There’s a thing about knowing a lot of people in life and especially
in a place like India, where there’s an army of relatives that are a part of
your life. Relatives, the people who’re your so called well-wishers, who will
give you cash money in your birthdays on fancy envelopes, the people who will
assemble at your place on your big days, give you free advises to show that
they care, eat food and then talk about the same food when they’ve left.
Relatives are the circus performers of human relationships that keep one amused
and a little less lonely.
Maintaining relations with so many people is a tough job;
there is a lot one has to do. Especially because in India formalities are to
relations, just like spice is to food. The formalities can range for calling up
your relatives on special occasions, indulging in a restricted small talk that
does not hurt their sentiments in the remotest way and even giving the right
amount of money on the right occasion. Indian relatives as you can see are
easily much more demanding than your regular high maintenance girlfriend.
Due to the considerable amount of time I’ve spent outside
India, I’m not good when it comes to maintaining relationships with relatives.
I have to be told when to call whom and when I’m on the line, I don’t know what
to say. So when I start repeating the round of questions, I somehow know it’s
time for Changa fer (Okay then) to
contribute to the tenor and the call to end. The case is different for people
who’ve grown up here, some have a genuine liking for relatives; some have
trained themselves to develop a liking. I on the other hand am still learning.
The problem with some people is that they cannot fake
emotions. While we’re struggling and crawling through the hell holes of our
life, apart from our own confused inner self, there is very less possibility of
people stealing the spot light. When I’m living the life that’s not of a
retired person there’s a lot on my mind, formalities somehow remain far from my
state of mind. The only true affection is for those few people you meet every
day while riding the unpredictable bull of your life. When you and your
relatives are altogether on a different road with the restrictions of many
rules of interaction, affection is over powered by formality.
Relatives should not stick to so much of code of conduct,
because we all have our lives which bears its own set of orders, therefore
having another governing system and that too in a relation is not feasible. The
important thing is that even though you may not be in touch with your relatives
but when you meet them you should be glad because that feeling of well-being in
a social gathering is genuine as compared to the fake display of affection over
phone calls.
In the end, I would just say that out of those 10 fake
smiles in a social gathering, around 1-2 are genuine ones. Maybe that’s how
relatives justify their role in life. Relatives are also the boons that can back you up in times of needs both financial or moral (not emotional). Because no man deserves loneliness in
life and these relatives fill the void and keep you safe.
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