Pointless Things People Say !

Considering the 'busy' lives we yuppies (young urban professionals) allegedly live with only weekends to unwind and recoup. The weekends are the only thing to look forward to in lives. But people are always wanting that piece of our time. The ever increasing modes of communication like emails, social networking sites, mobile phones and instant messengers like gtalk/yahoo has made avoiding these people even tougher!

In order to avoid such people, a new set of pointless statements have been manufactured in order to make this more platable. These have now become part of daily conversations when we really do not want to keep in touch with people but also want to seem so politically correct about it.

Top pointless lines people say and what they mean :-

We should meet up/catch up sometime !

More like next lifetime or something, I hope I never bump into you any time soon.

I am bit busy at work, can we talk in the evening ....

Never mind, I am sitting right now in the canteen with similar jobless colleagues having coffee but I really do not want to talk to you.

I will call you on the weekend pucca

yeah Right, you could die waiting by the phone ….. get a life loser !!

Dil se he/she is not bad !

When you have nothing nice to say about a person … you end up saying this !

We stay in the same city and haven't met up it is really bad !

We stay in the same city and WOW am I glad the city is so big, I can avoid people like you :)

How is life ? Bas chal raha hai tu bata

Ultimate filler statement... I do not want to tell me how my life is !! but I do not mind if u spill the beans about your life...

I am so busy re, I just don't have time for anything these days...

I am not THAT busy, it is just that I do not have ANY TIME for you these days !!

This post has been written partly in jest and is highly exaggerated but the truth lies somewhere in between.

There is a Dev D in all of us somewhere ….

Needless to say, my last weekend's watch was Dev D and it was not a waste of my money or time. Although I would not call it a classic by any stretch of imagination but definitely it is a creative fare with wonderful music and contemporary story telling avoiding cliches in the narrative. The most refreshing aspects was the characterization, the choices reflect free will, in cases people may seem flawed but still no one seeks refuge behind the excuse of fate or family pressure.

The character of Dev D does not create any sympathy for himself and rightly so. He is a selfish, pathetic arrogant soul who gets his just desserts. Paro is fiesty and quickly moves on her life without brooding too long. Anyways I do not want in more detail about the movie as it already has great reviews and I do not want to add to that list.

Coming to the question, why is Dev D the ninth adaption of the old novel about a coward who did not have the guts to fight for his love and dies a broke alcoholic so appealing to the film makers and film goers as well.

Possible reasons why Dev D is so popular

• He is extremely arrogant and realizes his only folly in hindsight

• He cribs a lot and wallows in self pity

• He is neurotic and guilt trips Paro, his family by his chronic lethargy and self destructive habits

• He gets to booze first thing in the morning ( yeah many people would like that :P am sure )

• He derives pleasure in his own self inflicted pain and assumes he is doing a great sacrifice

In all the reasons, mentioned below many of us have experinced a similar emotion. It may not necessarily a lost love (GF/BF variety), It could be missing out on a dream job, vacation or promotion. Although conventional wisdom suggests we should dust ourselves and keep moving on, there is a morbid pleasure in cribbing and lying on the floor and drawing self sympathy and attention of others.

The overdosing need not be just be on alcohol, it can be over focusing on the job, excessive shopping or even calling up friends/family and restating the same old story on how tragic your life is. In this sorrow you find the purpose of your life, that you are alone in the world and you alone have faced such a calamity. In some way the world, God is against you and you are being victimized. This feeling makes you feel important and wanted some how. Any kind of advice sane or otherwise is just brushed off and you continue on the same vein. In a way, it is a classic attention seeking behaviour to pander to personal ego.

That is the precise reason, why Dev D is so integral to all of us, he reminds to us how as humans we all are fallible and can be petty enough to be self destructive. Dev D is about been stupid,egoistic and on top of it being proud about it.

As the movie Dev D ended on a surprising happy note, let us also find our own redemption and the inner strength to fight the Dev D in us from entirely taking over our life. Life is tough, it does not become any better with a lousy attitude.

“All of us are lying in a gutter, Only few of us are looking at the stars” - Oscar Wilde

The Dynamics of Relationships

As my peer group is hitting the quarter life crisis mark, lots of them including me are increasingly asking similar questions, how do we manage our relationships. By relationships I mean not only having a girl friend/boy friend, it also relates to keeping in touch with past friends and importantly how to make new friends or meet potential life partners.

Couple of interesting pieces written by my friends whose blogs I do follow regularly, actually made me think on these lines in more details. The problems include is being taken for granted by supposedly good friends to travails in finding your true soul-mate . 

Why the Crisis in the first place

The job disperses the friendly group into different geographies which brings challenges of adjustment. Some adjust fast and some get bogged down more. The ones who cannot adjust become naturally self centred in order to make the adjustments, which is considered selfish by other friends. As time progresses, pay packages, the race to buy the new car, the comparisons begin to take toll on friendships.  Ego and the inability to communicate your true feelings is the problem in most cases. 

The Tough Question

There is one additional caveat, sometimes we outgrow a certain relationships and it is time to let go and there are relationships which can be rekindled with some interventions, the challenge is knowing which one needs to be pursued ?

Evaluating this questions becomes really tough, it requires us to be objective ( tough call for a irrational social animal called man/woman), keep aside our ego, delusions and the tendency to wanting to cling on and decide if the relation is giving us positive energy and is meaningful or it is actually deceptive, draining our energy and eroding our self worth.

Rather than going more detail and being prescriptive, I would just say in the words of Shakespeare To thy own self be true, reflect over your relationships, take stock of friends, acquaintances and enemies. Decide who needs to stay, who needs to go and what are your priorities in life. At first It may seem tough, scary but then you need bite the bullet and make the seemingly tough decisions.

The Three Ring Theory

Reference is due to Khalil who came come up with theory in the first place long back in my engineering days . In order to have sustainable good relationships, we need three rings or three kind of friend circles.

First Ring

The inner circle of closest friends whom who can confide everything and also fewer in number. The most mature and oldest friends.

Second Ring

The good friends and the hangout buddies which comprises of a bigger circle with whom we do share our interests and are in touch with regularly.

Third Ring

The social acquaintances like office colleagues, classmates the folks with whom we enjoy the occasional banter and have a potential to move up into the inner circles. I believe this circle is important as today's strangers become tomorrow's good friends.

In summary, I believe it is important to maintain a wide circle of friends so that we give space to our close friends and give chances to get to know new people so that the cycle of making new friends does not have to die after we hit the corporate world.