"Up
for a cup of coffee?"
A colleague of
mine asks at around 4 in the afternoon. I almost always never decline such
invitations unless I am deeply dug in work. In these 10 minutes, my colleagues
drop off their engineering hat and are completely different than what they are
otherwise.
I’ve always been a
great admirer of good discussions. For me, having good discussion with friends
is as important as having good friends. In the last few months, I’ve travelled
to a lot of places with different groups for every trip. Most of the places
that I visited in these trips were the ones which I had already seen. But
again, it’s like Goa. You don’t go there to ‘see the place’, you go there to have
memories with friends.
I can go on and on
about having a good conversation. I had watched Before Sunset with a friend of
mine. That movie is just about two people talking to each other, about nothing
in particular, the conversation did not have any flow, any direction, was a bit
slow to be honest. But, I ended up liking it, it reminded me that I needed
someone in my life to just sit with me and have a discussion. No matter what
the topic is. A similar movie in Marathi called ‘Mumbai, Pune , Mumbai’ is just
about two people talking. I can watch that movie any number of times.
Last few years I’ve
had some of the craziest discussions. A few topics include Can a case of monopoly
be good for people, Is Pervez Musharraf the right person to lead Pakistan, What is the next cool thing going to be after
Smartphones and Tablets that will change the world, difference between love,
lust and fantasy. I know most of these questions are open-ended. Most other
factual or concrete questions you need answer too, you good friend Google will
help out with it.
But again, do you want
Google to be your best friend? Yes, it is great with what it does, I agree, but
somewhere it’s hampering human interaction. The joke that you just read and
feel like sharing with your friends during lunchtime has already reached all
your friends through a Facebook post. Your super-cool techie friend with all
the information about latest gadgets would roam around the school corridor
saying ‘Hey, did you hear about this cool new technology coming’ or ‘Nokia is
has come out with this new feature in their new gadget’ and ten people would
surround him eager to hear about it.
Now, there is no need
for that geek. There is no point in boasting about the latest phone Apple or
Samsung are bringing because everybody has either seen the keynote or read
about it on some Facebook post.
Somewhere we need to
think that all we get from this social media is news and updates in some form.
Views, analysis and opinions are still up for grabs. I am waiting for my next
cup of tea with friends. That will unleash the discussion forum.
p.s.: Realizing that I started with coffee and ended with tea. Back to basics!
