I want to be Chandler Bing!

“Could I be any more specific with the title?”

This is exactly what this article is going to be about!
In the evening, I was watching ‘F.R.I.E.N.D.S.’ the TV show with my friend, probably for the hundredth time, and laughing equally hard.

“Which character do you like the most among the girls?”, my friend asked me casually.

“Rachel looks great, but I think I like Monica as a character better”, I said. I have my reasons for it, but that should go into some other post, some other day.

I have been watching the show for over 5 years now, and I think I will continue to do so in the years to come. I am sure, people who have watched the show have all been asked or have thought about what characters they like from the show. For me, among the girls, it always has been either Rachel or Monica, partly because I am biased towards people who are good looking, and partly because I would want to fall for those kinds of girls. 

“What about the guys?”, my friend asked again.

“I think I like Ross, because he kind of represents the geeks and is very humble and polite”, I said.

However, today I gave a thought about whether Ross really was my favorite from the guys, if I honestly saw myself in him. After some thought, I think I would want to be Chandler Bing. Apart from all the “Chandler is gay”, “Chandler’s a stupid name” and “Chandler is a girl” jokes, I actually think he is the most ideal character of the series in today’s world. I would want to be a Chandler for my Joey, for my Monica, and the entire ten seasons of the show flashed right in front of my eyes while I thought about all the things that he is good at.

He virtually adopts Joey, sometimes paying for his rent, his food, electricity, his career, and the best part is, he never expects Joey to pay him back. All this in a city like New York which is one of the most expensive cities of the world to live in. I know it’s a TV show and it’s not real but it’s the thought that counts, right? He doesn’t forget Joey even after he finds Monica, the love of his life. In a scene where he describes to Monica how they’d raise the kids in a small place outside the city, he jokingly says “And an apartment over the garage, where Joey could grow old”. We might have laughed at that moment, but just the thought that he never wants to let Joey go, is something I think is missing in friendships today. The best part is, Chandler wasn’t joking. When Chandler and Monica buy the new house in the last season of the show, they really do have a ‘Joey Room’ for him. Who wouldn’t want a friend like that? Keeping aside the fact that he kisses Joey’s girlfriend, Kathy, he instantly confesses about it because he feels guilty of betraying him and doesn’t want to ruin their friendship. Be it any incident, him kissing one of Joey’s seven sisters and then forgetting which one, him not liking the ‘Best Buds’ bracelet that Joey gives him, him forgetting to tell Joey about an audition or sleeping during Joey’s movie, he instantly makes up for things and never lets it affect their friendship. These are real best friend goals right?

  

Chandler and Monica are one of the best on-screen couples. On numerous occasions, Chandler has proven to be the best boyfriend and also the best husband for her. Monica books a spot at the plaza for her wedding and the plaza manager calls her to check whether she still wants to keep her reservation and Chandler answers that and being the commitment-freak he is, instantly freaks out. But being a good boyfriend, he overcomes his commitment issues and decides to propose to her. Doing something like that takes courage! Also, no fan of the show will ever forget that epic, heart touching proposal, right? When Monica’s parents use up her wedding fund, Chandler agrees to give up his lifetime’s savings just so that Monica could have a perfect wedding like she wanted. Not everybody would do that. Sure he freaks out and tries to run away before the wedding, but the important thing is, when he finds out that Monica is (apparently) pregnant, he self-introspects and realizes his mistake. On being seduced by his colleague, a Miss Oklahoma contest runner-up, he mans up, thinks about Monica, turns his colleague down humbly and comes home to celebrate Christmas with his wife. Now, that is a man with character! Hubby-goals, girls? He also sends his colleagues home on that very Christmas night when they're actually supposed to be working to meet a deadline. I mean, who wouldn’t want a boss like that?!

Chandler’s bond has been shown to be very strong with Joey and Monica, Joey being his best friend and Monica being his girlfriend and wife, but he is an equally great friend to Ross, Rachel and Phoebe as well. “A donation has been made in your name at the New York City Ballet”?!, could he be any better? 😆

His character, according to me was something unique, with all his witty jokes and sarcastic humor (even in uncomfortable situations), and was very well sketched and portrayed. It was also excellently played by the talented Matthew Perry who says he found himself very similar to the character in real life. These were just some of the incidents that I could recollect over the top of my head, which made me think about Chandler from an entirely different perspective. 

