X]
Dear X,
Enough of light talk and joking as friends. Some serious talk today?
Ahhh.. now I can see you flushing… angry… red… No No.. I am not going to say anything that will make you uneasy dear friend.
I know you now. That is why I do not even address you as ‘Dearest friend” See? Have I? I mean I could have as you are my only friend around – believe it or not- as I feel one-way. Right? Ok then. So just forget this topic and see what I want to say.
After a loooooooo----ooooooong time I have a lot to say suddenly.
Not particularly to YOU. So do not worry. Today I shall talk on happiness. It has nothing to do with you at all. But what I think happiness is. Hey you close my mail now and go back to work. Because this is going to be a long mail. If you really want to read, read it later… when ? I do not know.. maybe never? Hmmmm… I am serious.. maybe never would be fine with me as long as I do not know !! But if you read then promise to read slowly, my Dear X. That is how I would like you to read all my mails. I am being honest. I do not want you to read my mails in a hurry and I really mean that if you do not read I will not mind as I wont know. But if you read I would like you to keep my trust and read slowly. Why slowly? Because that would show some respect to me LOL !! I took so much pain to reproduce this on paper (from the depths of my hyperactive mind) that you should also take same time to read. No I am not telling you the truth here. I want you to read slowly so that you understand what I mean and so that my writing makes you think and makes you come out with your thoughts. So far you have not done this. Probably because some wrong idea ingrained in your womanish head makes you feel that sharing thoughts with a man in writing makes you vulnerable to …. Well all sorts of attacks from the male brigade!! What??
You should have understood by now that my mails should not make you uncomfortable, as they are not meant to be so. I do not write to you because I want to have some relationship with you, I write to you because I need to talk and since I need to talk I cannot talk to the wall. I have to talk to someone. And in you I seem to find that someone, that is all. I do not want you to fall in love with me or I want to fall in love with you or anyone for that matter. You are very intelligent and so should have understood by now. Of course you may tell me you do not need to understand me. Right. You can also ask me ‘Why me?” Right again.
Why you? Because I feel you will listen. I feel you will read. Even if you do not reply. Don’t have to. I may be wrong. I may be totally a wrong impression about you. YOU MAY BE A VERRRRY SELFISH LADY IN THE WORLD ONLY WORRIED about yourself and your family and your shares and your job/ career, and whatever you love in life!! It is highly probable. And moreover why should I even think you are selfish? It is QUITE NATURAL TO BE LIKE THAT. Everybody is like that!! Eeverybody is bothered about themselves only. I am like that too!! Am I not? Here I am writing to you to feel light. I am not bothering myself to know whether you want my mail or not! So, X, I do know this all…… I am selfish too.
Then why am I writing to you if I know all this? Simple. I really do not know. Does this frighten you? Hope not!!! Not knowing something is not frightening. Not knowing how to handle the answers is frightening. So the day when I know the why I should also know how to handle the answer. That is all and I shall cross the bridge when I need to.
Today I have come here to talk of an abstract subject & nothing about you at all so am sure you will not feel uncomfortable. All this is just an introduction—warming up and clearing your doubts lest you ask me why the heck am I mailing you again!!!???. Anyway let me continue now….
So as you ask. It is fine that you, shantanu, feel you have to speak to someone.. you go crazy if you are not able to do that.. . and it is quite obvious that you are not able to talk to your bloody wife!! What the hell.. you are a man and married so why the heck you keep bothering me with your bloody thoughts.why don’t you tell all these to your wife?…. and here you have to disturb my eyes making me read these long mails from a blubbering male who seems to be mad? I must clear this up. I do feel guilty. I do love my wife a lot. Everybody has her good points and bad. I do too. It is not about her at all. She is a good wife, she is a good mother. She quarrels with me like all wives do. I quarrel with her like all husbands do. But then we make up like all couples do. One day one of us will be gone and the other will follow soon.
But all said and done, X, do not you think that in life there are times when you want to talk to someone who seems to be like you? Who seems to have the capacity to understand what you mean or what you say or more importantly who seems to be deep hearted enough to be able to listen and empathise? You seem to be like that. Inside my heart I know that you are probably least serious about what I write and you read them out of curiosity only because you like reading books and so these seem to be a book to you..like an autobiography of a mad man..or a confused man or hmmm.. maybe ‘an autobiography of a man who lost his way around the world.” So you read. But that is the point. I feel you are reading. And that is all that it takes me to pour my deepest thoughts on you. Nothing more nothing less. I never EXPECT YOU TO PITY ME, FALL IN LOVE WITH ME, COMFORT ME, CARE FOR ME, NOT AT ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I just have to have someone to talk to. The day YOU will put a stop to this WITH A BULLET.. I WILL JUST STOP. And Find someone else (if I am lucky… ) or just fade away.. or who knows?? I may start writing books and sell them to the world.
But I have to survive and so I write. Even if you are not reading this mail, I will still feel ahhhh I have written and somebody has heard.
It is a very peculiar problem in me X. I need some psychiatric treatment probably. So I keep introspecting a lot. And so I do know that something is seriously wrong with me. That I need to share thoughts like this!! I need to talk like this!! Sometimes I feel I am not man enough!!. Really X. This is like something I am trying to cure myself of. Writing to you or anyone who seems to read, probably will make me cure myself of this disease. And I write best to anyone with whom I feel is empathetic and with whom I seem to feel so too, a bonding of minds. Does that scare you??? Should not!!!!
This deep desire to wrench my mind out and turn it inside out to someone is a disease.
Yes this is a disease, because it is making me weak, making me feeble, making me unable lead normal lives at these times when this strikes! Like disease this too needs a cure. And I feel the cure is indulging in the very passion that drives me, I feel my mind bursting so I let it burst and so I write.
