rksingh1

This can be a completely off topic to even mention here - however, I guess Gearhead has become an integral part of me and when a thought came write something like this down - this forum and this place was all that came to my mind.

So what this is about? Its about a real boring topic - relationships. I find myself very poor in maintaining them. Thus arise a need to talk about and address it. The fact that not many people read the blogs down here - gives me a comfort of some sort for unknown reasons.

There are two types of people in world - one who are very good with phone conversation and keep calling their relatives / friends / loved ones on regular basis, say every week or every month, second the others who are not so good in keeping track of people with phones. I belong to the second category unfortunately. I am just able to keep up with phones. When I call, lets say my parents or relatives, without any purpose, I find myself short of topics to talk about. In 45 seconds conversation, I'll ask 5 times "how are you" and "everything ok? - then I'll quickly pass the phone on to someone else to make the conversation.

It doesn't indicate I don't need them or I don't love or have respect for them - its just that I simply don't know how to talk over the phone. There are certains people in your life who would understand this limitation of yours and accept you with the same - for them, even if I call after an year or so, they behave the same as they behaved an year back and talk to you warmly. These people are mostly the closed ones, who have accepted you in entirety. But the same doesn't happen with all and with time, you tend to loose those relationships. Well, if not loose entirely, you put them to danger for sure.

Switching from one type to another is not that easy as it may look. Most of you would think that the problem can easibily be addressed by lets say monthly calling the relatives. While the feasibility and practicality of this solution is very much present, the same doesn't translate into being realistic. The sole problem is not the lack of time or money (though they could be partially), but lack of phone conversational skills. This skill is rare, or well, not so rare. Women are very good in making phone conversation - topic or no topic, if in a conversation you have a women, you can be rest assured that it wont be a short conversation.

Guess, I am getting diverted from the main topic. Lets come back to relationships. Thus, in modern era, the frequency of phone call and duration of same has started to define the depth and breadth of relationship. I know for sure that one of my relative is very good in this. She stays in US, however, she kept it as a practice to call all relatives all over India once every two weeks for sure. I really adore her for this amazing streak that she has been continuing for years. How much I wish that I could have mainted even 10% of what she is able to do. In fact, she served as central news network (CNN - if you might have heard of) for all of us. If we all wanted to know who's how and what in our relatives clan, you can be rest assured that she'll have this news. In short. she acted as a binding force to all. Then suddenly one day, the news network broke down. Calls stopped to everyone - for 3-4 months. Reason, she felt that she is bothered about everyone, rest don't care about her. Just because no one called her in 3-4 months after she stopped her bi-weekly practice. She had a valid point - no one called her and she felt no one loves her.

In the list of no ones - there was everyone. Just because a phone conversation break - this whole hoopla of "no-one-needs-me-anymore" started. And it continued for several days.

In older days, when there was no phone, I wonder how people survived and relationships lived. Why there is so much of dependency on phones to maintain relationships these days. And most importantly, why we become so rigid in relationships to define and measure them with various parameters. While in this blog I have primarily remained one dimensional with respect to phones, I certainly want to highlight other unspoken / un-understood complexities as well. Complexities with which the relationships live till the time we live. Is there any method to simplify it all and have everyone understand the mantra of living a happy and peaceful life with peaceful relationships all around you?

May be few of us have achieved that - rest are looking for it, but one mantra that I have learnt with time is to remain flexible in relationships. I quote again, remain "FLEXIBLE" in relationships. The day you start measuing love and importance with various physical and wordly things, you are going to land up in a wrong situation. Just be open and be flexible to situations / things, you'll have a happy and peaceful life.

My 2 cents of relationships above!!!

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