F.R.I.E.N.D.S... Where are they now??

Friends is probably one of the most watched and liked show. Now, with the 10 year anniversary going on, I decided to come up with a version I would like to believe that the Friends are now in. This is totally my imagination. Hope you like it.

Year 2004 – Last scene – This friends are looking around the apartment one last time and the finally leave the apartment. Fast forward 10 years – 2014.. Where are they now?

Monica is a stay at home mom for the twins and occasionally does cater food. Chandler is pretty successful at his advertising gig. Chandler does run into Beyoncé and not Janice for a change. He offers her gum n she says “Could it this BE anymore perfection?” The twins are growing up to be wonderful kids. Luckily they do not have Monica’s cleaning OCD.

Phoebe and Mike are now owners of a successful record company “Smelly Cats” and they also have their production of kids’ music under the name “Lady who sings about the truth”. They have four sons. Phoebe, in spite of having a successful career, is a typical soccer mom driving the kids around in a minivan. Phoebe and Ursula occasionally meet and have dinner with Frank Jr. , Alice and the triplets

Joey got his big break in a period moving starring Al Pacino as one of his co-stars. He is a very well know actor now and has been nominated for Academy Awards a few time. Who know maybe this year is his lucky year.  Joey still doesn’t share food and needs Hugsy to go to bed. Joey is finally looking to settle down. He ran into Kathy a few year back and they have been seeing each other ever since. Kathy moved in with Joey and last heard Joey is asking Chandler and Ross to help him pick out an engagement ring.

The big question, Did Ross and Rachel get married? Yes, they have been together for the past 10 years and finally took the plunge last year. Ross did give Rachel a beautiful proposal and he made it special and private after hours at “Central Perk”. Emma now has a sister lil Isabella. Emma is soon to be a teenager and has all the traits Rachel had when she was in school. This is making Ross pretty nervous. He trying to get Isabella to be more like him and hopes she will be a paleontologist in future. Emma on the other hand seems to have an affinity to Math. Ross finally got tenure at the NYU and Rachel as word goes is a VIP at Ralph Lauren. BTW, Rachel now makes a pretty awesome layered cake for Thanksgiving… without the beef !!

Gunter finally reveals that his name is not Gunter Central Perk but Gunter McGunther. He no longer works at Central Perk; instead he owns it and also started another café name “Insomnia Café”. The friends often meet up at either of the two places. Ross and Rachel have also moved from the city and now live fairly close to Monica and Chandler. Phoebe and Mike are looking for a place near them too. Joey still lives in the city, but no longer rents and has a classy 3 bedroom condo. He owns a fleet of cars, including a Porsche. He also has a place upstate!

The friends all meet every Thanksgiving at Monica and Chandler. Ross is bringing Ben over this year; Ben is attending Law school and lives in Boston. This year Monica and Chandler have a very special surprise, they are having a baby. Miracles do happen. Next update – maybe in another 10 years :)

This blog was written a few years back, based on the book Two States. I had not published it back then. I guess its never too late.. 

I just finished reading Two States – by Chetan Bhagat. It an extremely light hearted book and brings out the prejudiced mindset of South Indians and North Indians for each other. Somehow you can’t unite India in case of marriage across states!!!! I loved the book and it’s a definite “must” read. There is a lot of humor and reality in the book. If you look around you will find your friends or someone you know in that situation. The author rightly says – its not at all enough that the boy and girl like each other; it is compulsory that the families like the boy and the girl respectively and most importantly the families like each other.

By the end of the book it made me think about the concept of love marriages in India. On the lines of Love marriage or rather relationship are two movies I enjoyed. One is Jab We Met and the other is Wake Up Sid. Although the later is not really movie revolving only around “love”.

Jab We Met portrays the feelings of girl who wants to save her relationship. She is ready to struggle and accepts all the difficulties en-route to make it work. I have seen many of my friends do that. It’s a struggle at least for the first few years to get accepted by the family. Especially if the girl is just not the family’s choice.

Where as in Wake Up Sid, the girl is older to the guy. That is a strict “No- No. This cant be accepted.” scenario. But after all it’s a movie and everything works fine in that!

Now here is my version to “Love Marriages” in India.

We live in a place where love marriages are even now far from accepted (though I do agree it is changing a lot as years go by). Well of course if the guy is older to the girl, they belong to the same religion – apart from that they should be of the same language, caste and also preferable the same sect. So basically if you want to find a guy / girl – they need to pass the following test

For Guys:
Is the girl younger to me?
Is she of my religion?
Is she of my language?

Once these basic question are “yes” its always a plus point to have “yes” for these following questions too.
Is she my caste?
Do we belong to the same sect?

The same set questions apply for a girl too expect the first question is vice-versa
Is the guy older to me?

