Of Marriages And Megaphones

    Often have I heard the old joke, and so has everyone else I am sure, that love marriage is like holding the gun at your chest and pulling the trigger while arranged marriage is like asking someone to shoot you. In both cases, you end up dead anyway. But considerable damage can be prevented with the use of certified bulletproof vests even though there can be a little damage followed by swelling of the area but that’s not the point here.

    I am just a little older than twenty and don’t have much idea about marriages anyway, except for the fact that my parents are more interested in my marriage than I am and every now and then I get hit by a cannonball containing phrases like – ‘how will you manage with your wife if you can’t adjust with us?’ I wonder, isn’t the answer too obvious? I mean there are loads of stuffs. I would practically be the boss in the house (unless I find myself still living with my parents) which is impossible right now and even if I would still be regularly inquired about the time I get back home, ‘midnight’ as an answer won’t end me up grounded for the rest of the week without television. I could take her to the bar and have a few drinks etc.

    I know one of my friends, who is nearly engaged (as soon as he finishes college I guess) and all I can infer from their relationship is that, it’s really beautiful to be in love if you have enough supply of aspirins within your reach. Not that he needs it all the time, but safety is always advised, no matter what. If they manage to be like the couple they are now, they are surely going to be one of those who could prescribe love-marriages to everyone and maybe even end up as preachers; much like Karl Marx would suggest that every country should have a Communist government.

    However, for a bloke like my other friend, who often manages to ruin things with the girl he has a crush on, arranged marriage seems to be quite perfect. I am sure the girl would be highly impressed by him at first sight, for he is well behaved, good-looking and all, but I (nobody for that matter) can’t specifically be sure of what might follow afterwards.

    So, marriage is much like two sides of a coin. You can’t see the other side if you are currently seeing one (unless you have a mirror nearby) and it can also help you pay your loans and mortgage or even win you a green card in some countries. But, I guess, deriving from the joke I mentioned, in both the cases, you end up killing the bachelor in yourself (if not the bachelor at heart, then at least officially).

    So, I would suggest, that if you feel like you are seeing any of the sides of the coin right now, then you are quite lucky. If you find yourself unhappy with the coin halfway, there’s always another dime called divorce. Those who aren’t seeing any coin nearby, but badly want to, should pray regularly. And those who don’t want the coin, go out, the world is yours.

   Megaphones, on the other hand, come very handy when you want to invite people to celebrate your bachelor-self's funeral with a decent supply of wine, free food and lots of music and dancing to go with it as well. Marriage is probably the only type of funeral when people actually enjoy themselves and is most of the time doesn't take bloodshed into account, unless (god forbid) extreme situations (such as smashed wedding cake) are encountered.

F.R.I.E.N.D.S

    NOW TO START with, I REALLY hate to watch F.R.I.E.N.D.S. If you have not already came up with your version of possible reason, I would like to rush to tell you mine before you get the wrong notions. I really hate to watch F.R.I.E.N.D.S because I am not allowed to be on it. The only better thing than to be cast on the show is to get to live the characters. And I am so jealous of those who got to be them. That is really unfair for everyone in the world apart from those six people. I would, however, choose to be the guys at any cost, but whatever.

    It's not just that they are the only ones with perfect lives. They have their fights and they manage to make it sound funny for us to laugh at. It kinda reminds me of the times when we used to be funny too. Those three minute fights used to be really silly when I look back at them now. But what's the point of trying not to make it look silly now? Because later when we look back at these days, they are going to look silly then anyway.
    The friends I have had the privilege to sport, they are potentially the best fun makers there could be and I really hated them all along, when they would try to pull me into being the victim of their cheap old prank which can never be any worse, when they tried to stick two fingers above the back of my head making my already sucking photograph look worse than imaginable. But, somehow they managed me to convince me to stick around them and probably I did because I just wanted to get some more of it, or maybe I wanted to find out how much more I could hate them than I already did.
    I really hated when they tried to poke their nose in my everything. I hated when they rehearsed all their free advice which they couldn't have done in any other place, I hated when they never left my side when I wanted them to, I hated when they abandoned their jobs for me, I hated when they made me the first person to tell about their plans and I really hate now to make the long list of the things I hate about them.
    I guess I met them, in the first place, because I wanted to hate them so much. And now I just wanna call up everyone of them and tell them how pricks they are and how much I hate those old hags always trying to make me hate them.
    Well, maybe I just hate F.R.I.E.N.D.S a lot which reminds me to hate my friends every time, but I guess I am just to addicted to it...

College Journals: Prologue

    AMONG MY FRIENDS, the closest ones of course, I am most famous for being nostalgic. But I cannot be more certain that before they decide to append this quality to their description of me, they wouldn’t be more ecstatic to squeeze in a dozen other adjectives before, such as, idiotic, silly, prankster and possibly a total hopeless case with several other matters. They are quite lucky, however, that they are aware of the fact that I am not going to frown on them on the inside as I would pretend to show them on the outside for attacking me with these right on my face, because I am quite fond of them  and the names they call as well.
    My desperation for keeping records of the reminiscences have sometimes fetched delights to some while a considerable amount of annoyance to others, but I do not recall being discouraged to do so at any point. But not getting into more webs of words, I would land right into the point and start telling you the near bizarre but immensely special story of my college life and the crazy friends who made every single tale count.
    Back in 2009, same time of the year as now, I was preparing for getting into a college. After two years of struggle through a really rough patch of eleventh-twelfth grade, which have been my darkest days till now, the thought of college came to a rather blissful rescue.
Time had already rolled to mid-July when it eventually let me quit my job of nail-biting (which has been dominant in the past few days) and allowed me to sit back and relax. I was safely admitted into an engineering college at last relieving my parents' from their daily nightmare of me ending up as an outcast. I spent the days around watching a television series called How I Met Your Mother and also caught the sixth part of the Harry Potter movie series in the theatre figuring nothing better to do.
    Apart from that, I also found time to explore the online community in Orkut, of the college where I had opted for admission. Orkut used to be a really breathing place in those days and was the most welcome source of making friends for many people (me included) as Facebook hadn't quite established itself among us yet.
    My first memoirs, that I could recall, of Arka happens to be nothing more than an Orkut profile and a really responsible and strict owner of the Orkut community of the Freshers Batch of our college called – “NSEC Batch 2009-2013.”

    My first interactions with him began when I received a nearly system generated scrap in my Orkut scrapbook stating – “Hi Samik, I'm also a fresher in NSEC... Check out this community” with a link attached beneath. But afterwards he did everything in his might to test if I wasn't any nosy senior trying to spy on the juniors and use their own words against them during the unofficial formal introduction with the seniors (well known as ragging). I had no choice but to comply to the terms and conditions. But after things were settled and I was honorably discharged of the attributions, things went pretty great.

    We had a lot of fun during those two weeks where nobody had met each other yet. The great momentous things always start with the little insignificant ones. And it was beyond anyone’s realization at that time that something like this could possibly be one, but I know how things turned out. And if it wouldn't have been worth it, I probably wouldn't be sitting here today, three years later from that day, trying to put my remarkable reminiscences in words.
    Throughout the three years, there have been many roads we have trotted and went through many times, some were worth remembering and some were worth even more and among the great many things that I have learnt in due course, my most favourite would be – The best thing about having best friends is that they could make you realise so strongly that, in life, some friends and instances of friendship in life could be just impossible to forget and worth not forgetting as well...

   

P.S.: Yes, there is going to be a part II (and many parts subsequently)