Writing to someone. Of course if you had replied, it would have been wonderful. But not for the sake of consoling me, but to share your views on whatever I say or said, so that I too can see what others think of the subject I talk on. Helps a lot, seeing the other people’s view and helps me in curing faster.
Today I want to talk on happiness.
Have you ever felt that despite having everything something is missing?
Have you ever felt when you had everything around you and yet something was missing?
Think back to your days when you were walking down the road in distant California and enjoying the world pass by you slowly, the people slowly moving past you busy in their thoughts and themselves. Think back to some other times when you are supposed to feel happy. Did you feel happy?
You most probably did. Then comes the question.
If I am happy, because I am able to walk down the road, or drive my car, or get my salary, or have my son admitted into college or get a gift or give a gift or go out with lunch with my best friend (oops!!), or have two bags of sweets and so on; if I am happy because of so many innumerable things that God has given me or showers me with,
THEN,
Why the heck do I feel something is missing?
What is it?
Why is it that I feel empty inside some days?
What gives person happiness?
Do not tell me it is GOD!!
Tell me if it is God then where is God?
I mean, if you plan to tell me that.
Otherwise if we contain ourselves to the non-spiritual then let me continue.
Is happiness something that comes from inside? Yes? How?
I wish I knew.
Why is it that I feel happy (now this is just for the sake of an example you may understand..) when I talk to you? Is it because we are happy when we get some things that are not ours? I mean your time is not mine. Right? So when I disturb you by talking to you I am using your times. So I am happy. Is that so? I mean you are not mine. Yet I am able to talk to you and that makes me happy. Is that so?
Is it why we are unable to find happiness? Because we continuously try to seek some thing which is not within our reach, does not belong to us, will never belong to us PROBABLY?
Is it that we will find happiness if we look at things that we have?
But then if that is so, then what do we have really?
Think deeply
You for eg. Have parents, family.
I for eg have parent, family too. I have something more, I have a wife and a kid.
But does that make me happier than you?
Do you think so?
If yes then why? Then are you unhappy? Why? Or Why not?
If no then why? Am I then unhappy? Why? Or Why not?
Is it really possible to be happy till we die and meet God?
What the hell am I DOING talking here about happiness if I KNEW all the answers? I seem to be giving all the answers. But then why am I here?
I think the emptiness inside is all the cause of the trouble in people’s lives. And I think those who have this like me are all stupid people thinking too much about everything.
Do'nt you too think too much of things? I think you do! You have never told me about anything else than mundane matters. But I too think that you think a lot of things that matter to you in personal life. Otherwise you simply cannot come to office in the morning looking unfresh. Yess. X. I think you do.
And yet I also think you have found peace of mind ..somehow at this too young an age (for being spiritual)
So probably you are the best person to tell me what is happiness about and why we feel something is missing inside.. deep inside… in spite of having everything (nearly).
DO TELL ME WHY??
You read the bible every night. So you may be able to tell me something from there
Somebody else reads the Koran and somebody else the Bhagvad Gita. Theymay be able to tell me something from there.
But if do I need those answers? Or do I need some other answers?
If I need those answers from those books, then the question still remains, why the hell am I asking these questions? Why am I NOT going to those books? Because I am not ready?
Enough of light talk and joking as friends. Some serious talk today?
Ahhh.. now I can see you flushing… angry… red… No No.. I am not going to say anything that will make you uneasy dear friend.
I know you now. That is why I do not even address you as ‘Dearest friend” See? Have I? I mean I could have as you are my only friend around – believe it or not- as I feel one-way. Right? Ok then. So just forget this topic and see what I want to say.
After a loooooooo----ooooooong time I have a lot to say suddenly.
Not particularly to YOU. So do not worry. Today I shall talk on happiness. It has nothing to do with you at all. But what I think happiness is. Hey you close my mail now and go back to work. Because this is going to be a long mail. If you really want to read, read it later… when ? I do not know.. maybe never? Hmmmm… I am serious.. maybe never would be fine with me as long as I do not know !! But if you read then promise to read slowly, my Dear X. That is how I would like you to read all my mails. I am being honest. I do not want you to read my mails in a hurry and I really mean that if you do not read I will not mind as I wont know. But if you read I would like you to keep my trust and read slowly. Why slowly? Because that would show some respect to me LOL !! I took so much pain to reproduce this on paper (from the depths of my hyperactive mind) that you should also take same time to read. No I am not telling you the truth here. I want you to read slowly so that you understand what I mean and so that my writing makes you think and makes you come out with your thoughts. So far you have not done this. Probably because some wrong idea ingrained in your womanish head makes you feel that sharing thoughts with a man in writing makes you vulnerable to …. Well all sorts of attacks from the male brigade!! What??
You should have understood by now that my mails should not make you uncomfortable, as they are not meant to be so. I do not write to you because I want to have some relationship with you, I write to you because I need to talk and since I need to talk I cannot talk to the wall. I have to talk to someone. And in you I seem to find that someone, that is all. I do not want you to fall in love with me or I want to fall in love with you or anyone for that matter. You are very intelligent and so should have understood by now. Of course you may tell me you do not need to understand me. Right. You can also ask me ‘Why me?” Right again.
Why you? Because I feel you will listen. I feel you will read. Even if you do not reply. Don’t have to. I may be wrong. I may be totally a wrong impression about you. YOU MAY BE A VERRRRY SELFISH LADY IN THE WORLD ONLY WORRIED about yourself and your family and your shares and your job/ career, and whatever you love in life!! It is highly probable. And moreover why should I even think you are selfish? It is QUITE NATURAL TO BE LIKE THAT. Everybody is like that!! Eeverybody is bothered about themselves only. I am like that too!! Am I not? Here I am writing to you to feel light. I am not bothering myself to know whether you want my mail or not! So, X, I do know this all…… I am selfish too.
