Rohit Bandri's Blog

Could relate to everything you wrote. I have myself tried a few if these things myself and it does work. Liked the way you have structured the article

Circles of friends — How we make them and lose them !Photo by Duy Pham on Unsplash

It is said ‘ We cannot choose our siblings but we can choose our friends’. But does having a choice means that we do it right? We start making friends, the day we start making any verbal or non-verbal communication. Have you seen two babies play with each other?, they are already friends.

As toddlers, we take great effort to connect with everyone around us. Curiosity is at its peak and limited vocabulary not an obstacle. After spending our first two to three years in a protected environment and with familiar faces within the family, kindergarten is the first place which actually exposes us to the outside world for the first time. We watch a sea of kids like ourselves around us and instantly feel the need to know about each of them.Toddlers don’t have a personality. You can’t attach labels like studious, artistic, dumb, pompous etc to them, the way we attach to grownups. All toddlers in a kindergarten are like balls of clay or like a blank books, you can reach out to any of them without any preconceived notions.

As a little kid, you get attracted to anyone who has the same toys as you do, or enjoys the same games that you enjoy or even plays the same pranks that you do and in no time you start making friends. This process continues in primary and then in higher secondary school too. However, if I were to ask you to remember the day that a particular person qualified from being an acquaintance to a friend, you will not be able to. Pick any of your friends! Except for the ones who were introduced to you by common friends, you will not remember the day or moment with any other friend. That’s how seamlessly we make friends or a circle of friends. That’s how naturally they become a part of our lives.

Most of us have at least two circle of friends right since childhood. A circle of friends from the school and another from the locality we stay at. As we grow older we start becoming part of additional circle of friends . We have one from the coaching institute, then one from the karate class, then one from the school cricket team and so on and so forth. For kids who’s parents are in the government service or military and therefore have to change multiple schools, the multiplicity of friend circles is at a different level.

Till a certain point in childhood we don’t mind being part of any number of groups as long as the other members in the group don’t treat us badly.We assimilate without judgement. We go with the flow. As children we are honest. Often children say the most bitter truth to each other, have an ugly fight but still get along. That’s why we tend to have several circles of friends in childhood. It is more about the experience of being in the circle. However once the emotions of ego and jealousy take root in our minds, the dynamics change. Throughout this journey from childhood to teenage and early adulthood, all of us try to fit in with the groups that we are a part of, but how hard we try depends on what age group we are in.

It is in your teenage that friend circles really matter. It is almost as if your quality of life is directly proportional to your acceptability in the friend circles. Saying that ‘fitting in is a matter of life and death’ would not be an overstatement at this stage. What type of friend circle you would like to fit in really depends on your area of interest and acceptability in the group. Most of us want to be a part of the coolest group in college but we know that there are limited seats in the coolest group and so most of us end up with the second most preferred type of group. It could be the one with the most intelligent people or the one which bunks the class more often or maybe the one which seems to get the same percentage of marks that you do. Everyone’s priorities are different.

Curiously enough, I decided to plot a graph to depict the correlation of ‘the age group that you are in' with the following two things:

First — ‘our need to fit in the group' and

Second — ‘the no of groups we are a part of’.

See the graph below.

The X-axis is the ‘age group you are in’ and the Y-Axis on the left is 'the need to fit in the group' while the Y-Axis on the right is the ‘circle of friends you have’.

The curved line depicts the relation between ‘need to fit in the group’ with the ‘age group that you are in’. According to me the need to fit in the friend circle is moderate in childhood and grows gradually until it reaches its peak during teenage but as we reach our twenties this urge to fit in starts reducing until finally we reach a point where friend circles really don’t matter much.

The straight line growing from high to low depicts the relation between ‘ no of friend circles we have’ to the ‘age group we are in’. As can be seen from this plot, the number of friend circles in childhood tends to be the most and starts reducing gradually until we reach late twenties. What matters in your late twenties is those few friends who you genuinely like and who care for you and not the entire circle of friends. All other friends get reduced to acquaintances again. We get out of touch with a lot of people that we couldn’t live without in the past. Family also becomes a priority. The family that you took for granted during your growing up years is now suddenly at the forefront. Work takes over too. This is not to say that we no more have friend circles but they are much less. In our twenties we also understand our relationship/friendship mistakes of the past and some of us try to make amends too. It is a phase where we often retrospect and try to think of how we could have handled a particular friendship or relationship differently.

