Friendship day: Indian Version

Come on, friendship day is special and we all can agree on this. Especially in India because it’s not just a friendship day! It’s a clever move day. It’s an excuse to approach your crush and dude getting friend-zoned it much better than getting bro-zoned because right after this comes Rakshabandhan. A Hindu festival, on which sisters of all ages tie a talisman, or amulet, called the rakhi, around the wrists of their brothers, symbolically protecting them, receiving a gift in return, and traditionally investing the brothers with a share of the responsibility of their potential care.

I remember in my primary school, my gang was quite an OG. Hahaha, we felt really cool sporting those friendship bands. Also because it represented how many people had crushes on us. Hiding the bands from our teachers’ eyes was a real adventurous task. Every kiddo of my age cherish these memories but I won’t write more about friends and slip deep into nostalgia.

I want to write about friendship rather friends. The bond of pure love, honesty and respect. Think about it, any relationship can become more positive if the people of that relationship share the bond of friendship. Parents and their children come closer if parents agree to understand them like thier friends. Partners in a romantic relationship become more vocal and understanding if they are friends to each other, before being a better half. A student understands more, if she/he sees a friend in teacher. Of course, this doesn’t mean that a parent or teacher shouldn’t exercise their authority whenever required. They should because they are also a guide to their younger ones. The whole point is that both the people of relationship should be comfortable enough to put forward their views. They should be able to have an honest conversation. In India, being that comfortable with younger generation isn’t much in practice. That, somehow, results in awkwardness between them and everyone just tries to escape from that awkwardness. But once anyone breaks the ice, the reward is so fulfilling that no one would want to go back in previous place.

Amoung many other characteristics of being a good friend, one is to always have the back of each other and giving space for growth. Nothing only professionally but also emotionally/spiritually. Friends accept each other in each and every case along with being comfortable with pointing out or accepting criticism.

And I am grateful for having such good friends. They are not only good human beings but also always there to support me. You must be having some of those too, please protect them. Never repel them. Analyze their positive criticism and then decide if you really want to follow or not. Be open to them and also available to help them. Also keep a tap who is genuinely trying to be friends with you like your parents. Your one step towards them could mean world to them.

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Compassion Is Conflicted!

When I started to think on this topic, my curiosity made me google the exact meaning of compassion. The first result said, compassion literally means to “suffer together”.

My novice mind has always thought that compassion is a synonym of empathy. But the article by Emma Seppälä Ph.D. cleared my doubts. She wrote, Empathy, as defined by researchers, is the visceral or emotional experience of another person’s feelings. It is, in a sense, an automatic mirroring of another’s emotion, like tearing up at a friend’s sadness. Altruism is an action that benefits someone else. It may or may not be accompanied by empathy or compassion, for example in the case of making a donation for tax purposes. Although these terms are related to compassion, they are not identical. Compassion often does, of course, involve an empathic response and altruistic behavior. However, compassion is defined as the emotional response when perceiving suffering and involves an authentic desire to help.

I do realize the benefits of being a compassionate being but I am always conflicted, weather to be compassionate or to look if it’s in my favor or not. Compassion is defiantly a natural trait but as we grow up our this natural trait gets mixed with another natural trait, i.e. survival instincts . As Keltner explained that the term “survival of the fittest,” often attributed to Charles Darwin, was actually coined by Herbert Spencer and Social Darwinists who wished to justify class and race superiority. But, lesser known fact is that Darwin’s work is best described with the phrase “survival of the kindest.” Indeed in The Descent of Man and Selection In Relation to Sex, Darwin argued for “the greater strength of the social or maternal instincts than that of any other instinct or motive.” In another passage, he comments that “communities, which included the greatest number of the most sympathetic members, would flourish best, and rear the greatest number of offspring.” Compassion may indeed be a naturally evolved and adaptive trait. Without it, the survival and flourishing of our species would have been unlikely.

Coming to a conclusion is very confusing and difficult to me because as much as being morally correct is important, no one would want anything negative in his/her life. One can say that having a balance might be an holistic option but what defines the accurate balance? It’s very ambiguous. Everyone has their own quantities and their own version of ‘perfect balance’.

I want to know what is your perfect balance?

ENGLISH: matter of status!

Warning: This post consist of writer’s personal thoughts, who is just wishing to share and know your opinion. No sentence intends to hurt anyone with any language(especially to English speakers).

I live in a country called India, which has 22 official languages and according to Census of India, the total number of mother tongues spoken here is 1652 and that’s the reason why we don’t have a national language. I know this must have came like “What!” even to many Indians too. But it’s true, Hindi is Rajya Bhasha not Rashtriya Bhasha! This wide difference is the beauty. A nation, comprises of 29 states and 7 union territories have their respective languages and their people are proud of it BUT somehow the language English has outshone others. Today people measure other’s level of intelligence with the number of english words they use in a sentence. The more number of English words used, the more educated he is! English language was chosen by our constitution as associate official language to avoid confusion among people who have different languages as majority of them, irrelevant of their birthplace & mother tongue, could understand English. After all they ruled on us for 200 years and that was uniform throughout! So that, they can converse properly but this language should not be imposed on anyone. I am not denying the importance of English in our country but if two people are comfortable in their own tongues then why this extra pressure of “have to speak two English words”. Why this show off? Why can’t we feel proud on our own language?  Why can’t we be confident about our mother tounge? Why the shame to speak our tongue in front of four people? Every Indian should ponder over these questions.

ps: going extreme with your language is also no option. I mean, killing others because they don’t speak your language is so dumb act. If all have to admit that except English, kaam nahi banne wala hai, but apni bhasha ko thodi izzat to deni chahiye na. This is our responsibility to stop our cultures and languages from extinction. These are our roots, our treasure that we have inherited from previous generations, we should protect it! 🙂

#AngrezipantiKoAngootha

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