Then why am I writing to you if I know all this? Simple. I really do not know. Does this frighten you? Hope not!!! Not knowing something is not frightening. Not knowing how to handle the answers is frightening. So the day when I know the why I should also know how to handle the answer. That is all and I shall cross the bridge when I need to.
Today I have come here to talk of an abstract subject & nothing about you at all so am sure you will not feel uncomfortable. All this is just an introduction—warming up and clearing your doubts lest you ask me why the heck am I mailing you again!!!???. Anyway let me continue now….
So as you ask. It is fine that you, shantanu, feel you have to speak to someone.. you go crazy if you are not able to do that.. . and it is quite obvious that you are not able to talk to your bloody wife!! What the hell.. you are a man and married so why the heck you keep bothering me with your bloody thoughts.why don’t you tell all these to your wife?…. and here you have to disturb my eyes making me read these long mails from a blubbering male who seems to be mad? I must clear this up. I do feel guilty. I do love my wife a lot. Everybody has her good points and bad. I do too. It is not about her at all. She is a good wife, she is a good mother. She quarrels with me like all wives do. I quarrel with her like all husbands do. But then we make up like all couples do. One day one of us will be gone and the other will follow soon.
But all said and done, X, do not you think that in life there are times when you want to talk to someone who seems to be like you? Who seems to have the capacity to understand what you mean or what you say or more importantly who seems to be deep hearted enough to be able to listen and empathise? You seem to be like that. Inside my heart I know that you are probably least serious about what I write and you read them out of curiosity only because you like reading books and so these seem to be a book to you..like an autobiography of a mad man..or a confused man or hmmm.. maybe ‘an autobiography of a man who lost his way around the world.” So you read. But that is the point. I feel you are reading. And that is all that it takes me to pour my deepest thoughts on you. Nothing more nothing less. I never EXPECT YOU TO PITY ME, FALL IN LOVE WITH ME, COMFORT ME, CARE FOR ME, NOT AT ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I just have to have someone to talk to. The day YOU will put a stop to this WITH A BULLET.. I WILL JUST STOP. And Find someone else (if I am lucky… ) or just fade away.. or who knows?? I may start writing books and sell them to the world.
But I have to survive and so I write. Even if you are not reading this mail, I will still feel ahhhh I have written and somebody has heard.
It is a very peculiar problem in me X. I need some psychiatric treatment probably. So I keep introspecting a lot. And so I do know that something is seriously wrong with me. That I need to share thoughts like this!! I need to talk like this!! Sometimes I feel I am not man enough!!. Really X. This is like something I am trying to cure myself of. Writing to you or anyone who seems to read, probably will make me cure myself of this disease. And I write best to anyone with whom I feel is empathetic and with whom I seem to feel so too, a bonding of minds. Does that scare you??? Should not!!!!
This deep desire to wrench my mind out and turn it inside out to someone is a disease.
Yes this is a disease, because it is making me weak, making me feeble, making me unable lead normal lives at these times when this strikes! Like disease this too needs a cure. And I feel the cure is indulging in the very passion that drives me, I feel my mind bursting so I let it burst and so I write.
Writing to someone. Of course if you had replied, it would have been wonderful. But not for the sake of consoling me, but to share your views on whatever I say or said, so that I too can see what others think of the subject I talk on. Helps a lot, seeing the other people’s view and helps me in curing faster.
Today I want to talk on happiness.
Have you ever felt that despite having everything something is missing?
Have you ever felt when you had everything around you and yet something was missing?
Think back to your days when you were walking down the road in distant California and enjoying the world pass by you slowly, the people slowly moving past you busy in their thoughts and themselves. Think back to some other times when you are supposed to feel happy. Did you feel happy?
You most probably did. Then comes the question.
If I am happy, because I am able to walk down the road, or drive my car, or get my salary, or have my son admitted into college or get a gift or give a gift or go out with lunch with my best friend (oops!!), or have two bags of sweets and so on; if I am happy because of so many innumerable things that God has given me or showers me with,
THEN,
Why the heck do I feel something is missing?
What is it?
Why is it that I feel empty inside some days?
What gives person happiness?
Do not tell me it is GOD!!
Tell me if it is God then where is God?
I mean, if you plan to tell me that.
Otherwise if we contain ourselves to the non-spiritual then let me continue.
Is happiness something that comes from inside? Yes? How?
I wish I knew.
Why is it that I feel happy (now this is just for the sake of an example you may understand..) when I talk to you? Is it because we are happy when we get some things that are not ours? I mean your time is not mine. Right? So when I disturb you by talking to you I am using your times. So I am happy. Is that so? I mean you are not mine. Yet I am able to talk to you and that makes me happy. Is that so?
Is it why we are unable to find happiness? Because we continuously try to seek some thing which is not within our reach, does not belong to us, will never belong to us PROBABLY?
Is it that we will find happiness if we look at things that we have?
But then if that is so, then what do we have really?
Think deeply
You for eg. Have parents, family.
I for eg have parent, family too. I have something more, I have a wife and a kid.
But does that make me happier than you?
Do you think so?
If yes then why? Then are you unhappy? Why? Or Why not?
If no then why? Am I then unhappy? Why? Or Why not?
Is it really possible to be happy till we die and meet God?
What the hell am I DOING talking here about happiness if I KNEW all the answers? I seem to be giving all the answers. But then why am I here?
