Coffee and Conversations

"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!