'Brand'y

I went to meet my old college friends… Expecting a nice, warm interaction and a tinge of nostalgia all over me.

But came home disheartened. Totally.

I suddenly felt their priorities to have undergone (or maybe mine!) a lot of change and aberration…  All they discussed was ‘living classic’. Which according to them was being clothed in ‘branded’ jeans and flying t-shirts, eating the ‘in’ junk food, sipping the expensive lemonade everyday, day after day… from their parents’ money. Shopping like a holic just because they think a particular shoe does not have any t-shirt to go with it!

The ‘brandy’(all about brands) talks deterred me totally. Trying new, having fun, was all okay! But making all this the ‘priority’ in life was insane!

We were standing, I obviously expecting to have a nice chat and catch up with each others’ lives; and these girls caught a boy at the distance… “jeez, look at his ‘pant’! What does he think of himself? Hero? Huh! Look at his so called ‘monkey wash’! A monkey with a washed jeans! And that too of a local brand! No Levis, no Spykar… Which girl would go with him!!???” I gave a detested look. Which of course, did not have any effect on them.

Next, they started with the so called ‘introduction’ of people at the campus. They would point at a person and say things like,” Look at that guy. With the local brand T-shirt who thinks himself to be cool. Look what a loser he is! His name is so and so… He wears all desi brands and has no style! Who would talk to him? Ewwwwww!”… “Now see that girl. The reed thin one. Look at her hair! She thinks she is some beauty queen. But her top, her ragged jeans and all… oh! Save me!”

This went on for everyone except themselves. “Look look! He’s that loser who asked me out!” And when he came near, she was a total different person for him. He magically turned from ‘loser’ to ‘lover, etc’ for her. She, bringing a drastic change in her tone said,”Hi! Where were you? I looked for you all over the campus! We missed you at Mac D!” I was shocked!

 I could feel the love (or the craze) for brands and their charisma was being too important than the person himself… And it was like the zing of the ‘brandy’ running all over your head. You feel euphoric, but which is a temporary thing and often not very constructive… Once it goes away, you are back to the place you hate(if you drink to drive away your sorrows and miseries, that is)…

Such superficial behavior! Such synthetic talk!

I naturally started feeling that I would be back-bitten on a daily basis as well, and when I come to meet them I would be receiving all this ‘sugar coated’ treatment! A friend, from this group of course, was mad at me the first day when I met them. Why? Because I also met some other people and went with them for a coffee. Our meet was undecided, but the coffee with others was a decided thing! And she was green (I hope I need not tell you why) since then till I left… Hoping that she is out of it!

I am getting a weird feeling of have lost my friends in the race of life. Or I have undergone some sane changes!  I do not wish to blame anyone or anything in particular; but it is just that ; that I am not very happy with the materialistic and synthetic feel of all the scheme of things in general. But I am happy to have one thing to strengthen me. My honesty. My true being to myself and others. When I say, ‘I miss you’; I mean it. When I say , ‘I love you’ I mean it. Deeply. I still do not say things just for the sake of it. And I say this on the basis of an incidence where a friend lovingly said, ‘I love you’; but I did not reply saying “I do too”, etc. because I genuinely did not think I do. I simply said, ‘I know’. It may have sounded rude, but I did not wish to put up some wrong impression of things.

And I believe, rather than living ‘brandy’, I would love to love pure.

Love truthfully, Live passionately.