"I think my favorite character is Chandler!", I texted my friend suddenly out of the blue, later that night. 😊

First Encounters..

“How did you end up in this college dude?!” my senior asked me. I was not at all surprised at this question because I had mentally prepared myself against a question of this sort. I had spent a couple of weeks thinking about this issue.

“What are you saying?! This is a good college!” I answered.

“I know this is a good college man. But I thought you wanted to do something else. Acting I suppose. There are acting classes here!” he said trying to mock me.

I just smiled and walked past him. Do seniors really not know how to welcome a junior in this college? I searched for my classroom. It was on the first floor. I figured that First Year classrooms were on the first floor, Second Year on the second and so on. I did not want to get ragged on the first day of college itself, so I headed straight to my classroom.

As I entered my classroom I saw a couple of familiar faces. These were the people from my school who had got admission in this college just like me. But they were not really my friends in school so I gave them a hey-there nod and sat away from them on bench that was away from them. I wanted to stay aloof, at least for a couple of days. Away from people, alone!  That’s who I was, a hermit. A person who feared changes in his social life. New college, new friends, a new circle, I feared everything initially. But I would get along eventually.

I started looking around the class. The walls were pale white and the colour looked at least about 5 years old. There was a large green colour board in front of the classroom. Half of the board had vertical and horizontal markings on it, like a graph paper. The roof was higher than the normal roofs. So the fans hanged from a height of about ten feet. The room looked old but was brightly lit and had good ventilation because of the large windows.

The class filled in the next 10 minutes and everyone was expecting the teacher to walk in any minute. I was sitting exactly in the middle of the bench purposely so that no one would sit beside me. Those who dared to ask me to give them a seat got a blunt “No” as an answer. I did not care what people thought of me.

It was the first lecture of our college life. The teacher walked in 5 minutes late. The class went from a fish market to a vacuum. The teacher was a mid 50s guy with a typical look. He had curly grey hair which looked like he had done an ‘Einstein’ hairdo. He wore glasses with a thick black frame and had a moustache that matched his hair colour. He was fat and had a big belly which looked like an untouched ball of fat. He had a pile of books in his hands, a ruler, a box with chalks and a duster in another.

“Good morning class! I am Prof. Venkatesh Swami and I would be teaching you Applied Calculus”.

The professor was continuously talking for the next 15 minutes. I was paying no attention to anything that was going on around me. I was lost in my own thoughts of whether taking up Engineering was a wise decision. It had always been my dream to do theatre. I had read and heard from many people that a theatre artist is a real actor. I wanted to be a theatre artist. But my family did not find it “appropriate” as a full time profession. Apparently it involved a lot of “struggle”. Well, every field needs a bit of a struggle, be it academics, or acting. The definition of ‘struggle’ might vary from one field to another and from one person to another. For an actor, struggle may be giving auditions and waiting to be selected for the part. For a student, struggle might be attending lectures early morning, writing assignments, giving exams and countless other small things. Struggle is present everywhere, it just changes form.

“You are 15 minutes late to your first lecture in this Institute!” said Professor Swami.

I came back to reality with his voice and tried to understand what was happening. The professor looked angry. He was looking at the door. I tried taking efforts to look at the person who was late for his very first lecture even after being warned about Prof. Swami by the seniors. But I could not get a glimpse of him as the door was in the way. After a moment of trying to see that idiot, who had now become a laughing stock in front of the class, I returned to looking at infinity and got lost in my own thoughts again. But just a moment later, I was disturbed by a voice.

“Excuse me! Will you move please? I need a seat right now!”

I looked up to my left. In the bright sunlight I could see just a shadow, but I could definitely tell that it was a girl. It then clicked to me that the person who was late to the class must be this girl because no guy can make an idiotic mistake like this. I smiled to myself.

“Ok great! Keep smiling! But after you let me sit! So move!”

Without saying anything I shifted and she sat beside me. The lecture went on. After some time I put my head on the bench and tried going to sleep. The lecture was all a bouncer. Maybe because I was not happy with this. Suddenly someone kicked me from below.

