Relationships

It has been a couple of years now since I have been trying to decipher the meaning of the word 'Relationship'. In the course of this time, I have tried to know what different people from different age groups think about the word 'Relationship'.

For a woman, a relationship is her maternal care for her son(s)/daughter(s), her love and support for her husband, her care for her siblings, her duty towards her parents.

For a man, it is his day-to-day experience of life. All that he experiences with his colleagues in his office, with his family back home, and with those who are distant but yet close to the heart.

And if you ask a normal sophomore, what are relationships to him/her, he/she would say, it's when he/she is friendly with most of the people around him/her, the rapport he/she shares with his teachers, etc. But, the first thing that comes to their mind is (and probably will always be) a boy and a girl who are infatuated towards each other and they do all it takes to know each other better by spending all the possible time together. For him/her, the meaning of friendship is adding each other on orkut, Facebook and all the other possible social networking sites.

But, I guess, in the course of evolution of man and his recent advancements, the nature of relationships (of every kind) have changed and have assumed a shape from which there is no return. Materialism has found its place in the life of human beings and in the process relationships have lost their importance. Sometimes I wonder, will the next generations face relationships which have just materialistic gains?

The world has learnt to live in those forceful-smiles-on-your-face relationships, but, it has forgotten to smile from the heart. We live in a world where the difference between brickbats and bouquets is that the former are to us from our thought-to-be enemies and the latter are from our so-called friends.

Very few, in reality, understand the true meaning of the word friendship and what kind of feelings he has for each and every friend of his.

I just hope I can someday explain to the future children that relationships
aren't just about the 'Hi's and 'Hello's but are about never saying 'Bye'. That relationships don't flourish because people are individually good, but, they do because they are the best when they are together. That friendship is not just gossiping and ridiculing the guy or girl sitting next to us, but, about supporting someone in the times they need us and trusting them more than we trust ourselves.

It is said that there are three things that money can't buy; happiness, health, satisfaction. But, for me, there is just one thing that money can't buy and i.e. relationships because if we are happy in a relationship, we automatically get the other three things that money can't buy.

Until the next post... Au revoir...