I was lucky to catch up with an old friend of mine – she happens to be a spinster in her late 40s. Somewhere, she reminded me of the horse Ginger in the English class ‘Black Beauty’ by Anna Swell. The Ginger who was exploited and died a sad death.

Thankfully, my friend did not allow her familial ties to drain her out of her zest for life. Tired of helping her younger siblings set up their lives of their choice,  realising that they were all coped up,now, in their little world,  and sadly, none of them wanting her to find a companion for herself.She has just taken the reins in her hands – her new mantra is ‘I’ll live my life in my own terms’. This is exactly the words I heard from her during her stay with me.

Strange, families sometimes do let you down or is it that we expect a lot from relationships  or is it that we fail to see the fact that everyone these days live for themselves. Whatever be the answer – the fact remains that everyone wants to live a comfortable life – hence familial ties take a beating.

We love ourselves the most – selfies, personalised gift sets, lavish birthday parties, big fat Indian weddings and the need to be admired through mass media hence participating in crass reality shows – all this shows how we try to make ourselves important – important in a world – A world which does not care about us. I guess this need to like ourselves have taken different dimensions – some shocking (when you hear of marriages breaking due to inflated ego); some laughable (when you hear about ‘friends with benefits’); and some really ridiculous (when you hear about the amount of money spent in big fat Indian weddings with choreographed sangeet).

Anyways, I cannot change the world – but Ceteris Paribus – I can enjoy this free entertainment – definitely enjoyable.