By Arindam Guptaray
Kolkata, India
When we were young we clearly knew who our friends were. If I ask my daughter who her good friends are, she would give me a list of at least 5 friends in the descending order of likeness. I think the clear-cut demarcation between friends and acquaintances lasts till you graduate from college. I can clearly list my friends and enemies from college. I was with them at every social and cultural event. We would walk with our arms around each other or a hand on a shoulder, an action that only meant we were Homo Sapiens and nothing else. But as we grew older, the definition of friend and acquaintance become grey. Anyone whom we met became our friend. Colleagues from work, the next door neighbor, the dentist, son’s classmates’ moms and even the cute girl at the corner grocery store were all friends. They might not invite you to their New Year’s Eve party or their own wedding but they were still friends. Friends always remain as friends unless they do something really bad like stealing your boyfriend or puking in your bathroom and using your new Ralph Lauren towel to wipe it.The dynamics of friendship have remained the same from the days of Adam till the end of the twentieth century. There were minor changes here and there. Here’s an example: In the early times it was your prized fig leaf whose desecration by a fellow friend caused you to declare him as someone who wasn’t a friend as opposed to the towel custom in the twentieth century. When you liked a girl you would ask her for her cave number, pigeon number or phone number based on the century of your existence.
With the arrival of the Internet, people thought about toying with the idea of friendship but none were bold enough to add the F word to their software. During the IRC days, you could follow someone (the same concept now used by Twitter), so that if that person was online, you were notified. Yahoo called it Contacts, a definition which screamed out the words “No emotions please!”. It took a maverick like Google to start calling contacts as friends. Still, the implications were very limited. Based on the census of 2002, only .5% of potential daters exchanged gmail ids, the rest opted for phone numbers.
With the advent of Facebook we went back to the kindergarten days, of clearly defining who our friends are. Thanks to some innovative programs we can also classify them based on their date worthiness, sexiness, wealth and appetite. It was a way to tell the world, “Look how many friends I have, you little anti-socialite!” It only took a few clicks (and sometimes major convincing) to add friends, but along with that came the new word in the English dictionary “Unfriend” (a word that Office 2007 still thinks is spelt incorrectly). You can Unfriend someone with just one click. The list of friends became evidence that can be submitted to the court of law. You are an accomplice to a bank heist? Just prove that you unfriended the mastermind before the robbery happened and go scot free. An overzealous husband has put a gun to your head for sleeping with his wife? Don’t worry just show him that you unfriended her 5 days before the day he saw you coming out of his bedroom. Who will make love to a person who Unfriended you? Even Othello would understand that.
The problem with the digital definition of “Friends” was that people would unfriend you for trivial reasons. The paperwork involved in unfriending someone in the pre-Facebook era was daunting enough for someone not to go through it. But now it is instant and easy. People unfriend their friends for trivial reasons. Don’t like the color of the shirt he is wearing? Unfriend him. Her grammar sucks? Unfriend her. She is a feminist? Unfriend her. He is a MCP? Unfriend him.
I had my fair share of being unfriended by ex-friends. One ex friend did not like my comment “You are looking beautiful in this picture”. She thought it was too demeaning. How can you judge beauty? The strange part is when asked why she unfriended me, she refused to divulge the reason. The first answer was, “It’s not you but it’s me”. Then she said, “Actually I was arranging my friends in alphabetical order and did not know where to put you!” I think she thought I was a rockstar and my name might be just a symbol like the “artist who was formerly called Prince”. (I am sure this is the reason why Prince changed his name back to Prince). I had to pay a private investigator a huge fortune to find out the real reason.
I suffer from OCD as far as accepting or rejecting friends. If I don’t accept or reject someone within five minutes of the request, I start gasping for oxygen, my skin dries up, I get a terrible headache along with other symptoms that are best left undocumented. Once my wife left her Facebook session open with the screen that had the dialog box open regarding a friend request. I accepted it. Someone on my friend list did not like it. It seemed my wife’s new friend had bought the same sari as my ex-friend. I was unaware of the rule that you can only have friends with mutually exclusive choice of saris.