I think the emptiness inside is all the cause of the trouble in people’s lives. And I think those who have this like me are all stupid people thinking too much about everything.
Do'nt you too think too much of things? I think you do! You have never told me about anything else than mundane matters. But I too think that you think a lot of things that matter to you in personal life. Otherwise you simply cannot come to office in the morning looking unfresh. Yess. X. I think you do.
And yet I also think you have found peace of mind ..somehow at this too young an age (for being spiritual)
So probably you are the best person to tell me what is happiness about and why we feel something is missing inside.. deep inside… in spite of having everything (nearly).
DO TELL ME WHY??
You read the bible every night. So you may be able to tell me something from there
Somebody else reads the Koran and somebody else the Bhagvad Gita. Theymay be able to tell me something from there.
But if do I need those answers? Or do I need some other answers?
If I need those answers from those books, then the question still remains, why the hell am I asking these questions? Why am I NOT going to those books? Because I am not ready?
How to Build a Friendship. -Another Imaginary Letter to an Imaginary Woman Friend
Hii X,
… what’s new at your end? Same as usual? Good Morning once again.
So here I am enjoying my moment writing to you and enjoying in the thought of what you will think when you read this stupid mail from me. I know you will never reply back in reciprocal length and depth but still it is fun to try to understand what may go on in your mind when you read all this, which of course is not in fun but I really mean every word of it. Most probably you read my mails every day and get more and more and convinced that I am an idiot, but harmless nevertheless. Maybe you are good to me because you are too kind to make me sad by rejecting me. Some people are too kind and don’t feel like turning down other people for the simple fact that they just don’t have the heart to do so. I know you have a kind heart too, so I say this. After all it is not so easy to know a person fully. Isn’t it so?
In fact you have read that hen laying golden eggs story? The man killed the hen in the hope he will get MANY golden eggs !! My case with you also is somewhat similar. You are replying to my mails from time to time and are also talking to me everyday when I meet you. So whatever little bit I am getting from you as friendship I should be happy ..like that man that got ONE golden egg everyday.. but NO!! I want to get all the golden eggs and here I am egging you with my same old plea be my friend be my friend ..-- be my friend.. Shit!! What a mad chap I am !! We are already friends! What is the doubt about that!! What more do I want from you!! I am sure you are crying now out of desperation..… thinking what have you done to deserve all these people around you who seem bent upon making you lose your sanity..!! Hmmm let me see if I can explain what mad thoughts go on inside my mind…sighhhh…I have read somewhere that the conversartion among people at office who are colleagues 99% of the time or maybe 100% time revolves around office gossip and office politics. Therefore concluded in that essay that this is the reason why friendships don’t flourish so much among office colleagues. After all to become good friends you have to share more than mere office gossip, like we do too most of the times. But the silver lining is that we do discuss some 5% of other things too, I know that.
I am enjoying this DESOLATE PLACE in my own way. I always enjoy wherever I am. Because for me -- enjoyment is a state of the mind… I look at life as a moment in eternity… when I am at home I have my family…THAT is a moment in eternity… when I am at office I have my colleagues , now THAT also is another moment in eternity ….the moments are all distinct, .here for now, and gone tomorrow, and a new moment will come… when I am at office the same happens….. when I am alone.. the same happens..
So what is common??………….. Me!! Silly!!! Since I am the SCF ("Same Common Factor"- Something like a HCF in Maths ) in every situation it is me who has to adjust isn’t it so. And I only have to adjust my reactions to the different signals that come in to me from different persons. Like when I am with you I always get good signals which make me feel comfortable and peaceful near you. That is why we need not even talk and you can very well go on working on your pc and I can sit for hours in front of you thinking of other things in my mind and yet not feel uneasy or make you feel uneasy. That is the positive nature of signals that flow from you to me. And who is responsible? You. Because you are a good person through and through. It is always the other person who is responsible for making one comfortable around him or her.
When I am with you too… it is me who has to adjust (like I have to check myself to see that I do what you like and avoid doing what you don’t like……....That is how I see any situation.. and since I believe Life is too short.. I believe in soaking in every moment of my life… whether it is at home or with you or here at this MOST DESOLATE PLACE! .. What about you? Would you like to tell me about yourself? What do you feel about such things? What do you think of life? Tell me if you are feel free enough with me today.
Don’t worry if you are not ready.. It takes time to believe, time to believe the other person and his intentions. But you do share a lot of your outer thoughts and personal problems with me already. I always promise that they will always be with me only and never let out to anyone else. Even if we have quarrels, which you say sometimes, which I will never have, as I keep telling you. The probability of my getting angry with you is zero now as I have accepted you as a good person and my friend too, of which I have very, very few in my life. Even here in my hotel room when I am thinking of you I am getting only GOOD feelings about you!! How can I , in such a case, ever get angry with you. Sad maybe yes, but never angry. Sad because one day you and I may be too far away from each other to maintain even this small friendship which we share between us today by virtue of being in the same office floor and sad because you will probably never keep in touch by mails or otherwise if we are far away as all said and done whatever I may be feeling about you is certainly not what you may be feeling about me. But sadness does not make a person spill out the other’s secrets. That’s why I keep saying that all your information is safe with me forever. I will always look at you as a friend of mine even if that is not reciprocated by you. Ah yes what I can give to you in return for this friendship, which I feel towards you is something which only time can tell. I don’t know myself as I am not really habituated in nourishing a good friendship for the simple reason that I don’t know how to because I don’t have many friends.
