Emotional blackmail

As if I was not thinking enough of friendship and relationships, another sms landed on my cell raising a critical issue between responding to a message and living up for a thought that defines me. The problem is my stance would eventually reflect on the relationship between the sender and the receiver of the message, in positive or negative. How serious it is difficult to ascertain, as this cannot be ascertained at all. Certain issues are useless to ponder on but need to be tackled deftly; why, even I don't know, but we definitely need to.

Like many people, my Valentines Day went away in sorting pending works. But the very next day i.e. today, I received an sms on World’s Best Friend week (I never knew this fact). Here it goes..

“Do you know the relation between your 2 eyes? They blink together, move together, cry together, see things together & sleep together. Though they never see each other, friendship should be just like that. Life is hell without friends. It is World’s Best Friend Week. Send this to all your good friends. Even me, if I am one of them. See how many you get back. If you get more than 7, then you are really great and loveable friend to those 7 and more. Have a gr8 weekend.”

A pretty long 1 4 a msg in ‘short messaging service’ age. It split me in two minds immediately… whether to reply or not. The fact that emotional sms-es are a marketing gimmick is well known; for sure, the strategy to sell emotions by Hutch using the AirTel(ephone) has turned out to be a big money minting Idea for all telecom service providers. But the fact is should we respect the sender for a forwarded message or use our own discretion to reply or not. Had it been a simple (and original) sms asking me about my life, wats hpnin types.. I would have responded without a blink. But these sms-es tend to take away the underlying feeling in the message. E-mails can be deleted and there is always a reason that we missed the mail as it might have gone into spam, but wat abt n sms. Thinking a lot, I succumbed and did respond: “A frnd wudnt even need an sms 2 read other’s mind! But I do thnk u 4 counting me in n so goes my reply: sms assured tht we stand together. Cheers!!” Also, I did not forward the message to any and broke the chain reaction.

I humbly accept the fact that these sms-es don’t make me happy at all, where I am made a scapegoat to compulsively reply n that too in a good and casual gesture. And this very premise appears little hollow if we are talking of emotions. Where is the feeling if we are doing it for the reasoning stated? The issue is my left and right brains keep on fighting constantly with each other; one which understands the feelings of others wants to respond and the other one rubbishes the very fact and demands a practical, ‘hold your fort’ kind of approach. I don’t know the feeling with which it was sent to me by the friend but personally, I still feel that these kinds of messages can be done without. In appreciating someone’s effort or feeling (when asked) we sometimes compromise with self. Is this right or wrong nobody cares. I know one thing that these sms-es force me to part away from real me most of the time and the fear of ‘what he / she must be feeling’ lingers if I don’t reply.

My Nokia model saves limited messages. A few days later, this big message from my dear friend will definitely be assassinated to make room for a new similar one… the 360° theory will come to haunt me and I will try to be myself again; though suspect that I will be failing unflinchingly in the very second moment. This is purely emotional blackmail.

Sorrows, Misery, Happy

I received a message late at night a few days back that read --

"There are no greater sorrows than to recall in misery, the times, when we were happy…"

That line has somehow struck a cord with me. Sorrows increase, as many spiritual gurus would say, because we attach ourselves to relationships. Also, when a person goes through a change and adds up new sets of people in his or her life, many associated with that person are insecure about their existing relationship with the same and its imminent future. Skepticism is that once a new relationship blossom like in the case of a marriage, both parties involved need to sacrifice little bit their older linkages to give something to the new relationship (remember theory of Physics: energy can’t be lost; an equation is always balanced). When my dear friend recently got married, I somehow felt that people are either genuinely concerned about him or pretended to be very close to him. Any sane mind would detest the latter one… according to me they should be left alone for space to absorb the moments. Yet, at the very moment, with every new relationship making room for it, a few strings of old relationships gets stretched. If not taken care of those, they end up being broken up. We just need to be careful about those issues, where giving space to someone also demands a comfort of assurance that we are always there for the relationship we stand and care for. It stands very true for friendships, as we tend to make friends faster than any other form of relationships. Ummhh.. please don’t count acquaintances and professional colleagues as friends, as many don’t ably distinguish between friends, and the latter two mentioned here. It's little tricky, emotionally or practically, in which-so-ever way one thinks of.

Coming back to Taniya’s sms, the reason for coming up with that statement, she said… it is not hers; probably written by Gurudeb. “I had written in one of the pages of my diary years back probably during school days or so. It was an expression of mine for what was happening around me,” she told me. According to her, going back to old days and remembering the pain we had gone through, brings back the same memories again as we recall the episode(s).

I disagreed and said, “That should probably give you confidence that you overcame the difficult times that appeared not breach able then.” Therefore, I try to reach the ground when I am on a high in any relationship. So that, even during misery, if I fail to keep it at bay, I only recall the strong ground I held to give me that cushion of comfort and happiness. It is complex to understand what I might be trying to say and presented it simply… wish I could know, why Gurudeb wrote that line which is so simple and true to the core, yet needs to be perceived differently to know the crux of reality and our involvement in relationships, which are seldom simple to comprehend.