“Oouch!!” I shouted.

“Yes you?! Do you have any problem?!” Professor Swami pointed at me.

Suddenly I saw everyone was looking at me. The geeky first benchers and the brats on the last benches, all stared at me as if I hindered their concentration in this “interesting” lecture.

Nervously I said, “Ummm no Sir, I actually hit my leg on the bench. I am sorry for interrupting Sir”.

“You better pay attention now” said Prof. Swami.

I looked to my left. I saw her face. It was so fair that her cheeks looked naturally pink. Her eyes were dark brown and so were her hair. She had tied her hair hastily it seemed. They were long and were tied using just a pencil. She was wearing a jeans and a baby pink top that barely covered her arms. Her skin looked very soft like a baby’s. She smelled so fresh, I felt like summer! As I was admiring her beauty, I could see through her glasses that she was fully focussed on the lecture. I did not understand what happened to me and realised I was staring at her for quite a long time. I pulled myself together and looked at the teacher.

I was trying hard to not notice her, but I could still smell her. I couldn’t help but notice all her actions. She was constantly playing with the strands of hair that fell on her cheeks, putting them behind her ears. It was all like a perfect Bollywood movie scene to me. I was not so good with talking to girls like her. She looked high maintenance. After sometime I gathered some courage and wrote on top of my notebook, ‘Did YOU kick me?’ and slowly slid it towards her.

She saw it, gave a quick smile and wrote below it. ‘Yes I did!’ with a smiley.

I gave her a questioned look. Why would she kick me? I was doing nothing, just sitting on the bench with my head down.

Understanding my curiosity she again wrote on the notebook, ‘The professor was looking at you because you were sleeping’.

I smiled at her and gave her thumbs up and wrote down, ‘Thanks for saving my ass today’.

She kicked me again and scribbled the word ‘ass’.

The lecture bell rang. Professor Swami gave us the attendance sheet and left. Some students followed him out. I yawned and stretched myself out. We had a break for 5 minutes. I thought to myself, this was my chance to run and bunk the next lectures. I packed my things and began to leave. As I was about to leave, she held my hand and asked me,

“Hey where are you going? There are still two lectures to go for the break!”

“Yes I know but I am very tired and also not well, so I am going back to my apartment room” I said pulling my hand away awkwardly.

“At least sign for your attendance before you leave”.

“I don’t have time for that, the lecture may start soon and I cannot bear another lecture” I said and ran out of the room quickly.

I just plugged my earphones in and started walking. All I could think about was her. Why on earth did she choose to sit beside me when there were so many benches in the class? Maybe because she liked me? Shut up you! She did not even notice you. She just sat there because there was no other empty bench around. I did this a lot, over think past situations and play various scenarios that would have happened if I behaved in a slightly different manner. There was random music going on in my ears than the song that played through the earphones. I kept thinking about what she must have felt about me, a guy who was almost asleep the entire class and wrote stupidly on the book to converse. Suddenly I realised that I was near the departmental store which was 15 minutes away from my apartment. I had walked past my apartment without realising it. I knew I was screwed; this girl had sneaked into my head on the very first day of college without me even consciously trying to attempt.

Am I broken?

Is it okay for guys to be emotional? Don't men have feelings? How do you vent our your feelings as a guy? Are you not supposed to have an emotional side? Well, I do not really know the answers to these questions. What I do know is, I don't believe in the whole 'Men don't cry' thing. Men do cry, and yes I do cry too. Crying is an emotion, and if you cannot express that, maybe something is wrong with you.

I am pretty bad at keeping friends, I feel I don't take enough efforts to "maintain" the friendship. I never really understood what "maintaining" a friendship meant. I always believed that if you like or love someone, set them free, if they feel the same way for you, that feeling will keep you bonded. This maybe the reason I never really had a lot of friends, neither in school, nor in college and not even now. I always had only a handful of friends at any phase in life. I don't know if it was strange or unconventional since I used to feel jealous of people who had large groups of friends, party friends, school friends, college friends, workplace friends. Was I anti social? Maybe not.

