"A friend is a gift you give yourself."

"A friend is a gift you give yourself."

Nopes – that ain't something that I cooked up, nor do I remember who said that. But since we are going to talk about today and today being World Friendship Day (oh really!!), I thought I should sweet-talk my readers with something reasonably related and give them enough reasons to not track me down and rearrange my facial features after reading this.
Gosh!! What could I ever connive to elicit such a reaction you might think? Read on folks and don’t forget the pointers at the bottom to certain important dialogues in the blog marked with ‘*’s.

The morning saw me wake up much earlier than USUAL*.Trust me, this wasn’t part of any new resolution, but rather the result of starting my sleep very early, the previous evening. And to be frank, for once I was bored rather than forced out of my bed. Now friends, you wouldn't believe me if I told you the time I was up, and in any case that story is up for a different blog all together and I would't want to be eating into my own themes. The fact is there is enough plagiarism going on in this world without me catching the bug as well.

Coming back to my predicament in the morning, with time infinite at my disposal I got into the humdrum motions one goes through in the morning. It is a great irony of the world that when you are pressed for time, even small things like searching for your bathroom slippers seem to take a life time. But no, not today!! Today, everything seemed to be timed to perfection. The morning chores went by in a jiffy and by 7:30 AM I was done with everything one could possibly think of, including breakfast at the Diner**. Mind you, this being a Sunday, rushing to the office was already ruled out L !!

And so here I am, again, with time infinite waiting for me to occupy myself! Knowing very well that none of my like-minded friends, most of whom in all probability should be happily dreaming about being alone with Elisha Cuthbert on some carribbean island, would appreciate a wake up call at this hour, I jumped on top of the crash pad and flipped open my laptop. I checked my emails, logged on to yahoo, Google Talk screened for friends that I could chat with and was left with nothing…Jeez itz 6 in the evening back in India, when all and sundry would be out and 7:30 in the morning in US when, I repeat, all and sundry would be in, and sleeping I have to add!! Invariably my expedition took me to Orkut, and lo! Behold the pleasure of 6 new scraps!! Now that might not look a lot to an avid user, but for someone like me whose usage of Orkut starts and ends at ….(well forget about it….let me not open a can of pouts from all of you), it is analogous to a bonanza.
I clicked on the link and that started the wait for my borrowed internet connection to bring me my scrapbook. The part about a borrowed connection might look vestigial but I just moved apartments and my own connection is still to be set up. But, this being a friendly apartment complex, there are, oh so many, friendly (read dumb) neighbors with unsecured wireless connections that one could tap into. But the downside of that being the speed of the connection – umm…beggars can’t be choosers, can they ..:-(??
Nevertheless, after a long wait, during which my curiosity was just about reaching its zenith, threatening to overcome my laziness and on the verge of forcing me into a chat with my internet provider for a new connection, the page loaded. It would be embarrassing if I mention what I was expecting but if ever there was an anticlimax, this had to be it !!
My scrapbook looked like a place holder for the friendship magazine screaming Happy Friendship day all over. It was a few painful moments when I realized that no, it wasn't 6 beautiful girls who chanced upon my profile and couldn't resist saying hello, but rather few old mates who dropped in with their customary Happy Friendship day sirens – A day that I had forgotten since the time I started to remember.

Here is where I call my first time-out to give a brief look into myself. I have always been one to resist gooey forwards and mushy greeting cards. I wouldn't wish that on my enemies let alone my friends. (Err...My metro sexual friends, please excuse this behavior of mine). And this was sacrilege!! I even thought of going to the extent of deleting few of those scraps***. After all, I wouldn't want anyone to think that I too am one amongst the many who advocate such blasphemy as World Friendship day, World thinking day and et al! Worse still, I guess it's during days like latter, people come up with more profane days like World Gay Day (Well that one at least has a rhyme to it), World Jump Day…Christ….the list is endless!!
Now, hold on…!! Before you all get oh so judgmental and categorize me as a narcissistic no-good, let me call my second consecutive timeout (Jeez.. am I running out of them?) and mention this - I take good care of my friends. I make it a point to keep in touch with most of them. In fact I can truly identify with the statement that you take your closest friends for granted because I do that all the time. That makes me a great close friend – doesn't it ? Like, for example, I always remember to reach out to them whenever I shift apartments or my car breaks down. Or the time I am hungry for desi food and don't feel like cooking****. In addition, I do go out of my way and call them up whenever I play tennis, volleyball, TT, pool or most of the other games. Movies and booze add to the incomplete list. Well, you are probably thinking, whoever heard of someone doing all these stuff alone as a good counter argument, but the point being I am always keeping their life exciting, ain't I? And for out of city friends, I make it a point to forward them meaningful stuff like blonde jokes, a variety of my photographs for them to remember me be it the new car or bike that I bought or the biryani that I cooked..And my latest blogs as well :-) !!
And though unfortunately I habitually find myself out of town or at work when any of my friends shift apartments or their car breaks down, I do manage to lighten up their evening by making myself available for an evening snack or a round of beer at their place.
So I guess you have to agree about me being a reasonably close and good friend for all reasons you could think off. And that's not it. Too top it all, for an additional fifty bucks an hour I could be anybody's bestest friend!!
Umm..Enough gossip about myself!! Let me come back to the origin of this whole account. All those scraps pushed me into a new dilemma. - How do I avoid the guilt of not replying to all my friends with Happy Friendship Day (s)craps. I gotta do something, right? Silence and ignorance go hand in hand but guess those hands ain’t never gonna be mine!!
Now, hold on right there! This is not because I am changing my ways but more because even though I would hate to admit, those messages did make my day***** at 7:30 AM in the morning with nothing else to do and no one to reach out to. But still I couldn’t descend to the level of scrapping Happy Friendship Day messages. I mean, if I started doing that I might as well drop all hopes of the 6 girls we briefly talked about above…eh!!??
And then the light bulb appeared...from nowhere .right above my left cranium!! Ta-da……!! Of all my cheekiness, I think this one takes the cake. I am going to advertise all my blogs and all of you, after reading this blog can post your comments too, and I would feel obliged to wish you all a very HAPPY FRIENDSHIP DAY!!
And may be the next time I wake up at 5 all of you might get a vase full of flowers from me!!

But for now, as someone said – A friend is a gift you give yourself!!


* --> Emphasis on the word usual is so that folks realize that I am not comparing the hour with my usual time but more conspicuously, with that of a real disciplined army general.
** --> Ha …beat that my dear friends …by 7:30 AM on a Sunday!!
*** --> I actually didn't think about deleting, but it kind of accentuates what I am trying to write here, so please bear with a few lies – poetic license they call it :-)
**** --> Not that it matters whether I feel like cooking or not because that happens only once in every blue SUN – a blue moon being too frequent
***** --> Did someone remember “Poetic License”??
****** --> Lastly, couple of statements were inspired from few other posts. But in any case I take no ownership, of what has been written in here :-). You think I am crazy !!???