I have a real life story to tell you but I will not. But that story has a moral in it. It is about Faith being greater than anything else in life. From Faith comes every other relationship, be it love or be it friendship or be it companionship. The problem is that in a short span of your life you have met so many people like X, Y and now Z ONLY ...… gosh, I don’t blame you if you cannot have faith in men!! There are really so many such men around us that women are really not safe. Of course for the other type of women too it is therefore very easy to take advantage and shine in their lives taking help of such opportunities. Do you ever stop to think why so many men around you want something from you all the time? Some want to “talk” to you on sat evening after office (vc), Some want to sit beside you (ms). Some want to listen to you (me). Why do you think all have the same reasons? The reasons will be different depending on what they see in you. You will have to understand that aspect. That’s all is needed.
Since it is difficult to understand the other person, why don’t you have faith in yourself rather and then see what happens? Give enough rope to people and then pull it tight to strangle them if you see signs of negativity. Generally speaking, you should have just enough Faith to make you believe that it is YOU who have something great inside that makes people want to be your friend? Something in your character that makes people like me want to be near you some times? Something that is beyond your simple womanhood, which you never ever exhibit, rather something more strong like intelligence and charisma and friendliness and strength of character which you constantly emanate from your persona? The warmness of your nature and the kindness that is inside you which makes you more beautiful than any other women? Why don’t you have faith in yourself that this is the reason why some men like me want to be your friend? What is it that, at my age and with my nature whereby I can tell a woman to get out from my room, if she says I am after her like a cheap guy on the road, with my roughness and rude nature, I find inside you to that makes me softer and calmer whenever I am in your presence? It is YOU and your charisma. I really wonder nobody has ever told you this!!! Men like me don’t take advantage of women like you when they become friendly. Men like me have never therefore had girl friends or women friends and the likes as we never can hurt a person. We are not flamboyant we feel through our minds and thus we may get hurt but never hurt the woman we are friends with. And believe me we don’t go by what we see, we go by what we feel inside the other person. I can never be a friend with people who are shallow. We are different. I say ‘WE’ because I do believe I am not unique and there are many men whom you have met or will meet who will see you as a person and not a woman and will not misconstrue freeness and frankness and friendliness as an invitation to danger!! I know this is the reason you never reciprocate my long detailed mails and you will not reciprocate this either, besides the probable reason that while I may see something attractive in you, you may not be seeing, which is VERY NATURAL. But the fact that you do continue to reply to me shows that you don’t disbelieve me either. (Thank God!!). So that’s why I get the courage to say all this to you, because I feel that you will not reject me outright. There is some small liking for me inside you, and that goes beyond your simple need to have a “sounding board”, right? Some small traces of friendliness, which you feel towards me. Well, I wish it is so, I may be wrong still.
And then what is friendship? The definition of friendship changes as we age, develop responsibilities and mature. When we are children, friendship is a game. We play games with our friends and fight and we don’t go beyond that. At this age it is therefore easy to be friends with anybody. Like a boy arrives at a new locality. The other boys call him up and welcome him to join them in cricket and that’s the beginning of a friendship, which has no belonging as such but the only link is the game that play every evening. When we are in our youth, we start sharing some life with the other, sply if we are in a hostel together or bunk classes together or see films together or study together. This is the time when one develops that real best friend or special friend. At this age some maturity has creeped in and some definite will of our own, due to which we make friends with less number of people as we are now learning that we cannot adjust with everybody. The mental link that develops at this age is through common interests. Here also the signs of Love appear if the liking goes beyond a reasonable state. I am not talking of love here so I will not discuss this further. Now at an older age, the family status also matters. Here you will find that the individuals are completely grown up people and so just doing common activities will not sustain friendship. Here you will rarely find that a bachelor man is very welcome in a married family. Not because of the risks involved as much as the different ways of entertainment the two groups follow. Then bachelor will be more likely to go on binges, movies, outside food, staying out late etc. But the family, sply as it grows older and gets more responsibilities in terms of children growing older etc, will have other occupation and will not find time to go out anytime they want to or stay out late etc. So this mismatch is what prevents different types to become friends. This mismatch even prevents a single woman to become friends with a married man or vice versa, as the single woman thinks she is being looked at as if she is available for a binge or “something on the side” (this word was the exact word used by a man to his net friend. I know as that lady told me herself and how she got hurt at that revelation and how she kicked him out) and in the case of a single man with a married woman too the single man thinks the married woman is coming to him for something on the side. These things happen as we don’t see relationships normally in our society. The wife will not like the husband to develop friendship with other women, single or married nor the husband will like his wife to develop friendship with another man. We have to live with that. But is it worth it in this short life? That we cannot do what our hearts and minds want, as long as it not something negative, meaning it hurts people and relationships. I think we can.
