back to the start...

Jesse: Oh, God, why didn't we exchange phone numbers and stuff? Why didn't we do that?
Celine: Because we were young and stupid.
Jesse: Do you think we still are?
Celine: I guess when you're young, you just believe there'll be many people with whom you'll connect with. Later in life, you realize it only happens a few times.
Jesse: And you can screw it up, you know, misconnect.

(“Before Sunrise” and “Before Sunset”, have been the oil to my rusted blogging thoughts, so there will be a lot of reference from these movies)

A few days back, my mom and I went to meet our old neighbor, who was shifting from here for good. She was not in great spirits about moving to the new city, where she had a lot of relatives (for obvious reasons). We met, talked about good old times.

When we were neighbours, aunty would just drop by at our home and vice versa and chit chat randomly until either of them would realize that it was time that they did some house chores. She also started telling tales of how she felt at home here with all her friends and she was quiet sure she was not going to find good friends in the other city. She kept reminiscing and was feeling down. So I told her that for the kind of warm hearted person she is , she is bound to make new friends in a matter of time. To that she retorted me and said, “ No child, there is a time in our lives when we can make good friends. As you grow older, the possibilities of good freinds is pretty limited.” At that time, I didn’t agree with her perspective, however, as I pondered over it , I realized, it did seem the case.

During younger days, it was easier for me to make friends and sustain the relationships for a couple of years. As years passed by, my capacity to retain them is very less. Whether it was neighbours, classmates, college friends, colleagues, partner’s friends, as I would meet them, they would be the world for me at point of time. As that phase would get over, I would move on to meet the next set of people. I notice that as the years pass by, “the retention of the friends” have dwindled drastically. I still am in touch with my school friends (four or five of them). If I meet any college mates by chance, a Hi or Hello was all we had to say and then a “chalo, meet you sometime later” and walk our ways. And colleagues, were those who need not even be recognized since the interactions at work itself were more than enough.

And while watching this scene in “Before Sunset” and seeing Celine mull over the fact that we THINK there will be many people with whom we connect. Alas, that is not the case in her life and neither in mine.

There are friends and sweethearts, undoubtedly. Very few days go by when I don’t think of them and thank my Gods for having met them when I did, coz I would have gone pretty indifferent otherwise. I guess having made such strong connections, there seemed no need to connect with a lot others, in the fear of misconnect.

Though I know, life has not reached that point of stagnation where I need to connect with new people. However, my inability to go beyond my comfort zone of friends and loved ones is what I am contemplating about. In “The Monk who sold his Ferrari”, I read that “the best thing you can do for yourself is regularly move beyond it. “

And right now, I am in the phase where I want to do everything that’s best for me.

Increasing the friends on Facebook, followers on Twitter etc is not the idea, undoubtedly. Increasing the quality of every person I meet and to take honest efforts to sustain the relationship will be… oh, this seems serious work..

Nah, I guess, all I gotta do is become the little girl who was a people persons, who loves people and a special gift of invariably making people feel good about themselves. It’s just a matter of going…