That thing called Friendship…!!!

Only few people in our lives reach that corner of our soul, where only they have the capability to uplift our spirits in most gloomy situations. They have some supernatural power to encourage us when we're supremely low on confidence. And they are the ones who can actually make us squeal with laughter at the most nonsensical joke in the world. These are the people who'll be supremely proud of all our achievements and will laugh the loudest at all our goof-ups. These are people with whom we share a language of our own and more than anything else these are the people who understand our silence to the core.

Still wondering whom I 'am talking about? None other than people called FRIENDS in our life. And why are they so special? Well If I start to list down all the reasons, I would end up compiling volumes.  The reason why “Friends" are so special in our lives is , because we get to choose them, all the other relationships in the world we get in heritage as a consequence of our birth in a certain family. And this is one relationship that we build and thrive upon in our normal course of life.

I still remember those funny days of childhood where sharing your favorite chocolate with a friend would be the demonstration of the most solid & bonding friendship. Which then graduated to the level of sharing notebooks, notes, lunch-boxes, and some silly secrets ...Finally it reaches to the level where we would swear to kill for a friend or save her/him in any crisis situation. Talking about those all I could remember were silly teenage days where doing the forbidden gave the utmost pleasure which we seek now in so many futile things in our so called mechanical lives. Very recently while I was moving from Delhi, during my packing I got hold of all my school scrapbooks, old pictures and even letters that I wrote to my friends when we moved into different cities to pursue our graduation.  Those were the days when social media didn't existed and people literally made an effort to keep in touch. While now with mediums like Facebook & Twitter we're blessed to find anyone at a click :-)

And now we're all grown up's, working, married & settled, busy in our daily monotonous schedules. Still it’s our Friends who end up adding that zing & madness in our lives. Every morning I religiously log-in to Facebook, to see what all my friends are up to, and there are times when I end up chatting with so many long lost friends. Every weekend I look forward talking to Adi&Ila (my closest pals) and our conversation is almost an hour long of madness,  my husband thinks that I go into some form of laughter trance when I talk to them lol. Any gloomy day becomes the brightest when I speak to Shivaani, who manages to cheer me up with her most silly and corny jokes. And not only my school friends, there are some amazing people I bonded with during my professional tenure whom I refer to as my "Mantal gang", they end up bringing the most cheerful smile on my face whenever they call, text or ping. And all my online friends who never forget to check on me.

So whatever form of communication, be it Facebook, twitter, chat, e-mails calls, texts, or BBM's staying in touch is the key to thrive on such Friendships.

I consider myself to be blessed with such amazing & beautiful friends who've been more than a family to me. I hope they feel the same ;-)

We had this motto in our school days “Love laughter & loyalty makes life easier to bear". Which is so true, all these things together Love, laughter & loyalty makes any friendship so strong & long-lasting.

Cheers to all my friends who've been a part of my life and also have added so much value to it.

Liberate your soul...!!!

People say life is  a gift, so if it's a gift why to waste it in pleasing people all the time. Learning to be happy is the most difficult and cumbersome task, and at times people learn it through really hard ways. And more than that it takes ages to realize as to what makes one happy, and when that realization dawns, don’t let it go. Hold on it and do every thing that makes you happy. There's a phase in everyone's life when one would want it all hunky dory, to make everyone happy around, but it's not  a cake walk. People will never be pleased all the times, then why to sweat over it.

I'm a woman of free spirit and mind, and being independent keeps me happy. And if people take me to be rude and snob for that, I don't care. Well one end's up sacrificing and compromising a lot for co-existence, but then why to change your lifestyle and mindset for existing with someone who doesn't even respect your choice. When will we grow up and mature as a society? Why is there so much societal pressure, don't we deal with so many other kinds of pressure on a daily basis? Isn't peer & parental pressure not enough???

As a child we deal with peer pressure at school & parental pressure at home. As we grow up the pressure starts growing at various levels, if the neighbor's daughter has cracked the MBA entrance it becomes an issue of your parent's respect to crack an exam of higher difficulty levels, even if you don't have the brains to knack it. Your cousin gets a suitable match in a rich family, it becomes a pressure on you to get married into a family richer and famous than them. Your friend gets a new job with a higher salary in a good company, you're forced to think about your career as to where it's leading even if you're happy with your job. People around you will demotivate to the core that you'll start hating your job.

Such is the story of societal pressure, and it doesn’t ends here. It seeps deeper into so many other levels for women who later get married. Even if you get along well with your in-laws people will question you in a manner making you feel like  an intruder in husband's family. Poor girl who leaves her own house, city, career and friends just to get accommodated in a new family environment has to go through various levels of quality check before she gets the approved seal of a family member. In the initial few months after marriage the daughter-in-law is more of a thing flaunted by the mother-in-law, so the poor girl needs to be dressed up through out and have to ensure that she ends up entertaining and pleasing her mother-in-law's friends who are nothing but a bunch of Indian desperate housewives having no life of their own. Then the next level of pressure leads one to following strict instructions for everything starting from what to wear, what  to cook, what TV show to watch, how to clean the house and a range of other things, which you can very well decide by yourself as a matured individual but are not allowed to do because you have to please your in-laws by taking their opinion for everything in life and moreover following it as well. Such is the scenario of our so called pseudo- modern Indian society, where people  claim themselves to be modern and advanced but their minds are still corrupted with backward mentality.

Every time when we want to do something of our own, we are questioned by the same old clichéd statement " what will people think", who cares what people think, this is our own life, no one but we ourselves are responsible for it, people won't come for rescue in our bad times.  It's time we realize our source  of happiness, break away all the shackles of societal pressure, liberate our souls from the opinions of other people who don't matter and do thinks which we like. As I mention earlier  that Life is a gift, make the most of it. Live it to the fullest, enjoy it in your own unique way without thinking as to what other's will think. People will always talk and think, let that not influence you in such a way that you lose the track of your own life.  People who matter to you will accept you as your are, hence there's no point of changing yourself for others.