As you can also see in the graph, the straight line intercepts the curved line twice. I would like to call the first intersection on the left as the ‘inception of adolescence’. This the point from which our urge to fit in starts peaking while we become selective about becoming part of any friend circle. On the other hand the second intersection is called as the ‘inception of maturity’. The point at which we realize, it is not necessary to worry about every friend’s opinion. In fact it is the point where we decide that there is no need to have so many friends at all as long as we are good with our selected set of friends.

Needless to say this graph is an attempt to represent what most of us experience from childhood to adulthood and does not apply to every human being. There are always exceptions to the rule. Of course some know what they want right since childhood. Many achieve maturity at a very early stage while some don’t achieve it even in their late twenties. The graph is what majority of us experience.

But what happens once we reach our thirties. I would like to believe we continue to stay friends with few chosen ones and attach the friends tag to any new acquaintance after a lot of deliberation and thought. Both lines move more or less parallel to the X-Axis.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

While I touched upon how our friend circles evolve there is one more aspect of friend circles that I want to bring to your notice. It is an aspect that we all know exists but sometimes like to believe that it doesn’t. See pic below.

Every friend circle has one or two more friend circles within it. There is one circle of friends who are closer than the rest and those who are the closest and can be called your best friends within that circle. Consider any of your friend circles. If there are 10 people in the friend circle, you will be more close to 2–3 among them. If it is a circle of five, there will be at least one that you prefer to hangout with more than others. In fact when this inner circle of friends doesn’t turn up while chilling out with the actual circle of friends, you will not have the same fun that you do otherwise. Also if you find out in advance that they are not going to show up for a particular weekend hangout, you will also make an excuse to not go. It is these inner circle of friends who more often than not remain your friends in the long run while the other start fading away with time.

What remains later are not circle of friends but a triangle of friends. Please see the triangle linking all the close friends in different circle of friends that we have been a part of throughout our life. We make an active attempt to stay in touch with only these few friends that lie at the vertices of this triangle. But then again, we don’t make just 3 circle of friends in our growing up years and therefore it doesn’t have to be a triangle of friends but can be quadrilateral, hexagon, cube or any other shape but not a circle. I am sure you get the drift.

So this was my attempt to elaborate how we make and lose our circle of friends. If you agree with my theory, let me know and even if you don’t I will be happy to know your take.

Coping with Death !

I recently attended two funerals in one week. One was of a close relative while the other one was of a distant one. While one death was unexpected, the one of my close relative, we were prepared for, or so we thought.

The doctors had informed us that it was a matter of time before he would breathe his last. He expired 15 days later. Two years of Surgery and radiation sittings later the family knew that it was not going to be the same again. It was a terminal illness, but no amount of warnings, either direct or indirect,prepared us for the inevitable.

While both people who expired left behind their families, the one suffering from the terminal illness also left behind his mother, aged 90. This is also significant because he was divorced at least 25 years ago and has a daughter who refuses to meet him for reasons unknown. He had single handedly taken care of his mother until his last breath and we were scared how she will cope with this development. Informing her about her Son’s death was the most daunting task. When everyone was still thinking how to break the news to her, I volunteered to inform her but developed cold feet as soon as I approached her. Seeing this, my father took the initiative and told her about the loss in a matter of fact tone, subtly and with limited emotion. In response she only had a look of surprise, her eyes wide open. A moment of silence later there were no tears, just memories that trickled. I think she knew even before we told her. To hear her talk about how he had taken care of her for more than 25 years choked me but I couldn’t give in. She was tougher than I thought, her mind and memories still very strong.

Couple of days later I attended the funeral meet. The person they had to talk about was an introvert and his conversation with most people present at the funeral were very limited. As some of his close family members spoke about him and narrated a few incidents from the past, I realized that sometimes you find out more about a person after he / she is gone, rather than when they are alive and known to you for years. It is funny because you think you knew the person but you only really know the person when they are gone. I have also noticed that people at a funeral talk about stuff they would not have uttered if that person were alive. Mostly good stuff. Once I asked my father — why is it that only good things are spoken about of a person after his death — to which he responded that it is because the dead can’t defend themselves if someone were to churn out bad memories.

Death is inevitable but liberating. It liberates you from the worldly things and let’s you be. Rest in peace as they say!. However , can someone rest in peace if his biggest wish remains unfulfilled. We won’t know until we are dead ourselves but just the thought makes our heart sink. His last wish was to meet his daughter once but by the time she decided to meet him he was not in a position to speak or understand. He was unconscious. His last wish was not fulfilled. Life can be very cruel sometimes but so can be death. Yearning for something for your entire life and eventually seeing it getting out of your grasp is hard to digest but sometimes that is life.

Was his death really liberating? I doubt it was.

