Friends are family!

Another busy holiday season arrived and will pass very soon. I am busy with buying gifts or fantasizing getting some hot gift for myself or my friends or my family. Or just having fun with window shopping or looking at all the catalogues and discount coupons sent my way. I cant deny the fact that Snow will be here very soon and I will be wearing layers of clothes to venture out or bitch about the high heating bill. Perhaps hug my friends to keep me warm when we are outside.. or stay closer to be warm and beat the cold. Its time of the year I like to spend a lot of time in coffee houses (No I didn't say bath houses) with friends, acquaintances and complete strangers. Its all part of life and drama that comes with it.

Perhaps another holiday season in which I add few pounds to my slim thin figure and constantly worry about how to loose them once the holiday season is over. Perhaps another holiday season in which I rakeup considerable CreditCard Debt and worry about paying them all at once, when the holiday season is over. I am not alone in this and I am sure many of you go thru this as well.

All these holidays don't have any religious significance to me. Growing up back in India, my family was very unorthodox, liberal and rebellious in many ways. (I was raised Hindu) My parents hardly went to temples and perhaps once or twice a year. We never performed pooja's at home regularly. Perhaps once or twice a year. Neither did my parent quoted religious scriptures to discipline us the rowdy kids nor did they notice me taking bible lesson thru post.

Thinking about my childhood, I was always the talkative, sensitive, troublemaker. Always trying to please others, I found out very early that I can sense other feelings easily (So don't pretend about anything, I can see thru you.) Arguing with my parents about things beyond my age, getting beaten by my father once a while and make my mom cry many times. Poor parents, they can take the shit only to a certain extent. I did good in school and excelled in debates and won some prices as well, I wish I had continued that. So we celebrated Diwali (Deepavali, Festival of lights), Pongal (Sankaranthi, harvest festival), Onam, Christmas, Eid, Ramzan etc. Our schools are out and I had neighbors from different religion and different states of India who spoke different languages. So its never religious for me, its all about having fun with friends, off from school and exchanging some wonderful sweets, cakes, and delicious food from our beloved neighbors.

I didn't grewup in a rich family, we lived from pay check to pay check like many others. Coffee with sugar in the beginning of the month and at the end sometimes we endup with Black coffee and brown sugar. Whatever we could offer. My mom served us with pride and never let us go hungry (Bless you mom), so we learnt to appreciate all the good things in life and appreciated all good things and good people. Its not the gifts it counted, it was all about people, love and company.

But when I started earning, I was far away from my hometown Coimbatore, working near Calcutta aka Kolkata. So it was a sudden transition, I can make some good money, but I am far from family. I cant make the trek of 3 days on train to go all the down south to meet the family often, so it was all about friends. I learnt to make few good friends and we are all like family. We as bachelors were invited for dinners, lunches and gatherings. Living in hostel's we didn't have access to cook in a kitchen. We relied on cafeteria food, so it was a delight to taste some home cooked food. I am so thankful to those wonderful souls.

Friends became my family since then. I learnt to appreciate the fact that I wont be able to spend time with my family as often as I thought I should be. Friends became family, my primary resource and caretakers. They are the ones who took care of me when I was sick, they are the ones who organized my birthday parties, they are the one who hugged me, they are the ones who laughed and cried with me, they are the ones who gave me strength and love when I needed it.

As any good story, good things wont last much. I did move to the states and 97 and left them all there and still stay in touch with them once a while. The good memories are there to help me thru the rest of my life.

Moving to states and finding new friends it was not easy, some move, I move, its the part of the game. But they are my family, my primary support network. I can be myself and I can let my guards down, They can see me in my real elements. I spend my holidays with them, celebrate Birthdays, talk to them when I feel the blues. We exchange our medical histories, love life, or love less life stories. See movies, meet others families when they show-up. We come is so many colors, sizes, ages, genders, sexual orientations, fetishes and moods. But hey we are all humans and we get along well. Why not?

The holiday season is here and we go thru this in our own style. No one is holding grudge against each other. Even if we do, we wont tell the other person. We just live our lives and navigate thru this wire mesh of our lives and try to strike a balance. Rely on our cell phones to memorize all our lives contacts and thinking about moving to Blackberry to be more connected to the cyber world 24x7.

Thank you friends and family, happy holidays.