Friends.
The world is filled with people everywhere you look you find a different face, at work, on the streets, in buses, at restaurants.....all around you. Human beings are considered the most superior of all living things each one having their own individual set of ideas, opinions and norms of life. I've always held the belief that no two people are similar neither would they act or think the same on the whole even identical twins have non identical personalities. Yet we often come across people who may share our views and often enjoy the same hobbies or passions as us when we find such people we keep in close contact with them and call them friends. The word friend conjures up the image of a person you share your thoughts and feelings with, someone you laugh aloud with and someone you reach out to when sad or depressed but it's not always necessary that friends share common views and opinions sometimes totally opposite people end up being the best of friends. It may not be necessary for your friend to even be in the same space as you, you may be miles apart yet remain aware of every minute detail about your friend, to some friendship is an art to others a passtime but to people like me it's an indispensable necessity of life.
Friends are of many kinds. One category is "Life long" friendship it often happens while you are still in school out of your two dozen classmates you zero out some and stick with them through thick and thin throughout school and college life. Life's continuous ups and downs have no effect on your friendship with them rather it goes on from strength to strength. The second category is the "Casual friendship" that happens when you work at a particular place, you befriend people out of sheer necessity but later on you find out that that particular person is indeed a very wonderful being and so you stay friends even though you may part ways and switch workplaces. The third category being the "Social friendship", this happens when you befriend a friend's friend out of the fear of being an outcast in the lot. Such friendships do not last long and you usually forget the person at the end of the month. And then there is "Internet friendship" this category is divided into two branches "The indistinct lot" and "The familiar or distinct lot" .The Indistinct lot comprises of those friends in your Facebook, Orkut, Msn or Yahoo account that you hardly know. Yet they remain there on your friend list and every time you receive a message from them you can hardly recall their names and ages or for that matter what you last conversed to them about. Finally the Distinct lot, these are people you converse with each day and your everyday schedule seems incomplete till you?ve had an exchange of words with them.
It wasn't until two years back that I had the chance to come across the Distinct category of friends online. While browsing for one of my favorite television serial (yes I'm fanatic about Kayamath in particular) I landed on a website promising all information regarding the serial complete with daily visual and written updates. I must say I was more than happy at this important discovery and quickly became a member of that esteemed site. My life has been greatly at ease since then as I can keep track of my favourite serial; also I find useful tidbits on the actors working in it not to mention all the wonderful snaps I managed to save of my favourite actor. Apart from watching and reading I realized I could take active participation in posting my comments on the forum itself and be able to express my views on the serial. What I thought was good and what I believed was lacking, initially I was doubtful but later I took the plunge and started writing my thoughts and opinions, I must say I was surprised by the overwhelming response I got from the members there. Not only was I appreciated rather people respected my views and even if at times there was a clash of opinions we very reasonably pointed out the pros and cons of the situation and the reason we thought about something in a certain way.
I must admit over the past two years I have made some wonderful friends during my association with the forum I now have friends in most of the countries and am well updated on different situations in different parts of the world. Apart from that I realized that a general projection of a certain nation or country is often based on its political or economical standing in the world. Knowing a country is impossible without knowing its citizens and inhabitants first hand.No matter what political agendas or problems we faced in yester years I find that the current situation is very much changed. People now want to bond on a more human ground than a political one. It's interesting how you feel connected to so many different lives, different cultures and different landscapes all at once as if the picture is suddenly as large as the canvas itself. I've rejoiced when Fatima was chosen at Harvard, when Kits and Shwetha got married, Krishna had Hiteshree and celebrated all those birthdays with such fervour eyeing those yummy cakes as they were indeed gonna pop out of the screen. Felt sad at different problems faced by my friends in their personal lives and prayed fervently for their happiness and well being. The forum is like a second family to me and I take this opportunity to say to all here that "I love and respect you all from the very depths of my heart."
