|
The Company of Friends
By Mowahid H. Shah
A Washington couple - sick of the fickle weather, traffic jams and static salary in the nation’s capital - went in search of sunnier vistas. They wanted a higher income level, a bigger house, uncrowded commuting and balmy weather. They found all of those material pluses in Arizona. But what they could not find in their new environs were friends. There, the people had already formed settled friendships, leaving the newcomers virtually friendless. The distraught duo eventually made their way back to Washington.
Way back in Lahore, shooting the breeze with friends was the preferred recreation. The scarcity of phones in homes allowed spontaneity in that friends dropped by without appointment and invitation. It brought some inconvenience, but mostly, unexpected entertainment. The gradual ascendancy of TV, VCR, and now the Internet began to enclose lives and shrink socializing, making lifestyles, in effect, more American.
People became more self-contained at home unwinding before the tube.
Drop in visitors had a concomitant effect in the dwindling of basic conversation skills. Visitors became accustomed to sitting in the living rooms of their hosts and given a lollipop in the shape of a flickering screen to gaze upon as a substitute for conversation.
Video stimulation became more or less a crutch. One ancillary effect was that life became more programmed, predictable and mundane in the so-called IT age. The influx of information has not made the world necessarily wiser or smarter. Or, for that matter, better. Certainly, complaints proliferate over a lack of zest and an overall ambience of melancholia. Accompanying that is a diminishing drive to look for light at the end of the tunnel.
The late Dr. Feroze Ahmed used to say that there are no easy answers, and if there were, they would have been found long before.
However, one thing has remained constant over the years. Today, as before, in a ruthlessly changing world, the company of friends remains an unexpected gift.
|