Once you have a Yes to all the 5 question and your all happy about it … you have another milestone to cross. I call it the “M” factor. The Mangalik factor.. if either of the girl / guy has the M factor then your doomed. The baseline is apparently both the guy n the girl should have the M factor in their horoscope to cancel out the effect or else it is said that the if a non mangalik get married to a mangalik then it may happen that the non mangalik partner can die :(

But if all these conditions are ok -- voila we have a love—turned—arranged marriage situation at hand.

Its not that love marriage don’t happen. They do; in fact the number is raising a lot now-a-days. There are quite a few celebrity and non-celebrity wedding where the boy n girl is of different religions or the boy is younger than the girl. Families are now ready to accept love marriages no matter how evident the differences are. We are moving to situations where is doesn’t matter who is older and both the guy and the girl are accepted by the families no matter what. So I think in a few years from now it wouldn’t be a movie situation anymore. But right now I do agree as in the book – its not easy ;)

The "fairisim"

It’s been a long time since I actually wrote on my blog. Off and on so many topics on which I have wanted to blog, have crossed my mind. But the honest fact is that I have been lazy - its certainly no “writer’s block”   

Well today I decided to blog about "fair" racism. Hmm... thats a touchy topic. Now how on earth is racism fair?? Read on, you will know what I mean !!

I am talking about the commonly practiced racism on India based on color. Aaaah!!! Now you get it  :)

A few years back, at our annual party @ Deloitte we has an standup comedian. He made a few jokes about this kind of differentiation that we see in India. That got me thinking. Is this true?  For a fact I have seen this differentiation based on color. We all are so biased on this one factor.

You can divided India into basically two categories: obviously one being the fair one and the other being the dark ones. General obversation: most south indians (me including) are the "dusky beauties". Nice way the say dark ha? While, in the north, most of them are generally pretty fair.

It comes as a surprise to them if they see a fair southie! For the record my granny is very fair and unfortunately I have not inherited of it (ooops, guess I too am obssessed about the color factor) India is probably one the leading markets for fairness products. Here even men are not spared. Now-a-days the market is full of men's fairness creams!!

Moving on, even in movies, no matter the color of the actor, the songs always personify how fair they are. It's either "gori hai kalahi" or "yeh gore gore gal". Think about it.

Truthfully, as a kid, I used to wish that I had lighter skin. I do not think this issue to be encouraged. I am not trying to blame anyone of hurt anyone's feeling. The idea behind this blog is just to get laugh on ourselves, cause at times, we can be prejudiced on a silly feature like skin color.

P.S. This blog is based on my experience in India and not intended for any one particular person

A Night @ the concert !

Under a starry, beautiful Saturday night it was a ‘One night love affair’ with Bryan Adams and he is just not ‘Somebody’!!!! Dressed in a black shirt and dark jeans he introduced himself - “Good evening everybody. My name is Bryan. ‘Here I am’”. He took us, all the way back to the ‘Summer of 69 ’ – it felt like I would be ’18 till I die!‘.

I have been on ‘Cloud No. 9’ pretty much from the day I booked the concert tickets. Some of my friends would definitely make fun of me for being a Bryan Adams fan – for he is over 50. All I have to say is, a crowd of 20000+ people was chanting his name – that says it all. In fact, I have come across many people who just want to pretend that his music isn’t that great cause they are these “cool guys” who find his music to be girly types. Anyway everyone has their own opinion -- just don’t get judgmental.

The most amazing thing I noticed was that his fans span across generations – he just ‘Cuts Like A Knife’. I could see guys / girls in mid 30’s to kids as small as 10 singing along and absolutely enjoying themselves.

With hits like ‘All for love’,’ Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman’ ,’ You’ve Been A Friend To Me’,’ The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You’, ‘Please forgive me’, ‘Baby When your gone’, ‘Run to you’– was a perfect evening.

He didn’t have to ask ‘How do ya feel tonight’ cause most of us felt - ‘Thought I’d died and gone to heaven’. While he sang ‘Let’s make a night to remember’, most of the crowd thought ‘Everything I'd, I’d do it for you’ -- well it’s just that we ‘Can’t stop this thing we started’J J

By the end of the concert I was in ‘Heaven’– it was ‘One night one flame’ and all this comes ‘Straight From The Heart’!!

P.S. for all ignorant one all the words in quotes are song that he sang during the concert J JJ JJ JJ J

Relaxed - Kerala style !

Sitting on the portico enjoying a perfect climate; more importantly at home – nothing can be more relaxing than that. Yeah enjoyed a nice long vacation in my hometown Palakkad. If anyone wants to visit Kerala; my advice is -- please make it in December – trust me you won’t regret it.

