LION LOVE!

Let me start by saying I have fewer friends than an albino lion, I have acquaintances more than leaves of a fully grown banyan tree. Yes, after drawing those metaphors that don't really say much about what I have to say, I have a point to make. I have friends like the albino lion, very few, very true. Nobody wants to talk to an albino lion, but the ones that do, actually talk to him. They are not freaked out or surprised by his appearances. Okay, the Albino parallel ends there, I  am neither albino nor a lion. My point however can also be brought about by Elsa, the lion cub from Born Free (Yes! Lion obsession)

My inspiration for this post

I would like to be that Albino lion to have fewer friends but friends who are extremely honest, brutally if possible. I have had a few friends I have had the opportunity to be with and I am so happy to have met them. Most relationships end because people forget, they get busy, they outgrow you, people become unimportant, mostly because newer people come in and the old ones fade away.  But like Elsa, true friends don't let anything come in their way.  People can be in the most committed relationships and they still make time for their friends, my friends have. My friends were committed in every way possible but never failed to answer a 2 AM call. Never failed to give me a call just like that. Yes! sometimes when that happens, you know you have found something. 

Last time I was talking to my Best Friend (soul sister) type person and just to clarify that while people may think I throw around the word best friend with little thought, I use it very carefully. I don't just call people BFF's and yes, I have seen myself go from BFF to JF (just friends) like a backward transition and I am not slightly surprised by that. We are people, we forget. How I respond to that forgetfulness is entirely my call. 

But moving on to the beautiful topic of friends, friends who I truly adore mostly because these guys make an effort to stay in touch. I mean my friend Poorvi does not claim undying love for me and yet she says or does things for me that clearly send out a sentiment very difficult to put in words. She is someone I hold so close to my heart. I met Poorvi in my graduation and I have ever since been attached to her. I called her Sister Power just for fun and it stuck. She doesn't make me feel clingy, second rate, she doesn't make me feel like I am the only one who thinks this friendship is important and THAT is so important! 

I understand people have jobs, boyfriends, a husband, girlfriends, a wife, they have a family, separate groups of friends to take care of and inspite of them if somebody takes so much as a minute from time to time to think of you, I think it would be heavenly. It is not a need, it is something that naturally happens, I think about my besties all the time (Not creepy at all). I keep thinking of how in the world I would live without these people and you know what? I really have a tough time imagining it.

The words love you are thrown around so casually, and I am one to blame as well, but how many of us can actually claim this love, I do not know. As I understand friendships are easy to to forge, very easy in fact, a little commonality, a little patience, a general non psychopathic behavior and you are in. A little denser than that you have best friends, claimable best friendship atleast. But it begs the question, is it friendship because it is? or because you call it one? 

Not everyone you claim to be your friend is one, some are close acquaintances, most feel like besties because you see them everyday much like work friends, you meet them, you wait for them at your desk each day, you have your ritualistic teas, you share a meal, you talk about your home, you talk about how you hate the cold and how you wish somebody made pakodas, next day that work friend brings pakodas to work and there! instantaneously- BFFness!  But if this same person were to quit his/her job and move to a different continent, would you care enough to meet him/her? Forget continents, if this person switches companies, would you? Let me tell you what happens, within days your calls will stop.  You have nothing to discuss, no torrid affairs from work, you don't know her job, she doesn't know your team anymore, she doesn't have the same boss, she cannot be interested in your job because how much could you possibly deduce from a random chat, people in both your lives have changed and you have really no patience to explain them to each other, you don't have the same camaraderie, hell you don't even know what to say to each other if you meet up at a restaurant. This has happened to many of us, Our lives that are based on commonality come crashing down once the commonness goes away. If the commonness is something like seeing them everyday, or sharing work space, then all the best! Try and make it work. Do you really care? That is another question. 

If something can stand the test of time and distance, may be then you should call it real. I am not being negative here, No! I am just trying to stress on the fact that over a lifetime as long as ours, we are bound to meet people who are like us, what you need to see is, what is it that is making this friendship tick? If I was somewhere else would I care about this person so much? Is my early morning coffee ritual the only thing that is making me stick around this person?  The answers are right there. If you can answer them and if you smile to yourself know you are okay. 

