Befriending a girl friend..

It was seven in the evening and it was raining for last one hour now. I called up a colleague and asked her if she would come for a cup of coffee at a Café Coffee Day outlet in the vicinity of our office, she candidly agreed.

After a not so hectic day at the office, we were talking about normal office stuff, exchanging gyaan and cribbing over certain routine things. Suddenly she reminded me about somebody which gave me a topic for this blog. She referred to a common friend who did his graduation from a renowned college of Delhi University and also pursued a professional course and eventually landed up in a well known corporate.

He is a normal middle class guy, whose family had great expectations from him on the academic front. That was primarily because he had taken an uncommon decision of not landing up in the family business and carve a niche in the corporate world. He was overcautious about the fact that he should concentrate hard on his studies / professional career and in the process he ignored the options that he had on the personal front.

He had a very good friend in college who used to accompany him to the classes for the professional course. He had feelings for her but every time he made an attempt to express himself, the thought of such things hindering the studies outdid him. Their friends in college had started to cook stories about them and so he parted his ways from her. Today the girl in question is working with one of the most reputed professional firms and recently got engaged with my friend’s namesake. The grudge of not having told her about his emotions, still weighs in his heart.

One lone evening, I had taken this friend out for a dinner when he bloated his heart out. He told me that while he was in school, the constant pressure from his parents to do well academically overshadowed such things as finding a girlfriend for him. He justified the title of “bookworm” that was given to him at his Class XII farewell by scoring 88 percentile marks. With an entry into college accompanied freedom but again the do’s and don’ts which were stuffed in his mind during innumerable lectures at home ruled his mind and he could not find a girlfriend. Time passed by and soon this lad turned into a gentleman earning a 6 figure salary. Throughout his academic career he was unable to decide whether it was the right time to propose to the girls he liked. He had many crushes starting from Class IX till his grads. But the thought that this is high time to focus on studies and prove himself overweighed all other things. He used to think that I’ll have a girlfriend once I complete my studies. But with the completion of education, started another fight and it was finding a befitting job for himself.

With God’s grace, he got a well paying job and is still waiting for a girlfriend. Now sometimes he thinks, that it’s too late now and that may be he will find a girl friend in his spouse only (once he gets married). Today while he has some friends who are girls and with whom he shares things in life but the thought that they are all committed to someone else keeps his craving for a girlfriend alive.

While I and my colleague had a chat about this common friend, we realized that we’ve had two cups of coffee each and the rain had stopped. We left together in my car and I dropped her till a metro station on my way.

But that night, I thought for how long, will that friend of mine, regret over not having found the other half for him. And that in the liberalized / modern India where we live, do we still have youngsters who are so much influenced by the value system inculcated into their minds by their families.

The picture that we see today is clearly that of a westernized society. I recalled that in the Café Coffee Day where we had gone that evening, we saw couples sitting hand in hand (apparently so much hyped about boys with their girl friends). While at one point of time such things were considered taboo, the youth of today is poised to set new trends, showcase their relationships openly and call for attention. The media approach has also changed in as much as the headlines of renowned news channels capturing smooches of superstars with their boy / girl friends. The glossy picture as the media depicts about such superstars and on occasions like Valentine’s Day leads to a regret of not having a girl friend in people like my friend.

But I still wonder if having a girl friend is such an important thing in life, as my friend thinks. I think it’s all in the mind and if you get swayed by the emotions, your heart rules your mind and that is when you think like my friend.