I wanted to write this article to wish all my friends a happy friendship day. As a protest against Hallmark I want to celebrate it on a day not designated by Hallmark. (An act that will result in being unfriended by all the Hallmark employees on my list). So here it is….
“Wishing you a happy fri………….”! Hey! Wait a minute. How come I have one friend less today than I did yesterday?
ezed into the clothes cutting off your circulation aka looking like you are in your younger siblings clothes. People are determined to wear whatever, whenever and has people looking like who did that and why?? It doesn’t matter your size, just make sure it is actually your size. Not all styles work for everyone, just because it’s the trend doesn’t mean that it’s for you. It’s not cute to see your stomach hanging over your pants or your body not looking proportional. There are many people that are not pleased with their body type but everyone has to work with what they have. Word of advice get clothes to flatter your body because otherwise the style is not flattering and technically is not a style at all. Save your money and save your feelings from getting hurt, only buy what works for you and
not our celebrities or your friends.
A graduate of journalism from Columbia University, Patricia embarked on a research of Nepali girls' trafficking into India (some estimate says 12,000 of them are trafficked to India every year), through a grant by New York Foundation for Arts. The result was a heart-wrenching story of a girl, mired in poverty, sold into prostitution in an Indian brothel. The characters are thinly veiled real life people. 
This location is special to me for more reasons than one. It is in this little laboratory of freedom that I have learned some of life’s greatest tips to existence. I look at them as my take-away scraps of wisdom from realties’ workshops. It is here that I have discovered how failed experiments could be translated to meaningful experiences. I have also understood that mistakes could be interpreted as lessons learnt and giving in to irresistible temptations would only mean that I shall have no regrets as I moved on in life. Unlike any other tutor, this third floor apartment right in the heart of the city has taught me to live, to win and to love without restrictions. So, without further ado, I shall take you by the hand and lead you to where my story unfolds… 
I have been out of your reach for a while now and you call out my name. Leaving the kitchen in a state of mess, I hurry back with some toasts and ham-omelettes and a pot of green tea. Your eyes follow me from the door and from the tilt of your head I can see an expression of enveloping contentment written all over your visage. And then you smile…. 
en Noodle Soup, Wit A Soda On The Side.” When that song came out I thought it was a skit that went horribly wrong. This leads me to believe that people will listen and dance to anything. There is no character or important meanings. People wonder why the children today are the way they are, look around if they started off listening to “Chicken Noodle Soup” when it first came out and presently listening to “Pretty Boy Swag,” what do you expect. R&B and Hip hop has to get back on their 2pac, Mary J Blige game and start making real music again.
.....not sure, though. I have heard from somewhere that the human mind has shades of white and grey. But how much does it matter? Let me share an experience...
I had no idea how long I had been unconscious. I felt sick and weary. My body ached as though every bone had been crushed. I looked around myself. It was dark all around. The darkness felt strange - it was blacker than pitch! It was cold. It was quiet. And it was scary.
When we were young we clearly knew who our friends were. If I ask my daughter who her good friends are, she would give me a list of at least 5 friends in the descending order of likeness. I think the clear-cut demarcation between friends and acquaintances lasts till you graduate from college. I can clearly list my friends and enemies from college. I was with them at every social and cultural event. We would walk with our arms around each other or a hand on a shoulder, an action that only meant we were Homo Sapiens and nothing else. But as we grew older, the definition of friend and acquaintance become grey. Anyone whom we met became our friend. Colleagues from work, the next door neighbor, the dentist, son’s classmates’ moms and even the cute girl at the corner grocery store were all friends. They might not invite you to their New Year’s Eve party or their own wedding but they were still friends. Friends always remain as friends unless they do something really bad like stealing your boyfriend or puking in your bathroom and using your new Ralph Lauren towel to wipe it.
