RSVP

Lately I had been pondering into an age old debate of friends v/s relatives. Right from my childhood I was of the opinion that friends are normally more compatible because you have chosen them and the relation is not forced from the childhood in the form of a term like “bua, mama, mausi etc” (Please do not misunderstand-parents / siblings are not included here in relatives). Till adolescence I was a strong believer and advocated this philosophy in all intellectual meetings/ discussions on Saturday night parties.

Then after a few years I analyzed the situation as pragmatically as I could subjected to my limited wisdom and realized that this point of view of mine is extremely biased due to proximity. Since we spend a lot of time together with friends (at least that’s the case with me being in the hostel for such a long time) we start accepting them as integral part of life and a comparison between them and occasional meetings with first second cousins would not be fair. Still carrying on with the dilemma, the friend circle expanded and with different natures coming together resulted in obvious differences and with that the traditional point of view empowers you “whenever you need help / assistance / guidance it’s always relatives who would come to help”. Then you start a family and I assume this only gets stronger.

Then as time flies by you realize this is not a binary decision (0 or 1), because the ups and downs of life shift the balance all the time. Finally I get to spend a lot of time understanding the intricacies of friendships and relationships (I would not say I have mastered it but am better off for sure J ) and EUREKA ……………..

I was mistaken; yes I was mistaken in associating people with classes like relatives and friends. All the attributes like helping / guidance / mentoring / sharing are actually associated with people and not classes. Even the best of friend might not be as caring as a third cousin. So the essence I reached to is that we need to identify people who we want to be part of our lives be it either class because at the end of the day your social circle would comprise of like minded people who are there for each other. Rest of them can of course be managed as social courtesy, and who knows after I become wiser few years from now even this perspective becomes more mature.

For those of you who have already understood this philosophy / or this was obvious to you, I would say -- Kudos

And in case you felt this was very philosophical keep watching this space for back to book reviews again, as next is “Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry”