Time Moves Relatively

Have you ever met people after a really long time, and wondered whether the time never moved for them, or maybe not for you? Two ends of the same spectrum if I may say so. Facebook, to me is a necessary evil. Evil, because it leads me onto waste huge amounts of my valuable time, updating status messages or commenting on those of friends, and necessary, because its the easiest way for me to stay in touch with so many friends who live so far away. I digress. It is also a platform to find long lost friends, or those we have been out of touch with. And often the friend request there, leads to exchange of other contact details, e-mails and even phone calls.

And while its great fun to re-connect with friends, some of them end up leaving me astonished at how time has moved at vastly different paces for the two of us. Recently it was a guy I knew in college, used to be quite a buddy of mine. A fun loving flirt, always upto something, that's the kind of guy he was. And, almost ten years later, that is exactly how he still seems to be, being married and everything. And while it has been nice reconnecting, it is difficult to find a common ground any longer. While he still lives in a world, which is full of college trivialities, or atleast that is how it seems to me now, I have moved on so so much. He talks of our classmates in college, still in terms of crushes, good looking chics or cool dudes. He still talks about who had affairs with whom back then, who made it, who broke up, and such stuff. While its always fun to know how old friends are doing, after a while, it just got boring, because all of it is just so much in the past for me now. And more so the details, which have no importance at all. I really wonder how his wife deals with it, has he sucked her into the world of our college with all his tales? And mostly I wondered if time has stood still for him all these years, while it rushed by me.

And then my qualms were put to rest. Found an old old school friend recently, and God! I would not recognise her in a million years, if I met her now. The shy, pretty girl, a top scorer, she looks like a ramp scorching top model. Its been a metamorphosis like none I have seen before. She is still a brainy babe, with her LSE degree and everything, but is she a super hottie or what? What wouldn't the boys from school, give to have been a better friend of hers. I so always expected her to turn out to be the scholarly type, working in a big bank, being the best, which I guess she still is, but what I had never expected was this absolute glam doll, hanging around at night clubs and discs each night. Well, I afcourse am a social butterfly like no other, because I was and will be a caterpillar all my life in that area, and hence while I felt great catching up with a really dear friend from school after ages, I felt lost after a while, self conscious and more. With her it felt like time had stood still for me, while it simply rushed by her. But whatever, it is great great fun reconnecting with her!

And while on the topic of facebook related things, one of my pet peeves is people having public opinion polls on the looks of their spouse. Putting up a photo and actually asking something as 'duh' as, Isn't he/she cute? on a public website.... I would not have believed it possible, had it not been done by people on my own friend list, whom I readily dropped after the incident! Why, why and oh why, would you so objectify your own spouse, no matter what a looker he/she is. Please don't do it!

In very very happy news of national pride though, came across this is the newspaper today, and am so so so proud of India, and what to say of Mr. Chandrakant Singh, who really has done what others only dream of. He has set up a top notch, school of international standards in a village in Bihar, where the students are taught through video conferencing, by some of the best in their professions. This is what true patriotism, and a real desire to do something leads to. While we still languish in our worlds, of material desires, and material gains, its people like this, who give me hope for mankind, for India, and inspire me to try harder, do more. And yes, the true friend, teacher or guide is not one, who helps you whenever you need it, but rather the one who provides you with skills that let you fulfill your own needs and enables you to fight your own battles. And that is what impresses me most about this school, it is not dependent on the charity of others, but is able to sustain itself.