Thursday, January 3, 2013

User-Friendly Rich Boyfriends & Influential Friends! Kareena Kapoor Chronicles It For Bollywood


KALYUGS NEW 'LOVE YOU'

Whatever happened to the friends you stood and stared with. The ones you met because you wanted to ‘hang out’ with, for no reason but that you liked each other. Not ‘loved’ each other instantly, but grew fond of over time and most importantly tide. High-tide. Not because you wanted to network, raise money, sponge on, but because you wanted to chat, read, grow and know together. 

Yes, I know, it’s all very old fashioned and not at all ‘cool’. So then my question is, what is cool? To have boyfriends who ‘buy you presents’, ‘pick you up and drop you and spend on you’ , “have a big home in a good place” to free-load on until you find someone ‘richer’ you can free-load on and ‘butter-up’? Or you dump him when he doesn’t deliver on the picking up dropping and big bucks?

Two girls standing cheek to cheek saying ‘loooooove you” in a shrill sing-song voice to each other. They are posing for a BBM picture to declare their love for each other to the world. Never mind what is in their hearts. The heart is full of what you can extract from your friend to better your prospects in life. After all this is supposed to be a kalyug phenomenon. Where love is the most easily abused word. Like toilet paper. Let’s not even get into loyalty and longevity. ‘Love you’ in today’s lingo usually means, I have ‘x’ number of agendas with you, you are useful to me and I intend to milk you for all you’ve got. Once I’m ‘done’ with you, I’ll just evaporate. 

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The friend’s hidden agendas to get to know more people through you and to achieve more power socially it was, that had brought on the overwhelming love, that brought on the ‘butter up’ syndrome.  It might sound harsh, but your friend was a smooth speaking sales-girl at heart. 

Madhur Bhandarkar so aptly shows how Kareena Kapoor in 'Heroine' uses cricketer Randeep Hooda to get a role in a film, and then promptly moves on. Madhur is well known to play fly on the wall to life and reproduce some ugly facts on celluloid, real world chronicle of our times what say?

 People feel used, however rich or famous they are, Salman Khan known to be sensitive and giving, had allegedly called SRK a "matlabi insaan" who 'picks up the phone only when he needs people'. That was before they ostensibly made up. True or not that's how Salman’d felt, and that's the way people feel until you take the time and trouble to work at it or work it out. Shah Rukh Khan did take the trouble!  It takes investment and effort to build relationships, if you’re the person with a value system, breeding and have seen strong relationships with your family. Unless of course the game was about extracting all the usefulness, and you’ve been seen for what you are. In which case it’s better to wake up and smell the coffee...

Friendship, companionship and bonding do exist, but just like the forest, animals and trees- man himself seems to be denuding it out of the world. And fast. It is the trend of our times. Relatives and brothers and sisters are materialistically dismantling each other. Relationships and friendships like greenery and wildlife is another causality to man’s material and technical evolution. I’m wondering if a time may come when if we need a hug we’ll have to turn on a Robot to tide us over someday.

I quote famed film-maker Vidhu Vinod Chopra on our times “I have no friends beyond an extended cinema family. My expectations from friendship are so great that in the present situation it is difficult to get a real friend, because everybody is so self-centred and wants to use you in one way or the other, or get used to move on.”

 And yet, I know from experience that one can survive life’s ravages with a friend at hand better. Luckily I have friends who've stood the test of high notes and low notes that make the music of life. Even life’s most trying moments can be crossed over with uncomplicated friendships of spontaneity and action, where you could talk, laugh and it would not really matter what you spent time doing, because being together is more important than having an agenda. If  you have a real friend, cling to him or her. Not a con-man out to use you for their hidden agenda’s, where the real motivator could be very different to what you think it is. True friendships and relationships have no agendas.

Just a few short years ago, one sat at the window, and delighted at the chirping of the sparrows.  One wonders where they've disappeared. The mind processes are working along the same track now vis- a-vis 'friends’. Have they disappeared? I have friends, indeed, good friends, but I now need to consider it the benediction of fortune. The loneliness around, the stories one hears, once the topic is raised, of betrayal, deceit, disloyalty, back-biting, raise goose.-bumps. One philosophically glosses over it as an inherent human trait, malignant even in the hoary times of the Mahabharat. But friendship with the accompaniment of loyalty, helping, standing by, or just plain companionship without agenda, was almost taken for granted until awhile ago. Literature and movies Hollywood and Bollywood, brought to us heart wrenching tales of its nobility and test.