I will explain now. What is the common factor in all the above definitions of friendship that drives the relationships? It is the shared interest. Or the common ways of life or common likes and dislikes that two friends share between themselves. Like once you had a good time with your friends in office. Right? Can you think of any other factor? Yes. There is something else that drives friendship and if this clicks then the friendship can be everlasting pure/ platonic and irrespective of age or status of life. This comes from the mind. When two minds click it generates a friendship, which is blind. Blind to the looks, blind to the sex. That is why there are so many incidences of rich friendship thriving over the net , where we don’t even see each other so neither know what the other person looks like or even whether he or she is really a he or a she. They thrive solely because their minds have clicked and whatever they speak to each other and when they listen to each other the good feelings flow and so they remain friends. So what I am saying is that to answer your question to vc that day “why a man and a woman cannot become friends without the creeping of sexual intonations in India or the world” is because we don’t know how to become blind and trust your inner senses, our MIND. If we know how to become friends via the MIND we can overcome this obstacle. What does two person do in such a “mind friendship”, as I call it? One thing you have already done with me and do most times, using me as a sounding board. Yes a very good word you used!! Two friends whose minds have clicked, do share a lot of thoughts about their lives, past-present-future & thoughts about their day to day decisions with one another. It is always nice to have someone whom you can fall upon and talk to. It is required by all people, irrespective of how big their families are. One friend is required by all person with whom they can share even their family troubles, not that the friend can give good advice, but it sometimes happens that just by talking with that person you feel relaxed even if you may or may not get the solution, which most of the times comes from one’s within only. Such mind friends share mostly mental time together and so do not need to meet physically, can talk on phone, by emails or even face to face sitting anywhere, not necessarily at a coffee shop or any particular day and time like sat evening after office hours. They can do this even during office hours and in the passage or the staircase. Such mind friends don’t go out together to have fun together but go out together to share quality time and just to feel good and fun etc are just secondary outcomes. They may even go to the sabji market, for that matter, is what I am trying to say. Other than mind friends will rather go to the movies or drives or TGIF, if you get me what I am trying to say. Real mental friends can go out anywhere with each other as they don’t need the PLACE to support their time together, they have themselves to take care of that, unknowingly. Getting me? I am sure you have got what I mean by the definition of mind friendship. You don’t even have to TALK when you are with your mind friend. Do look back on your life and try to recall, did you ever have a friend like this? You may have had ..or maybe this situation happened to you momentarily when you felt comfortable with someone. That was it!! Of course all said and done, when a man and a woman becomes mind friends you cannot deny the chemical attractions, that is God’s gift to mankind. I am, though not talking about that.,
And to end this discourse on “friendship” I want to say this that in you I have seen a mind that is capable of this relationship. Now it is ANOTHER question with whose mind it can click. It need not be mine!!!!! Certainly it cannot click with everyone. And when you find such a person you will see that you will too have no problems in sharing your thoughts with him or her (not that it has to be a HIM, can be anyone) and you will not require to follow the established path of expressing friendship.
What I am saying is that I have always been asking you to be my friend (and “for life”—which phrase I will explain later today or later) …. I know you have never really reciprocated in a very OPEN manner.. No woman does that!! Nor DO I recommend such openness!! Because for a Woman in India such OPENNESS only attracts trouble. Now in situations of doubt how does one know what is right? Or what is not? okay? I say……. I say it is your inner faith which should guide you, your own intuition that is based on your faith in yourself and your ability to TALK the TRUTH and Listen to the TRUTH.
It is like this, If I know I cannot do no wrong, I can rest assured that I can resist if the other person wants to do wrong. If I know myself I should be able to know the other person too. If I am comfortable with myself and have faith that I don’t give out an image of what I am not, then why should I think that the other person would think me different? Yes there are fools who don’t see the signals and misconstrues but then I also have to have faith in myself that I can handle that . Isn’t it like that with you too?
Bye & take care [I think today I have really put my foot in my mouth, but I really like you very much and what more can I say about you than this? That should tell you something about you. And so when I say I want to be near you most of the times and I keep thinking of you or missing you I say all that with purity in my heart like a friend. Of course it would be untruthful of me if I also don’t say that I miss your watery eyes, they always seem to bring to me thoughts of the deep sea. You know what a sea signifies? Depth and mystery, You never know what is under those tons of water. So too when I look into those eyes of yours I get lost in the depth behind them. They are beautiful in that sense. Now don’t get red with either shyness or anger. Both are not good for health, the former for you and the latter for me !!!]
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… what’s new at your end? Same as usual? Good Morning once again.
So here I am enjoying my moment writing to you and enjoying in the thought of what you will think when you read this stupid mail from me. I know you will never reply back in reciprocal length and depth but still it is fun to try to understand what may go on in your mind when you read all this, which of course is not in fun but I really mean every word of it. Most probably you read my mails every day and get more and more and convinced that I am an idiot, but harmless nevertheless. Maybe you are good to me because you are too kind to make me sad by rejecting me. Some people are too kind and don’t feel like turning down other people for the simple fact that they just don’t have the heart to do so. I know you have a kind heart too, so I say this. After all it is not so easy to know a person fully. Isn’t it so?
In fact you have read that hen laying golden eggs story? The man killed the hen in the hope he will get MANY golden eggs !! My case with you also is somewhat similar. You are replying to my mails from time to time and are also talking to me everyday when I meet you. So whatever little bit I am getting from you as friendship I should be happy ..like that man that got ONE golden egg everyday.. but NO!! I want to get all the golden eggs and here I am egging you with my same old plea be my friend be my friend ..-- be my friend.. Shit!! What a mad chap I am !! We are already friends! What is the doubt about that!! What more do I want from you!! I am sure you are crying now out of desperation..… thinking what have you done to deserve all these people around you who seem bent upon making you lose your sanity..!! Hmmm let me see if I can explain what mad thoughts go on inside my mind…sighhhh…I have read somewhere that the conversartion among people at office who are colleagues 99% of the time or maybe 100% time revolves around office gossip and office politics. Therefore concluded in that essay that this is the reason why friendships don’t flourish so much among office colleagues. After all to become good friends you have to share more than mere office gossip, like we do too most of the times. But the silver lining is that we do discuss some 5% of other things too, I know that.
I am enjoying this DESOLATE PLACE in my own way. I always enjoy wherever I am. Because for me -- enjoyment is a state of the mind… I look at life as a moment in eternity… when I am at home I have my family…THAT is a moment in eternity… when I am at office I have my colleagues , now THAT also is another moment in eternity ….the moments are all distinct, .here for now, and gone tomorrow, and a new moment will come… when I am at office the same happens….. when I am alone.. the same happens..