I never believed in rebirth before but now I do. Maybe there is a rebirth, maybe there is life after death, Maybe the circle of life does not complete itself in a single life. Maybe he is already alive somewhere, hopefully at a happier place.

Why I haven’t written anything in an year?

That’s because I have been addicted to the smart slate.

Every person born in the 80s and 90s,has at some point in time, been reprimanded for watching the idiot box and so it is the same generation that decided they needed the smart slate and not the idiot box. So here we are today, watching Netflix and Amazon Prime and probably other online platforms on our mobiles, iPads and laptops.

Delivering content driven series and movies to the audience, Netflix and Prime are like two full grown orchards to a traveller who has been treading in the desert for years. There are fresh fruits everywhere and the variety is good too. You can choose the fruit you like and eat as many as you want in one go. The parched TV audience can finally settle here.

I have personally loved a lot of shows and movies on both those platforms and would like to recommend a few to the people who have still not switched to this medium. Those who already have, a big high five to them and hope you agree to my recommendations!

Suits : Not a Netflix or Prime original but available on both, it gets the foremost mention in my list because it was the first show I started watching on these platforms. A slick legal drama with twists that keep you hooked and characters with an edge of their own, it is not the usual court room drama but instead most of the drama happens in conference rooms and the exquisite offices of ‘Pearson – whatever’. Everyone in this show is so well dressed irrespective of their mood, it’s actually annoying, albeit, in a good way. Although I quit watching it after Season 5, I would still recommended it.Sacred Games S1 (Netflix original): Anurag Kashyap and Vikram Aditya Motwane have directed this taut action thriller set in Mumbai. The story unfolds in the past of a gangster and present of a police inspector, simultaneously, although they come face to face only once. This show brought out some great character actors who shine as much as, if not more than the protagonists, Saif Ali Khan and Nawazuddin Siddique. People with a stomach to digest dark stuff will love it.Jack Ryan (Prime Original) : An analyst with the CIA who’s obviously not just an analyst is pitted against an Osama like terrorist who is on the verge of plotting and executing something big. Although enough war movies have been made against the Middle East backdrop, this one brings the war home i.e. in the US. Also there was plenty scope of stretching the first season but the creators decided to keep it short and simple but in an intriguing way.Comicstan (Prime Original): A bunch of fairly known comedians judge a bunch of fairly talented comedians who werr chosen from across the country. Before every episode one of the judges’ coach the contestants on a different theme, a theme that has apparently been that judge’s forte and then the contestants perform a stand-up act based on it . While some of the performances will leave you in splits, some of them are a real drag. You may also at times not like the performances that the judges did and vice versa but the show is worth your time. Afterall there is no harm in having a good laugh.Love Per Square Foot ( Netflix original) : Two people, a girl and a boy, living in a metropolitan city with a dream of owning their own house but not having the finances to do so come across a great opportunity to buy one. However there is a big catch. This one starts Vicky Kaushal much before Sanju released and brought him to lime light. A quircky comedy with some fine actors, this movie is a refreshing rom-com.

And finally there is one show lying buried under all these widely publicized movies and series that I have loved the most and believe will strike a cord with any kid who went to school in the 90s.

7. Yeah Meri Family ( TVF original but now on Netflix too): I would often see the name of this show in the suggestions section of Netflix but would always ignore it thinking it is a family drama, something which obviously doesn’t go with the Netflix hogging brand of people. But one day something made me play the series and since then I literally binge watched it’s 8 something episodes. Although it is a TVF original it is also on Netflix.

The show, set in the Indian summer of 98, is narrated from the view point of a 13 year old boy who is struggling to enjoy his summer because of his family. He has a overbearing mother, a chilled father, an intelligent older brother, a cute little sister and last but not the least, a very smart friend ‘Shanky’. Divulging more would squeeze out the fun of this series.

If you have ever waited for mangoes in summers, read comics, attended home tutions, participated in colony cricket tournaments, or attended birthday parties at your friends home, this show is for you. The show will make you so nostalgic that you will want to go to that time and age when you didn’t need technology to keep yoursleves engaged. A highly recommend show.

While these online platforms continue to churn out superb content for its audience, the list of recommended shows can just go on. Although there are many more that I have to still watch, let me know what you think about the ones that I have listed above and let me know shows that you have liked.

Also if you liked this article, go ahead, please applaud.

Agree with the fact that there is too much wastefull chatter on which we spent time but communicating only for sharing information will make the world a boring place..Some extend of gossip,jokes bullshit is necessary for life to be a little entertaining..How much time we spend on it totally depends on the individual. Don’t read it if you don’t like it and read it if you need a break from the routine life that we live.