One my friends’ at work was joking that 50% of the hoarding in Kerala are advertisements of jewelry showrooms; well I want to rephrase that to 70% of the hoarding!! But cant complain; all I can think of is Home sweet Home :)

When mamma used to tell me earlier on how she enjoys the fresh air there; I never used to understand it. But this time I felt the difference so well – such pure air; felt like heaven

Apart from Pgt I visited Kallur – a small village towards the north of Kerala. The mornings n evenings were actually cold there. My trips to Kallur are mostly a “religious” one. I visited 4 temples in 3 days and at one of the temples I had my breakfast and lunch. Even getting up early in the morning is not too bad when the climate is so perfect. Part of my vacation was busy cause my uncle was ill; nevertheless it is always nice to be home. Now that I am back to Bombay; its back to the old schedule.. but lifes good. :)


Finally - Signing off with the last blog for this year..here is wishing a “Happy New Year” to one and all. God bless you with everything you have wished for

The delightful world of HP….

Obviously I am talking about HARRY POTTER. In spite of a horribly busy and hectic week I just couldn’t wait to see the movie, so Mum and I went for the movie. I have to say sorry to Anand for not keeping my promise; but I had no energy to go to Wadala. In fact I missed quite a few people; Nish chechi, Rashmi, HP (Harshit Patni J), Soumya, Priya and Pearl.

I expected the theater to be full of kids but there we quite a few college students also. Apart from that there those handful of least interested “boyfriends” come just to make their “girlfriends” happy and after the movie was over invariably the girl would be chattering away what will come next PART - with the totally uninterested boyfriend pretending to listen J J J J.

Any true Harry Potter fan will like – rather LOVE the movie AND IS A MUST WATCH. The visual effects are amazing and enthralling. J K Rowling’s scale of imagination is often mesmerizing (at least for me). Her story of rags to the rich is truly inspiring and also well deserved. Even though Snape is not really prominent in the movie, I have a new found respect for him every time he comes on-screen. That’s how amazing is the power of her story.

I was just wonder struck and honestly didn’t want the movie to end. Every time I watch Harry Potter I get lost in its world for hours together. How I wish it was a true world. Imagine the fun; if I want to write a code I could use a spell like “Encodo Totalus” and we have all the code in place. Hmmm.. we would probably need a spell to fix bugs too J

I still remember the first book I read was HP and the Goblet of fire in 2002. I was not aware of the 'fade' then. I didn’t even know Goblet of fire was the fourth book. Ever since then there was no looking back. - I have been a hard core fan. Well now all I am waiting is for the next movie to release…but that’s not happening till 2011 and that’s a looooong way to go L

Nice story.. worth a read

This is one of my fav short story. Hope you also like it

Leaf's departure is because of Wind's pursuit. Or because Tree didn'task her to stay......

TreePeople call me "Tree".
I had dated 5 girls when I was in Pre-U. There is one girl who I love alot but never dared to go after. She didn't have a pretty face, good figure or an outstanding charm. She was just a very ordinary girl. I liked her. I really liked her. I liked her innocence, her frankness, her intelligence and her fragility. Reason for not going after her was thatI felt somebody so ordinary like her was not a good match for me. I wasalso afraid that after we were together all the feelings would vanish. I was also afraid other's gossip would hurt her.
I felt that if she were my girl, she'd be mine ultimately; I didn'thave to give up everything just for her. The last reason, made her accompanying me for 3 years. She watched me chase other girls, and I have made her heart cry for 3 years. She was a good actor, and me a demanding director. When I kissed my second girlfriend, she bumped into us. She was embarrassed but smiled; said, "Go on!" before running off. The next day, her eyes were swollen like a walnut. I did not want to know what caused her to cry. Later that day, I returned from soccer training to get something; watched her cry in the classroom for an hour or so. My fourth girlfriend did not like her.There was once when both of them quarreled. I know that based on her character she is not the type that will start the quarrel. However, I still sided my girlfriend. I shouted at her; ignored her feelings and walked off with my girlfriend. The next day, she was laughing; jokingwith me like nothing happened. I know she was hurt but she did not know deep down inside I was hurt too.
When I broke up with my fifth girlfriend, I asked her out. Later that day, I told her I had something to tell her. I told her about my breakup.Coincidentally, she has something to tell me too, about her getting together. I knew who the person was. His pursuit for her had been the talk of the School. I did not show her my heartache, just smiles; best wishes. Once I reached home, I could not breathe. Tears rolled; I broke down. How many times have I seen her cry for the man who did not acknowledge her presence?
During graduation, I read a SMS in my hp. It said, "Leaf's departure isbecause of Wind's pursuit. Or because Tree didn't ask her to stay"