It was always like, if I make a new friend, I would want to hang out and talk with him a lot, up to a point where we both would feel that we know almost everything about each other. By my experiences, people usually did not like it. Maybe they thought I was clingy, or one of those 'forever alone' types who would want to hangout every single day. But it wasn't that. I was just different in the way of connecting to people and making new friends. Some of them took it well, some of them did not and gradually stopped being friends.

Same is my case with letting people go. I value people a lot to just let them go. Till today, I have never let any person in my life go. There might be many with whom I don't talk now, but that is just because of the communication gap, and not because we let our friendship go. I cannot imagine saying to someone that I don't want to see you anymore, or our relationship is done. I feel too guilty to do that. I might say some things when I am mad at someone, but I feel bad for them, and I apologize in a couple of hours when my anger's gone. Straight to the point, I have difficulty losing people and letting relationships go. People tell me that its better to sometimes let things go, but I just cannot! I keep pondering over what could have gone wrong and what could I have possibly done that jeopardized the relationship. I get attached to people pretty quickly and expect the same from them. These expectations fail me. I become upset when I don't get the same attention that I give to that person, in return. I have even let my self respect go in some cases, to maintain a good relationship with the person.

Is getting attached to people my problem? Maybe its just the way I am built! 

When nothing works for you, just close your eyes and think about the good times, think about every difficulty you have been through, think about how you tackled it, and finally think of how you are as a person. This person that you are today, is because of those difficult times you powered through. They made you. You are stronger today because of all those troubled phases of your life. Every person has a struggle phase in his life, which tests him, his character, his tolerance, his mental and physical ability, and at the end of it what you get is a more advanced version of you.

When I first moved to the US, I never thought it would teach me so many things. Well I am here to learn and pursue my masters, but academic learning is not something I am talking about. I am talking about the unconventional things that you learn, life experiences and most importantly, people! These are the things, your friends and family in India do not know, things that only students who stay in the US know about. You will have never noticed these things when you were living inside your eggshell, protected by your parents and relatives. Living alone and away from your family teaches you these small things that define you as a person. Cooking for yourself, cleaning your rooms, cleaning the apartment, living an organized life bounded by time, money and work, is a precious experience that will definitely help you in the longer run, though not immediately. 

There will be times when things are not working out for you, even when you are working at and giving your best. Your roommates and your friends will be your greatest strength during these times, because they are the only family you have away from home. Always think of these tough times as a test that you are being put through, and as Monica says, "Tests make us all better learners". At the end what is important is the bigger picture. Smile through these hard times and learn how to handle stressful situations. 

Why am I writing all this today? Well, I am going through the exact same feeling right now. The feeling of being alone, having no one to talk to when nothing is working out for me. I never actually believed in astrology (or the whole bad stars thing) but the past year has been a really rough one for me. Nothing worked in my favor despite my sincere efforts, not getting credit for my work, not being recognized, and not making great progress in my field of strength either. As a result, I started cursing my stars, saying that everyone has this phase in his life when the stars are bad for him and affect his life. I kept believing that my good times will start when the stars are good again. Until recently, when I had a sleepless night when I was thinking about every single thing that did not work out for me in the past year. I somehow realized that it is not about the stars, but about my perspective. "If I keep thinking that its not going to work for me because I having a bad phase in life, nothing will work for me. I need to change my perspective of looking at things and change will come from within me!". The result, I have started looking positively at life and accepting every bad thing happening to me as a chance to improve myself, as a chance to get up and start working again.

Its not easy for me to do it, because I have always had people around me right since my childhood to help and support me, be it my family, relatives or friends. But this is like life in a nutshell, and I am sure after this initial struggle period, I will be able enough to face the real challenge, you probably know by now what it is.

I believe every person has to be a Phoenix in real life. You cannot be give up if you fail once. Rise from the ashes they say, that's what a phoenix does! There will always come a time in your life when you will feel like giving up everything that you have been doing, a time when the going gets tough. It is this time, when your inner strength is tested. You might cry, vent out your frustration. The convention of "Mard ko Dard nahi hota!" (Men never feel pain) is not true. Men do cry, they do feel the pain. Always embrace your emotional side, for your emotional side is what defines your soul.

Taking pragmatic decisions is what the world does these days, but some things need to involve your sentiments.