So the other weekend I booked the ticked for Dunkirk in what was a 4D theater. I was looking forward to this movie since the first trailer was launched. Sitting in the theater with anticipation, the movie began. I was soon introduced to the three story lines and that’s when I was intrigued but then..

Dunkirk Poster

Before I take you through my remaining experience at the theater let me take you through my experiences about watching some of this earlier movies. The ones that you see this poster boast about but I don’t think his next movie will boast about Dunkirk. Also I must inform the reader at this stage that you will only like this blog if you are a Cristopher Nolan fan. Also this blog is full of spoilers of five of Cristopher Nolan’s best films namely ‘The Prestige’, ‘Inception’, ’The Dark Knight’ , ‘Dark Knight rises’ and ‘Interstellar’ and I could have added ‘Dunkirk’ too only if had any.

If you have watched these movies I am sure you will still remember the surprise revelation in Prestige informing us that Cristian Bale’s character actually has a twin. Remember the surprise look on Hugh Jackman’s face when he finds out. The audience reaction is no different at the scene. A pretty big revelation in the end for movie which already has a lot of plot twists.

Source: cinemablend.com

Inception dealt with something so extraordinary that it cannot be described in words. It was a dreamy world, literally. The movie is hard to grasp in the first viewing and I can say this of some of this other movies too but this one definitely takes the cake. Maybe it was meant for repeat viewing. Whatever maybe the case I think everyone can still recollect the departing scene of the movie of a top spinning endlessly till the director decides to leave it up to the audience to decide if it stops, but he very well knows the audience can’t, and this is precisely what the audience loves. Such is his grasp on the craft. The movie also had strong characterization.

Source:The Independent.co.uk

With Interstellar, the plot kept the audience hooked with the whole concept of time difference between different planets and signals from outer space until we are told that Mathew’s character is stuck in a black hole where he somehow manages to reach the past and change the very course of his whole life. Very difficult to digest, but one must appreciate the film’ enormity and the directors depth of thought. I must admit that I loved the movie until it went out of orbit in the last 45 minutes. However, none of us could have seen the end coming. The books changing places to form a Morse code was being done by an astronaut flying in outer space was beyond anyone’s imagination baring Mr. Nolan.

Source: wired.com

Dark knight is one his other movies that became a classic. The older batman movies seem naive in its comparison. To be fair to the other directors a superhero movie was not expected to be a classic. It was only expected to have a healthy does of action and adventure.

This was the first time that the proceedings in a superhero movie were dominated by its Villan — The Joker, played by Heath Leader, who even won the academy award for best actor in a supporting role, posthumously. The Joker was not funny but cunningly funny guy and we all loved to hate him. The movie had several twists and multiple layers, each equally important in the movie. One can argue that the Joker’s character was much more powerfully than that of batman but we think so because the director had the courage to show that even if there are superheros, in real world good people die, good gets manipulated, very good can also become very evil and it is up to us to follow this trend and become bad or be the bigger person and sacrifice your pride and needs to do what is right and good. Bruce Wayne giving up on being a batman to portray Harvey Dent as the hero of Gotham so that people continue to believe in good is a pretty big sacrifice which went mostly unappreciated as compared to the Joker’s antics.

Source:IMDB

Christopher Nolan went on to make the last installment of this series — Dark Knight Rises but it was not as good as the earlier version. However, it still had the strong characters and good suspense. The introduction of Robin in the end also sets up a base for another installment but I suppose that’s not happening. nevertheless it was a good movie. I would have also narrated my experience of watching the first installment of the batman series but unfortunately I haven’t watched it till date.

Source:pludggedin.com

…..but beyond the fact that the story was being told in different time sequences through different perspectives there was nothing in Dunkirk. It was established quite early in the film that the civilian boats have been hired to get the soldiers back and that’s pretty much what happened in the end. No layers to the story, no suspense,no great character, no twists, and no big revelation in the end. The movie did not make anyone bat an eyelid. Were we supposed to be thrilled by watching multiple boat sinks or multiple dogfights. I mean we have had enough war movies showing just that plus we were excited to see it. Just looking at a war from different perspectives and timelines wasn’t intriguing enough.

Having said this let me also clarify that Dunkirk is a good movie but Nolan’s worst one. But then to err is human and we can’t blame Nolan but our own expectations. He set the bar so high for himself that anything less than extraordinary coming from him is disappointing. I am sure someone would have already passed on this message to him and we would soon see something extraordinary from him.

