Hopelessly Hopeful

Don't know why I missed out on 'Tamasha'. Finally, saw it last night, an amazing, yet difficult movie to make. Ranbir Kapoor, as Ved, was predictably fabulous, and Deepika as Tara, was the apt catalyst who turned Ved's life upside down. More than a movie, it was a treatise on modern life. It was like watching your daily mundane existence being portrayed on the wide canvas, as you struggle through to keep your inner conflict in check. You want to be someone else, but you end up being someone else. You want to do something else, but you end up doing something else. But, in that helpless mechanical existance as well, we have a choice - to say 'No' to it. After all, we have chosen that life, and no one but ourselves are to be blamed for it. And, no one but ourselves can change it as well. So, at the witching hour, with the lingering sound of 'Matargashti' in the background, I penned the following poem: He wasn't a man of 9 to 5, He wasn't...

That's a question for anyone who is above 30. Ask yourself, when was the last time you made a friend. And, I am not talking about someone you met and added on Facebook. It is the kind of friendship you struck when you were a kid, when you became friends with anyone and everyone without judging them. But, do you do that now? As you grow old, you pile up conventions after conventions. You create certain 'ideals', you need your new friend to fit in your definition of that 'ideal'. Those ideals could range from the banal to the sublime. You only want to be friends with people who are of your class, status, match your intellectual wavelength, adventurous, humorous... the list goes on as you add more numbers and white hair (not necessarily in the same order) to your life.  You lose your spontaneity to be friends with a stranger, someone who is totally unlike you or someone who breaks every possible definition of your 'ideal' friend.  Question is why...