So what is common??………….. Me!! Silly!!! Since I am the SCF ("Same Common Factor"- Something like a HCF in Maths ) in every situation it is me who has to adjust isn’t it so. And I only have to adjust my reactions to the different signals that come in to me from different persons. Like when I am with you I always get good signals which make me feel comfortable and peaceful near you. That is why we need not even talk and you can very well go on working on your pc and I can sit for hours in front of you thinking of other things in my mind and yet not feel uneasy or make you feel uneasy. That is the positive nature of signals that flow from you to me. And who is responsible? You. Because you are a good person through and through. It is always the other person who is responsible for making one comfortable around him or her.
When I am with you too… it is me who has to adjust (like I have to check myself to see that I do what you like and avoid doing what you don’t like……....That is how I see any situation.. and since I believe Life is too short.. I believe in soaking in every moment of my life… whether it is at home or with you or here at this MOST DESOLATE PLACE! .. What about you? Would you like to tell me about yourself? What do you feel about such things? What do you think of life? Tell me if you are feel free enough with me today.
Don’t worry if you are not ready.. It takes time to believe, time to believe the other person and his intentions. But you do share a lot of your outer thoughts and personal problems with me already. I always promise that they will always be with me only and never let out to anyone else. Even if we have quarrels, which you say sometimes, which I will never have, as I keep telling you. The probability of my getting angry with you is zero now as I have accepted you as a good person and my friend too, of which I have very, very few in my life. Even here in my hotel room when I am thinking of you I am getting only GOOD feelings about you!! How can I , in such a case, ever get angry with you. Sad maybe yes, but never angry. Sad because one day you and I may be too far away from each other to maintain even this small friendship which we share between us today by virtue of being in the same office floor and sad because you will probably never keep in touch by mails or otherwise if we are far away as all said and done whatever I may be feeling about you is certainly not what you may be feeling about me. But sadness does not make a person spill out the other’s secrets. That’s why I keep saying that all your information is safe with me forever. I will always look at you as a friend of mine even if that is not reciprocated by you. Ah yes what I can give to you in return for this friendship, which I feel towards you is something which only time can tell. I don’t know myself as I am not really habituated in nourishing a good friendship for the simple reason that I don’t know how to because I don’t have many friends.
I have a real life story to tell you but I will not. But that story has a moral in it. It is about Faith being greater than anything else in life. From Faith comes every other relationship, be it love or be it friendship or be it companionship. The problem is that in a short span of your life you have met so many people like X, Y and now Z ONLY ...… gosh, I don’t blame you if you cannot have faith in men!! There are really so many such men around us that women are really not safe. Of course for the other type of women too it is therefore very easy to take advantage and shine in their lives taking help of such opportunities. Do you ever stop to think why so many men around you want something from you all the time? Some want to “talk” to you on sat evening after office (vc), Some want to sit beside you (ms). Some want to listen to you (me). Why do you think all have the same reasons? The reasons will be different depending on what they see in you. You will have to understand that aspect. That’s all is needed.
Since it is difficult to understand the other person, why don’t you have faith in yourself rather and then see what happens? Give enough rope to people and then pull it tight to strangle them if you see signs of negativity. Generally speaking, you should have just enough Faith to make you believe that it is YOU who have something great inside that makes people want to be your friend? Something in your character that makes people like me want to be near you some times? Something that is beyond your simple womanhood, which you never ever exhibit, rather something more strong like intelligence and charisma and friendliness and strength of character which you constantly emanate from your persona? The warmness of your nature and the kindness that is inside you which makes you more beautiful than any other women? Why don’t you have faith in yourself that this is the reason why some men like me want to be your friend? What is it that, at my age and with my nature whereby I can tell a woman to get out from my room, if she says I am after her like a cheap guy on the road, with my roughness and rude nature, I find inside you to that makes me softer and calmer whenever I am in your presence? It is YOU and your charisma. I really wonder nobody has ever told you this!!! Men like me don’t take advantage of women like you when they become friendly. Men like me have never therefore had girl friends or women friends and the likes as we never can hurt a person. We are not flamboyant we feel through our minds and thus we may get hurt but never hurt the woman we are friends with. And believe me we don’t go by what we see, we go by what we feel inside the other person. I can never be a friend with people who are shallow. We are different. I say ‘WE’ because I do believe I am not unique and there are many men whom you have met or will meet who will see you as a person and not a woman and will not misconstrue freeness and frankness and friendliness as an invitation to danger!! I know this is the reason you never reciprocate my long detailed mails and you will not reciprocate this either, besides the probable reason that while I may see something attractive in you, you may not be seeing, which is VERY NATURAL. But the fact that you do continue to reply to me shows that you don’t disbelieve me either. (Thank God!!). So that’s why I get the courage to say all this to you, because I feel that you will not reject me outright. There is some small liking for me inside you, and that goes beyond your simple need to have a “sounding board”, right? Some small traces of friendliness, which you feel towards me. Well, I wish it is so, I may be wrong still.