Now most of you would be aware that Mauritius is an island in the Indian Ocean, known mostly for its beautiful beaches and but what you would not have heard about are its sugarcane farms spread over acres of land, thick forests spread over mighty mountains and a bird called ‘Dodo’. You will feel there overbearing presence in almost every nook and corner of this beautiful country and therefore I am going to talk about these three things before strolling the beach.

During my 7 day visit to this country I traveled everywhere only by road. They don’t have trains yet and don’t require them either as the roads are top notch and traffic is non existent except for a few patches in the capital city of Port Louis. Having said that they are considering building a metro but the plan is not sanctioned yet is what I have been told. But when you are traveling by roads these are the views you will get on either side.

Some of the pictures that you will see in this article have been captured while traveling in a moving bus so the quality might have taken a hit but I think I got most of them very well. You will see acres of sugarcane plantations on both sides of the road when you travel across the length and breadth of this country. Sugarcane and Tourism are its biggest industry . Even the hotel that I was put up in was themed on the sugarcane.

The temperature, when I traveled in the month of May was pleasant at about 22 Degree Celsius. There are two seasons in the country - summer and winter, with winter extending from May to September. It rains throughout the year but mostly in summers. They seldom have heavy showers and mostly its light showers. I got this great capture on one such slightly rainy day.

Rainbows — Never fail to enthrall you

Considering that the country is already a very small one one might think that humans would be tempted to exploit as much space for themselves as possible to inhabit but that's not the case here with forests and animals being conserved very well. One example of this fact is the Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam Botanical Gardens. It was my first tourist destination once we had been to Mauritius.

At the Entrance of the botanical garden

The botanical garden has a huge variety of plants and trees with medical and other uses. Some of them have been brought from other parts of the world and planted here. The garden is so huge that it will takes an entire day to see it completely. We could only see a part of it that day but whatever we saw was pure pleasure to the eyes.

Named after its first Prime Minster, Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, who also led the movement for Mauritian independence from the British, the Botanical garden has taken years for its completion and several heads of states of different countries have visited and planted a sapling of a plant belonging to their own country. I could see two trees planted by India’s two former Prime Minster’s — Atal Bihari Vajpaye and Dr. Manmohan Singh.

While I curiously observed the wide variety of trees, what grabbed my attention the most can be seen in the below picture. Nature never fails to surprise you.

I also visited Casela Nature Park, a wildlife sanctuary with well maintained enclosures for different kind of wild animals. So whats so great about that one might think ? Don’t we have many in India? Sure we do but what stood out at this nature park was that besides the usual bus rides that takes you through the sanctuary to view animals you can also choose to use a ‘Segway’ or ‘Quadbiking’ to stroll certain areas of the sanctuary under the supervision of a guide and even feed some of the animals if you like. Not to mention that the guides can speak in Hindi and know most things about India.

Two white lion cubs playing

The wild animals kept here have been brought from different parts of the world. Some are from Africa, some from China and even India. We were happy to see lion cubs, white tigers, Ostrich, rhinoceros, zebras etc. Here are a few snaps that I managed.

Zebras crossingInquisitive OstrichesFeeding GiraffesHuge Turtle

The Safari rides in Mauritius is not just limited to the forests but also to the sea. Yes when in Mauritius please go for the blue safari submarine. Its a submarine which can accommodate exactly ten people at a time and takes you about thirty five feet deep in the sea almost touching the seabed. The tourists are taken on a tour of the corals and the fishes right at the bottom of the sea. I was lucky to see a variety of colorful fishes. If you are lucky you an even see a dolphins and turtles. Below is a snapshot of a video that I shot underwater through the window of the submarine.

Our next stop was visiting a place where there is a seven colored sand in one place and although I couldn't see all seven colors I could see few. Let me know if you see them all in the below picture.

And just before I reached the seven colored sand we stopped by this amazing waterfall.

Looking at this nature rich country one might think that Mauritians really know how to conserve their flora and fauna but it has not always been that way and a reminder of this fact is the bird Dodo.

This is what a Dodo looks like. A flightless bird which probably had one of the most delicious meat. So delicious that the Mauritians ate it relentlessly until one day it went extinct. Yes it is extinct and I think, as reminder that this does not happen again they made it their national bird and a picture or logo of this bird can be seen in hotels, restaurants, shopping malls across this island nation.

In terms of its religious demographics, Mauritius has people of different religions living in harmony and many of them can actually speak and understand Hindi. The biggest festival in the country is Mahashivratri, followed by Diwal. Not only do they watch all Bollywood movies, they even sing old Hindi songs. They idolize Akshay Kumar, the Bollywood actor, and you can hear his movie songs being played at a lot of Indian restaurants.

Finally I leave you with a few pictures of its serene beaches.

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