It was few months back; or rather few days after I reached Bangalore that my friends cracked a joke or rather described an instance on the difference between a friend and a colleague.
I have this problem of doing head on collision with problem. Not that this was a serious problem. I asked the person who had brought in this difference of a friend and a colleague “so what am I?” to which he replied “hhmm…”well there was one more “hhmm…. A friend”. I believe it was said to make me happy for that moment. Never mind i was actually happy.I didn’t happen to write anything about it then. But today as I just finished my book by Sheila O’ Flangan, I again came across these two phrases “friend and colleague” that there is a difference between a friend and a colleague and I couldn’t resist writing about it.
It was just yesterday, after 8 months that I finally broke and I called my mom just to say “I want to cry”. After talking for some time, my mom gave the phone to my sis. My sis giggled “You have come to your senses and I am glad about it”. For last eight months, I never cried, I never missed home, or I did, but I didn’t express it. I was scared to go home as I knew I would be far more home sick once I come back. I cried to my mom “I want to talk my heart out”. I always used to ask my mom “how can people be so attached to their friends?”, to which she would “had you not had a twin sister, you would have known that”. And my mom always used to say “don’t expect anything from the strangers”.
I learnt hard lessons from own life that colleague are not supposed to be the friends and I don’t know about vice versa because I never came across that situation although my organization does support referring your friends to be a part of the same organization. I pretty well have faced situations where my problems and weakness served as an advantage to others. And the book talked about that too.
I have come across two set of people here in Bangalore. One who are friends or more than that and other set who are nothing but can be called a colleague. I might now be interchangeably using colleague and acquaintance because it’s more to do with people outside my organization, whom I just know. So I am not sure if I can call them friends.
I have been really lucky to get some lovely little angels (real time devils) around me in office that I may never be able to call “colleagues”, as they are much more to me than friends. Although they are far too close, but I hold back my own self from talking my heart out, I don’t know why. They humiliate me, we fight like we are school kids beating and slapping each other. We scream at each other and they make limitless fun of me. Every word I utter is a joke or they can convert it to a joke. I make a pledge every day “all Wipro-ites and ex wipro-ites are my brothers”, but still they show me the worst of the guys and ask “acha laga?”. They are one set of people who even if say some serious truth, I would be laughing madly at, because I know they never can. May be I hold myself back because they would think I am cracking a joke, even if I cry my heart out and it wouldn’t make any sense wasting my time. According to them all “doing an MBA means losing your common sense, and MBA are the people who don’t do any work”. One of those crazy angels/devils says he can write a book “10000 reasons not to do an MBA and all that I tell him is “we can target to complete in less than an year or two, provided you give me the credits”. My sisters reaction after meeting all my friends was “god you all rag people in office”. Well we don’t, but all I pray that no one should happen to get into the lift when this gang of crazy people is there with me. But at the end of the day,i know they would be there when i need them!
I also have come across people here who are all so self-centered that they give a shit to others and to their feelings”. They can talk and relate well to the characters in the TV serials but not in real life. Well I am not sure if they have two faces like villains in those serials, they may have. But I don’t want to be the heroine to face all that.lol. I am ohk being a real life character or probably lost in my world of books. They talk over the phone to their friends and boyfriends all through the night and the only option I have is to curse the person who launched the free night calling schemes, wondering why didn’t he launch day calling schemes? I at times used to think would they talk to me, if I call in their mobiles. My roommate was offered a project in Delhi where her parents also live, and she was extremely unhappy at the thought of it and refused to take up that project. My reaction to that was “why?”… I expected some answer like ‘role was not good, I wouldn’t get to learn anything’. But NOOO. I got an answer “nahi wooh yahan hain na”. I was a little too shocked. I do understand that boyfriends oops I mean boyfriend(one at a time ;)) is more important than friends, but I wondered are they more important than parents also? Well I am getting introduced to a new set of people, whom I can’t call friends but only acquaintance. For someone whom their own parents mean nothing, then I think I can equate myself to just ‘A stranger’.
In the end all that wondered is unless a person is given the space to become a colleague or an acquaintance, how can they become a friend as that is the first step to reach the second step of friendship!
