Real to Virtual....and Back!

“अब भी कई दोस्त हैं पर दोस्ती जाने कहाँ है,

जब भी ट्रॅफिक सिग्नल पर मिलते हैं, ही “हाई” जाती है,

और अपने अपने रास्ते चल देते हैं,

होली, दीवाली, न्यू यियर पर एस.एम.एस आ जाते हैं,

शायद अब रिश्ते बदल रहे हैं.........

ज़िंदगी का सबसे बड़ा सच यही है,

जो अक्सर कब्रिस्तान के बाहर बोर्ड पर लिखा होता है,

मंज़िल तो यही थी बस ज़िंदगी गुज़र गयी मेरी यहाँ आते आते,....

कुछ रफ़्तार धीमे करो मेरे दोस्त,

और इस ज़िंदगी को जियो, खूब जियो मेरे दोस्त…”

I can fall in love with Mr Gulzar for writing these lines….

Friends are always special, aren’t they? I have forged, nourished and cherished many friends over the years. It has been a hell of a journey, making new friends, rediscovering old ones, making mistakes and walking on new paths together… But over the last decade or so, I sense a change in the type of “friend” and “friendship” around me.

Let me elaborate a bit here.

Bonding in my time (read “the 90s and the early years at the turn of this millennium”) meant unending telephone calls (not “mobiles”) to discuss everything and nothing. There would be warning glances and signals from parents to remind about the skyrocketing phone bills, which were religiously ignored by us. Today, bonding is limited to liking the same television show page on Facebook, or following the same celebrity on Twitter.

Arguments were a force to reckon with in our times. They were usually face-to-face encounters, or rarely, over the phone. Sometimes, other friends also got involved. Word got around eventually, and more often than not, the warring parties kissed and made up in a day or two. Now, there is a dash of passive-aggressive status updates, peppered with a few cryptic tweets, followed by a wildfire of “unfollow”. Everyone within the “network” (and beyond) knows within an hour, fervent comments are made, judgments are delivered; in moments, the real topic of disagreement is forgotten.

Going out for a coffee with friends in my time was a luxury, which was cherished and enjoyed to the hilt. Coffee over warm conversation was something we looked forward to. At the end of it, we went dutch and every penny was diligently counted and shared between friends. Coffee-date today is a timeline update of  frappé, or venti soy mocha lattes with two pumps of vanilla, or ristretto complete with a toxic rejoinder of how badly the barista served the beverage.

We celebrated our friendships you know, I mean, we really did. Buying a cute hairclip or a book for my best friend, a trip to the shop that had an enviable collection of earrings and best-friend jewelry – we did it together. These days, celebration of friendship has been cocooned in bathroom selfies and colourful emoticons. Our gifts were probably home-burned, custom CDs with thoughtfully compiled music, and posters too. Now, there are apps, eBooks, and invite codes to new social networks in the name of gifts.

I reminisce often about our “girl time” - manicures, perming, movies, bitching, gossiping, romanticizing….Even that “girl time” is different today - tagging yourself at each location as you arrive, responding to texts, searching for seats near electrical outlets so that the mobile can be put on charge...

Long before the onslaught of global cosmetic brands, beauty parlors were accessible places run by the neighbourhood Aunty. “Make-up” was reserved for special occasions, and   blood red lipstick, rouge, eye-shadow, etc. needed forever to be chosen. Now, who needs makeup? We have got Photoshop and BeautyCam!

Yes, as fossilized as our days may sound, we too went out for dinners. A dinner date with friends meant a group of friends laughing around a table until the restaurant closes, and good memories for months. Now, things are simple - check-in at restaurant, like restaurant page, take menu photo, take photo of bubbly and/or umbrella'ed beverages (#Cheers!), dinner photo with elaborate description of main course and dessert (desserts that sound like “ice-cream” are a passé; think of  names like ‘lime and coconut syllabub’, ‘summer fruit pavlova’, ‘vanilla pannacotta with rose petal syrup’ etc etc). It does not really matter who you were out with….

Yes, in this era when friendships are ended with a “click’, we bade goodbye to our friends with lots of music, some crying, and poetry…

Agreed, we all continue to be socially promiscuous, making more and more friends and social contacts. But we are now losing them rapidly too, and this is not only stemming largely from people wanting to settle down and raise a family. For many years, social networks have been raising people's "friend" count, making millennials believe they have hundreds or even thousands of friends. But even with these added means of communication, I (and many of my generation) believe that the time taken to invest in a true close-knit friendship will continue to be around. Although it may become more global, the value of face-to-face friendship may never change. While the internet may allow us to keep relationships going over a much wider geographical area, but as of now, a shoulder 1800 miles away isn't as good to cry on. And unlike the labile ‘web’ emotions floating around like spores these days, real face-to-face friendships can also afford to be impulsive, but when it comes to friends, “friends” must be as constant as a compass needle.