Leaf
People call me Leaf.
During the 3 years of Pre-U, I was on very close terms with a guy asbuddy kind. However, when he had his first girlfriend, I learnt a feeling I never should have learnt - Jealousy. Sourness to the extreme limit. They were only together for 2 months. When they broke up, I hid my happiness. But after a month, he got together with another girl.
I liked him; I know he liked me. But why won't he pursue me? Since heloves me why he didn't he make the first move? Whenever he had a new girlfriend, my heart would hurt. After some time, I began to suspect that this was one-sided love. If he didn't like me, why did he treat me so well? It's beyond what you will normally do for a friend. I know hislikes, his habits.But his feelings towards me I can never figure out. You can't expect mea girl, to ask him. Despite that, I still wanted to be by his side. Care
for him, accompany him, and love him. Hoping that one day, he will come to love me. Because of this, I waited for him. Sometimes, I wondered if I should continue waiting. The pain, the dilemma accompanied me for 3 years.
At the end of my 3rd year, a junior pursues me. Everyday he pursues me. He's like the cool; gentle wind, trying to blow off a leaf from a tree. In the end, I realized that I wanted to give this wind a small footing in my heart. I know the wind will bring the leaf to a better land. Finally, leaf left the tree, but the tree only smiled; didn't ask me to stay.
Leaf's departure is because of Wind's pursuit. Or cause Tree didn't ask her to stay.

WindBecause I like a girl called leaf. Because she's so dependent on tree, so I have to be a gust wind. A wind that will blow her away. When I first met her, it was 1 month after I was transferred to this new school. I saw a petite person look ing at my seniors and me playing soccer. During ECA time, she will always be sitting there. Be it alone or with her friends, looking at him. When he talks with girls, there's jealousy in her eyes. When he looked at her, there's a smile in her eyes. Looking at her became my habit. Just like, she likes to look at him.
One day, she didn't appear. I felt something missing. I can't explain the feeling except it's a kind of uneasiness. The senior was also not there as well. I went to their classroom, hid outside and saw my senior scolding her. Tears were in her eyes while he left. The next day, I saw her at her usual place, looking at him. I walked over and smiled to her. Took out a note and gave to her. She was surprised. She looked at me, smiled and accepts the note. The next day, she appeared; passes me a note and left.
It read, "Leaf's heart is too heavy and wind couldn't blow her away."
"It's not that leaf heart is too heavy. It because leaf never want to leave tree." I replied her note with this statement and slowly she started to talk to me; accept my presents and phone calls. I know that the person she loves is not me. But I have this perseverance that one day I will make her like me. Within 4 months, I have declared my love for her no less than 20 times. Every time, she will divert away from the topic. But I never give up. If I decide I want her to be mine, I will definitely use all means to win her over. I can't remember how many times I have declared my love to
her. Although I know, she will try to divert but I still bear a small ray of hope.
Hoping that she will agree to be my girlfriend. I didn't hear any reply from her over the phone. I asked, "What are you doing? How come you didn't want to reply?" She said, "I'm nodding my head". "Ah?" I couldn't believe my ears. "I'm nodding my head" She replied loudly. I hang up the phone, quickly changed and took a taxi and rush to her place & press her doorbell. During the moment when she opens the door, I hugged her tightly.
Leaf departure is because of Wind pursuit. Or because Tree didn't ask her to stay...

Moral
_____________________
In love, we win very rarely, but when love is true, even if you lose, you still win just for having the tingle of loving someone more than you love yourself. There comes a time when we stop loving someone, not because that person has stopped loving us but because we have found out that, they'd be happier if we let go....
Why do we close our eyes when we sleep? When we cry? When we imagine? When we kiss? This is because THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THINGS IN THE WORLD ARE UNSEEN.
There are things that we never want to let go of, people we never want to leave behind, but keep in mind that letting go isn't the end of the world.
It's the beginning of a new life. Happiness lies for those who cry those who hurt, those who have searched and those who have tried. For only they can appreciate the importance of the people who have touched our
lives.
A great love? It's when you shed tears and still you care for them, it's when they ignore you and still you long for them. It's when they begin to love another and yet you smile and say, "I'm happy for you." If love fails, set yourself free, let your heart spread its wings and fly again. Remember you may find love and lose it, but when love dies, you never have to die with it.
The strongest people are not those who always win but those who stand back up when they fall. Somehow, along the course of life, you learn about yourself and realize that there should never be regrets, only a lifelong appreciation of the choices you've made. Loving is not how you forget but how you forgive, not how you listen but how you understand, not what you see but how you feel, and not how you let go but how you hold on.
It's more dangerous to weep inwardly rather than outwardly. Outward tears can be wiped away while secret tears scar forever...It's best to wait for the one you want than settle for one that's available. It's best to wait for the right one because life is too short to waste on just someone.