Pondering over nature of love!

Love is something that we feel, something that binds people together emotionally. Well, of course explaining what love "feels" like would be difficult. Either I use some reference or some adjectives. Talking scientifically, love is also like another feeling like fear, lust, sadness etc., a complex bio-chemical reaction. So, if love is a biochemical reaction then producing the same biochemical reaction should be able to produce the feeling of love, is not it?
As a kid, while watching movies, I learnt that a guy who can fight, who can kick some ass, is the guy with whom the pretty lady likes to be with. Of course, the same thing as swayamvar in our Hindu Mythology in which everyone showcases their talents and compete for the beautiful princess.
Later, when I grew up and entered my teenage, I still watched movies, and the movies also changed in quality and style. Now, the guy who is financially stable or well off is the one with whom the pretty lady likes to be with. The guy may or may not be a macho man.
A few years ago I saw the truth. I saw that being physically or financially strong is secondary, but being a good guy is the primary requirement. Initially it may happen that the pretty lady may prefer the former two cases, but sooner or later, she would select the good guy.
It is only little less than a couple of years ago that I realized that it is neither of the three cases that matter. A person falls in love with someone for no justifiable reason, it "just" happens. Two people fall in love, they like to be with each other, they just 'click'. Sometimes it could be because of similar interests but that's just the initiation part, and sometimes its two completely different kind of people with nothing in common.
And a few weeks ago I realized that no matter who you are, there's always at least one person in this world who will fall in love with you and there's always at least one person you'll fall in love with, if the two of you meet. It is said that couples are decided in heaven, or as said in movies, "Everyone has a soulmate".
Love is something that just happens, something that has puzzled and amazed greatest minds of every era and something that's the best thing God or Nature has given us.

Catching up

All my life I have been changing places of residence because my father got posted every 2 or 3 years to a different city or town as per the Defence force policy, whatever that be. I have made new friends, met some old ones in a different and new place few years later and visited many places in India. Among other troubles in changing places every few years is meeting old friends in a new place few years later. The friendship in 2nd standard can't be reprise in 5th standard or 8th standard with the same essence and feelings. Things change, people change and so does other things in life and in society. Meeting an old friend and deciding to do some catching up can be a bit awkward sometimes, but could be fun in some other cases. It depends on the kind of friendship and the changes that each friend has undergone. Some people even avoid the "catching up" part just to prevent the awkwardness that they may experience.
As my personal experience, now a days I am not or will not be as comfortable with some of my old friends, as I was some 5 or 6 years ago. I or he/she might expect some things from those bygone days from the other person but it may not happen. While with some other friends, the essence of those old days is still there and the friendship with same flavor is reprise with few new flavors added.
Few of my school acquaintances with whom I hardly talked while with them in school, became my good friends after we met few years later at some other place. Its strange but if I had stayed in the previous place for few more years, then that person and I wouldn't have become friends at all.

P.S. I observed something interesting in my life that I met an old friend from a school before my previous school every year since my 6th class, i.e., my stay in Bhopal till 12th class, i.e., my stay in Jalandhar.

Status message

One of my favorite passtimes is reading other people's status messages on gtalk (the messenger I use for real time chatting). Some of the interesting and typical ones that have come to my observation:

1. The greetings/wishing message: Congratulating a person so that others also know through gtalk status message, wishing everyone on festivals so that people read the status message and get the wishes! Same for the birthday or wishing for other reasons.

2. Quotes message: The kind of quotes a person puts as status message reflects their personality. I have read quotes on love, passion, inspiration, faith etc. When I keep quotes as status message, I always give the name of the person who spoke those lines, i.e., I give the source which is important.

3. Comment on other's status message message: The problem with this one occurs when the person who's status message is commented on, goes offline. People like me browsing through the status messages have no idea what this person's talking about. Mostly these messages have this line, "I agree with status message."

4. Humorous message: Some joke or one liner.

5. Advertising message: This message shows links to their or some other's blog or some other interesting webpage(s) which may contain jokes, some news article, some online game, some interesting orkut/facebook profile or some interesting image or video on youtube.

6. Personal condition message: This message tells about the mood or state of mind of the person, which the person choose to share with his gtalk friends.

7. Comment on something done lately message: It is something that the person has done lately like watching a movie and could be a comment on that. People sometimes only keep name of the activity or the movie seen and expect that to convey everything!!

8. Current soundtrack message: The currently played song is displayed on gtalk as status message but only if winamp or windows media player is used.

9. Miscellaneous message: The type of messages that I haven't read till now.

Facebook introduced discussions on status messages which is an interesting activity. The status messages on facebook also, I presume, fall under the categories I discussed above.

A Testimonial

Orkut was the first social networking site that I used. An integral feature of orkut's user profile is a testimonial that a friend writes to a user and is displayed in user's profile. An interesting point to note here is that the testimonials almost never talk about anything bad regarding the person. I read the testimonials in anybody's profile and they're filled with praises for that person. The bad side of the person, if at all discussed in the testimonials are sweetened that they loose their badness and one feels, so what, that guy is a human and a human has flaws, everyone has flaws, nobody is perfect... the person is portrayed as a saint.
In my defense, I would say that I have written testimonials for only a few people and they happen to have a very good influence on me. The ones I wasn't sure about or the ones I don't really like, or even the ones I am unable to express in right words, I haven't written a testimonial about them.
As an interesting activity, I asked one of my good friends, who is an active orkut user to write me a testimonial expressing all his frustration about me and why he doesn't like being with me sometimes. He did write a lot of things about me that I'm afraid are true, and bad! :(
I asked many other people to do so but nobody else would do it. Writing a bad testimonial does take lesser time than writing a good testimonial and praising the person, trust me!
If a person is actually good, he/she does deserve praise for that and so good words should express them in the testimonial. Sometimes it happens that we can only see the better part of the person and so we can only write good things about the person, but honestly there's atleast one thing about even the bestest of the best friend that one may have that could get too annoying to be ignored!
Personally I feel a testimonial is an image of a person in one's mind and one must bring out that image with all the pixels at the right places. Not every part sugary, need to add some spice and bitterness in it to make it interesting!
So then one can have two testimonials, first may say, "he's a pain to be with" and next one may say, "his company doesn't bother me that much, infact I am finding it quite pleasant", or it could be vice versa!

P.S. Similar logic can be applied to comments on the blog, friends are obliged to praise the blogger or else he/she would feel bad even though the post may suck big time!

P.S. Get the truth out, breathe in the open air!

P.S. I don't say the truth many times because I can't anticipate the consequence. :)

Signature

I look at the open sky,
spread over me in embrace,
I feel the soft touch of the breeze,
brush against me in affection,
I hear the symphony of birds,
singing to me with a smile,
Life all this while
had been a drunkard's game,
you changed its course,
no more does it feel the same,

I see your signature,
everywhere, all around me,
I feel you're here,
right beside me.