I am writing all this because I have been feeling too depressed and unmotivated to work lately. That is partly because of a tight schedule, partly because of a lack of change and partly because of a specific reason that I don't wish to mention here. Its easy to give up everything in this down time, even easier to crib about how unfair life has been to you. I did, I did all that! Cried, sat alone thinking about where I was headed in life, what my ultimate goals are, and if I really am working towards it! Found vague answers to all questions, and felt even more frustrated. There's nothing much you can do during this phase, except call up your closed ones and share your so called "sorrow".

It's only when I look around myself that I see people, in a far worse struggle in life than me. Who knows what an auto driver has to go through in the entire day before going home. Who knows if he's at peace in his home? You never know what a street vendor's struggles are, or how a security guard in your society manages his household in his meager wages. Everyone has problems, the magnitude differs. And no matter how much ever bad you think your problem is, there is always someone who is in a condition worse than yours. A person with no shoes, looks at a person wearing boots and feels bad, but then he sees a person with no legs and realizes the superficiality of his sadness.

It is the determination with which you get up after falling, that defines the fire in you. It's not about the dog in the fight, it's about the fight in the dog. Life is all about highs and lows, its not a bed of roses, so the better you are at rising up again, the stronger you will be. Help yourself and God will help you!

Writing is not my cup of tea. But when people say that you should experience everything in life, I cannot agree with them more. So here I am, trying to write, pour out my thoughts as clearly as possible and better my writing skills. I have never been an avid reader or a book enthusiast, and I am not fond of big English words either. I believe in expressing my feelings in a comparatively simple language than by throwing the dictionary on people's faces. Maybe that is partly because I don't know many "big English words", but hey, who cares!

So, I thought of starting this blog mainly because I have never tried something of this sort before. I mean I did start a few blogs a couple of years back, but never really got time to write more than an article or two. But this time, I am going to make an effort to actually write an article per week, not because I HAVE to do it, but because I WANT to do it.

I am really amazed how people change when they leave their home country and come abroad to study. Well I can only say this because I can feel the change in myself. I see a lot of people around me change from what they were a few months back and what they are now. Suddenly, patronizing your own country becomes a "trend". Comparing how things are messed up in your home country, and how those are incredibly smooth in the new land, becomes the epicenter of every discussion. When some might think that this is pretty laughable and talking about it makes them cool, I feel it is utterly degrading to your motherland. I am neither being a patriot here, nor have I just watched the movie 'Swades', I am just being a little sensitive to my country, and I feel it deserves it. I totally understand that the amount of opportunities you get in your home country, are comparatively lesser than what the new country would offer you, or a certain government procedure might cost you more time and money, or the traffic jams might take forever to clear, or the reservations might just bug you out, but always remember that this was the country that you were born in, a country that let you live in peace and harmony with your family, which never restricted you from doing anything, a country that made you what you are today.

I have often noticed this among foreigners, that they know of India as a place with a lot of history, ancient structures, beautiful scenery, a rich heritage and smart people. We Indians potray our country in front of them as a place with illiteracy, corruption, and a lot of other negative things. Whereas the fact is, that India is the fastest developing country in the world and great world leaders have already recognized that the 21st century is going to belong to India. It is high time according to me that we as the responsible citizens of India, need to envision its future and growth and work towards it no matter which part of the world you are in.

Every country has some flaws, doesn't mean we need to show it to the world. If you have a weakness, you don't show it to the world, you hide it and overcome it. Shouldn't we do the same? Showing the world about the bad side of India, is morally incorrect on our part as it's young generation. It is high time that we start appreciating the good things in our country and try to work on the few negative things. I am not saying that the western culture is harmful for the Indian society, but we should stop going gaga about it. There are a few things that we really need to incorporate from the western culture and some things that we can ignore. Before accepting westernization, I am strongly of the opinion that we must study our own culture fully. Many of the young generation have little or no knowledge of their own culture, and because ignorance is bliss, they misconceive the Indian culture. A little insight into it and then they can make a rightful choice of the culture they want to follow.

Contrary to the contents of the above article, I am totally not a philosophical person but I do not know where all that came from. Maybe just some frustration venting out. That's all for today.