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?
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. CLICK BELOW ON THE 'READ MORE' ICON TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE.....
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.
- 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