And then what is friendship? The definition of friendship changes as we age, develop responsibilities and mature. When we are children, friendship is a game. We play games with our friends and fight and we don’t go beyond that. At this age it is therefore easy to be friends with anybody. Like a boy arrives at a new locality. The other boys call him up and welcome him to join them in cricket and that’s the beginning of a friendship, which has no belonging as such but the only link is the game that play every evening. When we are in our youth, we start sharing some life with the other, sply if we are in a hostel together or bunk classes together or see films together or study together. This is the time when one develops that real best friend or special friend. At this age some maturity has creeped in and some definite will of our own, due to which we make friends with less number of people as we are now learning that we cannot adjust with everybody. The mental link that develops at this age is through common interests. Here also the signs of Love appear if the liking goes beyond a reasonable state. I am not talking of love here so I will not discuss this further. Now at an older age, the family status also matters. Here you will find that the individuals are completely grown up people and so just doing common activities will not sustain friendship. Here you will rarely find that a bachelor man is very welcome in a married family. Not because of the risks involved as much as the different ways of entertainment the two groups follow. Then bachelor will be more likely to go on binges, movies, outside food, staying out late etc. But the family, sply as it grows older and gets more responsibilities in terms of children growing older etc, will have other occupation and will not find time to go out anytime they want to or stay out late etc. So this mismatch is what prevents different types to become friends. This mismatch even prevents a single woman to become friends with a married man or vice versa, as the single woman thinks she is being looked at as if she is available for a binge or “something on the side” (this word was the exact word used by a man to his net friend. I know as that lady told me herself and how she got hurt at that revelation and how she kicked him out) and in the case of a single man with a married woman too the single man thinks the married woman is coming to him for something on the side. These things happen as we don’t see relationships normally in our society. The wife will not like the husband to develop friendship with other women, single or married nor the husband will like his wife to develop friendship with another man. We have to live with that. But is it worth it in this short life? That we cannot do what our hearts and minds want, as long as it not something negative, meaning it hurts people and relationships. I think we can.
I will explain now. What is the common factor in all the above definitions of friendship that drives the relationships? It is the shared interest. Or the common ways of life or common likes and dislikes that two friends share between themselves. Like once you had a good time with your friends in office. Right? Can you think of any other factor? Yes. There is something else that drives friendship and if this clicks then the friendship can be everlasting pure/ platonic and irrespective of age or status of life. This comes from the mind. When two minds click it generates a friendship, which is blind. Blind to the looks, blind to the sex. That is why there are so many incidences of rich friendship thriving over the net , where we don’t even see each other so neither know what the other person looks like or even whether he or she is really a he or a she. They thrive solely because their minds have clicked and whatever they speak to each other and when they listen to each other the good feelings flow and so they remain friends. So what I am saying is that to answer your question to vc that day “why a man and a woman cannot become friends without the creeping of sexual intonations in India or the world” is because we don’t know how to become blind and trust your inner senses, our MIND. If we know how to become friends via the MIND we can overcome this obstacle. What does two person do in such a “mind friendship”, as I call it? One thing you have already done with me and do most times, using me as a sounding board. Yes a very good word you used!! Two friends whose minds have clicked, do share a lot of thoughts about their lives, past-present-future & thoughts about their day to day decisions with one another. It is always nice to have someone whom you can fall upon and talk to. It is required by all people, irrespective of how big their families are. One friend is required by all person with whom they can share even their family troubles, not that the friend can give good advice, but it sometimes happens that just by talking with that person you feel relaxed even if you may or may not get the solution, which most of the times comes from one’s within only. Such mind friends share mostly mental time together and so do not need to meet physically, can talk on phone, by emails or even face to face sitting anywhere, not necessarily at a coffee shop or any particular day and time like sat evening after office hours. They can do this even during office hours and in the passage or the staircase. Such mind friends don’t go out together to have fun together but go out together to share quality time and just to feel good and fun etc are just secondary outcomes. They may even go to the sabji market, for that matter, is what I am trying to say. Other than mind friends will rather go to the movies or drives or TGIF, if you get me what I am trying to say. Real mental friends can go out anywhere with each other as they don’t need the PLACE to support their time together, they have themselves to take care of that, unknowingly. Getting me? I am sure you have got what I mean by the definition of mind friendship. You don’t even have to TALK when you are with your mind friend. Do look back on your life and try to recall, did you ever have a friend like this? You may have had ..or maybe this situation happened to you momentarily when you felt comfortable with someone. That was it!! Of course all said and done, when a man and a woman becomes mind friends you cannot deny the chemical attractions, that is God’s gift to mankind. I am, though not talking about that.,
And to end this discourse on “friendship” I want to say this that in you I have seen a mind that is capable of this relationship. Now it is ANOTHER question with whose mind it can click. It need not be mine!!!!! Certainly it cannot click with everyone. And when you find such a person you will see that you will too have no problems in sharing your thoughts with him or her (not that it has to be a HIM, can be anyone) and you will not require to follow the established path of expressing friendship.
What I am saying is that I have always been asking you to be my friend (and “for life”—which phrase I will explain later today or later) …. I know you have never really reciprocated in a very OPEN manner.. No woman does that!! Nor DO I recommend such openness!! Because for a Woman in India such OPENNESS only attracts trouble. Now in situations of doubt how does one know what is right? Or what is not? okay? I say……. I say it is your inner faith which should guide you, your own intuition that is based on your faith in yourself and your ability to TALK the TRUTH and Listen to the TRUTH.
It is like this, If I know I cannot do no wrong, I can rest assured that I can resist if the other person wants to do wrong. If I know myself I should be able to know the other person too. If I am comfortable with myself and have faith that I don’t give out an image of what I am not, then why should I think that the other person would think me different? Yes there are fools who don’t see the signals and misconstrues but then I also have to have faith in myself that I can handle that . Isn’t it like that with you too?
Bye & take care [I think today I have really put my foot in my mouth, but I really like you very much and what more can I say about you than this? That should tell you something about you. And so when I say I want to be near you most of the times and I keep thinking of you or missing you I say all that with purity in my heart like a friend. Of course it would be untruthful of me if I also don’t say that I miss your watery eyes, they always seem to bring to me thoughts of the deep sea. You know what a sea signifies? Depth and mystery, You never know what is under those tons of water. So too when I look into those eyes of yours I get lost in the depth behind them. They are beautiful in that sense. Now don’t get red with either shyness or anger. Both are not good for health, the former for you and the latter for me !!!]
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