These too are inherent human traits. So, can sociologists explain the see-saw tilting so much and so fast to the undesirable side. Already 'Family bonds'  are going the way of the forests and tigers! It’s not enough to nod ones head and say 'Materialism'. It’s a malaise if not dealt with, will leave a society not worth the epithet. I think the present times have inculcated and ingrained selfishness, competition and gain as the prime path to happiness.  But thìs 'Scrooge' like existence defeats itself. It’s a lonely world where its each one for himself. We HAVE TO RETRACE OUR PATH and teach the child the simpler more fulfilling joy of sharing, caring; lending  a hand; holding a hand;  laughing together and crying together. The term 'riches' takes on a richer meaning.

The question is how do you solve this fast spreading epidemic?

  •  By quashing the ego that believes you are so attractive and engaging that everyone gravitates and loves you instantly. 
  • By waking up to the fact that it is not you but what you bring to the table that is attractive. By turning on our higher intelligence to survive the coming decades. 
  • By tuning into ones emotional intelligence with love, compassion, creativity, inspiration, and especially learning from these inspirational experiences that might look harsh but are great learning’s which grow your immunity and nourish long-term mental and emotional health.

I’d say it is time to tap the higher consciousness and  spiritual intelligence and maturity to enhance a larger sense of self and then you automatically encourage and attract the beautiful friends , rare and beautiful and not easy to come by. Like sifting the chaff from the wheat.

Nisha JamVwal

Written For & Published in Deccan Chronicle & Asian Age

Tweet her on @nishjamvwal


Email Nisha at nishjamwal@yahoo.com

13 comments:

  1. nisha beautifully written, you know how to touch the right emotion that people feel and are going through but can't express in words or don't want to talk about,i am sure everyone who reads will relate to it... in some way or the other .. you are not afraid to say its a big bad world of users and fakeness. wish people lwould look into their heart and souls and realize .. is this the future we are giving our children .. hope it makes everyone who reads this think . thank you again for this wonderful write up

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  2. this is such a relevant article for our times, can so associate with this.
    Kudos to you for telling it like it is and standing up for what is correct

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  3. I have posted twice before but do not see my comments here, looks like your blog doesn't like me N. A very well written piece, actually, I needn't say it, it has to be good when N writes!
    I agree with you in terms of the changes we see in our society today. Friendship and love (so called) have become means to an end relationship. I always thought ways were means and not people, but sadly we see this happen around us. I wouldn't blame the people much for this change. In this age of conspicuous consumption relationships have become like commodities where friends are used and thrown. Gone are the days when we could just call upon a friend for a chit-chat now a code of conduct has to be followed. Having said this, I would say there are individual differences between people and they are mostly dependent on the manner in which we are socialized in our formative years. We still can consciously bring up our kids in a manner that they value 'values' more than things!

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  4. Nisha,a very timely written article. Sad but true. Fair weather friends and user friendly intentions are ruling the roost. Its an artificial era where the self image is thirsting to be quenched.

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  5. Nisha, I could not agree more with you here. It is quite unfortunate that things have to come to a point, where everything is driven by the "what is in it for me" thought!
    It is easy to say that we have a thousand friends on facebook or a hundred on BBM, but how many of them can you really turn to when you need them?
    Wonderfully written piece, but leaves so much for one to think about(and perhaps also change)!!

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  6. Nice article,makes some one to think and change.

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  7. Dear article more than wonderful Fanh suggests many ways from the reality of life, but each community duty of customs and traditions of communities in the Middle East differ from communities in Aruba hand culture of Nahihtaaml people with some time he was named Time Gemayel was in need named Love was in the meaning of his nameloyalty and sacrifice without charge Dear today is different today named conflicts civilized conflicts money order for power the world live in a forest major governed strongest but not that mean that there is no love Pal versa love exists ČÓ Nader is real love, but love interests many Albzns sex drugs etc.etc etc but need his love of romance and passion de Almugodhvy many European and Asian communities unlike Eastern societies, especially Araby and Islamic as sorry dominated by his evil religions conflict one way and falls The good Fella malleable many money end

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  8. Beautifully written and so true! We find ourselves surrounded by "friends" but how many of them can we consider actually real and genuin? For example our facebook pages will be loaded with hundreds of friends, but im sure come our birthdays a minor fraction of them will actually take the time to wish us. I was told once that you'll only ever have four TRUE real friends in your life, and if you actually have those four you are really a very special and lucky person, and luckily im fortunate enough to be part of that club just about. Never let anyone pull you down or make you feel like you need them to get anywhere in life, really they need you.

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  9. A heartfelt one as always!!! The times of "A friend in need is a friend indeed" doesn't exists anymore!

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  10. thank you for writing in and acknowledging, sharing, caring views about an article that is based on a personal take and close to me, an article that chronicles materialistic times, an article that describes what kalug was described as in Hindu treatise'

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  13. thanks for sharing this topic m realy thankful to u 4 Bhk flats in noida

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Nisha JamVwal Roller Coaster Called Life