Remember, there is no tomorrow to keep in touch. You either are or you are not. Tomorrow is too far away. Tomorrow is busier, tomorrow has more work, tomorrow has more people coming in. If you want to call someone tomorrow, make it happen. Do it! There are a few Albino lions who really care who talks to them. A few Elsa type friends who will stick around for years and make you feel warm and nice and happy just by saying they are around. Be an Elsa to an Albino Lion! I have found a few Elsas myself! right from a few months to 5 years to 18 years and 22 years! :)

There, so much for lion love! 

IF SOMETHING STANDS THE TEST OF TIME AND DISTANCE, KNOW THAT IT IS SURE AS HELL WORTH IT

My Elsas live close by and across the world . 

Sputnik Sweetheart -Quotable Stuff

Some quotes really talk to me. And one book that did after a very long time was the Sputnik Sweetheart. I will write a review later. But before I forget these quotes i want to write them down. May be sometime, explain them as well.



“Instead of things I’m good at, it might be faster to list the
things I can’t do. I can’t cook or clean the house. My room’s a
mess, and I’m always losing things. I love music, but I can’t
sing a note. I’m clumsy and can barely sew a stitch. My sense of
direction is the pits, and I can’t tell left from right half the time.
When I get angry, I tend to break things. Plates and pencils,
alarm clocks. Later on I regret it, but at the time I can’t help
myself. I have no money in the bank. I’m bashful for no reason,
and I have hardly any friends to speak of.”
Sumire took a quick breath and forged ahead.



We used to spend hours talking. We never got tired of
talking, never ran out of topics—novels, the world, scenery,
language. Our conversations were more open and intimate
than any lovers’.

“The thought hits me a lot these days that maybe my novelwriting
days are over. The world’s crawling with stupid,
innocent girls, and I’m just one of them, self-consciously
chasing after dreams that’ll never come true. I should shut the
piano lid and come down off the stage. Before it’s too late.”

Do you know what ‘Sputnik’ means in
Russian? ‘Travelling companion’. I looked it up in a dictionary
not long ago. Kind of a strange coincidence if you think about
it. I wonder why the Russians gave their satellite that strange
name. It’s just a poor little lump of metal, spinning around the
Earth.”

And it came to me then. That we were wonderful travelling
companions, but in the end no more than lonely lumps of metal
on their own separate orbits. From far off they look like
beautiful shooting stars, but in reality they’re nothing more
than prisons, where each of us is locked up alone, going
nowhere. When the orbits of these two satellites of ours
happened to cross paths, we could be together. Maybe even
open our hearts to each other. But that was only for the briefest
moment. In the next instant we’d be in absolute solitude. Until
we burned up and became nothing.”

The wanderer

Dear wanderer in my head,

You are the perfect embodiment of everything that is right with the world. Dear wanderer when you walk from one place to another, don’t you see myriad pictures? Hear thousands of voices? You are part of the chaos and yet, you find your silence. While you lie down under the shade of the tree, you seem to let the whole world go by; you wake up and see that nothing is the same. You do not fret that it has changed. You do not complain.

People look at you and imagine a million things, you don’t justify, and you don’t seek assistance. You know not where your life is headed and yet you seem to be at peace. You look at people and see right through them, yet you do not comment you have no critique; you have nothing but a faint registry of all these faces. May be on a sunny road where you might see these people again, they may not recognize you, you may not as well.

Dear wanderer in my head, I want to be not you, but like you. I want to find silence in this chaos and a little noise in this silence. I cannot commit to keeping quiet like you, but I’d like to try. I want to see each fleeting moment with a different perspective, to be able to see through all this multi-colored dimensions, to see through all these ideals. I want to see people without embellishment. Them for who they are. Me for who I am.

Dear crazy wanderer you find some space in my head because you are my imagination, I want the world to be like this. Much like you, I am not taking an aimless stroll through life, infact quite contrary. I am taking in as much as I can. I want to have no inhibitions, no fears of tomorrow, no visions of the future. 

I know you are inspired by everything I see and everything I believe. Truly you are a bundle of every fear I have, thrown out of the window. You are an embodiment of every answer I have but too afraid to look at and inspect and introspect. I know if I sit down with you, you will tell me what I need to know. But like two travelers that never meet again, I will never sit by you because you have answers and I am too afraid to ask the questions.

Much love,

Reality Me!