From childhood, I was a bit naughty and enjoyed with people who do not take life very seriously. Never miss any opportunity to enjoy any moment to celebrate with noise and naughtiness. All kinds of mischievous ideas were coming to my head all the time; I appropriately used such tricks when getting a chance to apply to somebody, irrespective of their age. Still, I was careful not to disrespect someone or target their ego. It was only for enjoyment for me as well as the victims. This nature was inborn may, be, and till today, in this latter part of my life, I also want to live a life like that, a child within me. Something innocent only for the sake of entertainment. I hate people with a no-nonsensical attitude and always remain serious; people are afraid of talking to them and forget about a joke about them.
When I entered my professional college, the situation in my state was very bad then, and we were normally taken by bus full for picketing in some vital installations at night also. It was picketing round the clock. There were no classes and evening we gathered in front of the college canteen. One day I was joking with my friend, mimicking one of our professors, and all my friends laughed. One of my friends repeatedly elbowed me, but I did not understand; at that time, someone had taken my ears, twisting with his hand and to my utter shock, when I looked back, he was the professor about whom I was joking. He also enjoyed it and told me to re-act; I just ran away. Many such things happened in my life, but I was good at my studies also, so I did not face many problems of this nature of mine.
When in service, I also tried to enjoy doing my job, finding out something which made my job interesting, and my naughtiness remained intact. My target this time was my seniors or my contemporary friends, and it was my favourite pastime to caricature the senior officers who are normally of very serious natures. My topmost boss knows about it, and he is also my type of character who always enjoy life whenever gets a chance. He always preferred to take me on tour and started cracking jokes on the road. We normally forget how long we travelled and always have a beautiful time. We built a very good relationship like friends during tours, though he is of my uncle’s age. But he was a different man in office, and senior officers were also scared to talk with him. I also behave like a serious obedient officer with him in office. Life was going like that, and my absence in any get-together was felt by the other people asking for the Joker. But I have a problem, those people I do not like; I can not pass the time with them and never try to mimic them. Gradually, I went up the ladder and came to a senior position. My juniors know me very well as I always try to help them grow, but I was also very particular about timelines, so people were also scared of me. But I enjoyed every word or dug out pleasure in my work. Humour is a part of my life.
After office hours, I enjoy with my junior colleagues, cracking jokes or having some kind of get-together; of course, drinks were a part of such events, but I have sternly told everyone on such occasions not to cross their limit otherwise, I will not come to the next event.
Soon, the days of Facebook have come. I started to have a lot of invisible friends and share jokes or good pieces of music. I am a great music lover (I have a lot of collections of old melodies, gazals and videos, of course, all are now available on youtube ). People also share a lot of interesting, entertaining videos. The Facebook reels are a good source of entertainment. If I enjoy such reels without any vulgarity, I also share them with my other friends; some may enjoy them, and others may delete that was not my concern. One day I got a friends request from a very small girl, as understood from her profile, and I accepted her request. In reply, she addressed me as “Khura” (Uncle). I liked it and advised her to call me “Koka,” (grandfather) instead of uncle khura. She agreed, till then we, the grandfather and grandchild, have a lot of interesting time communicating and enjoying each other’s company. I do not know how time passed, and I retired from service one day. One day, my granddaughter told me very proudly on one of her birthdays she had completed her twenty Ist years and now entering twenty-two. But we still behaved like grandpa and granddaughter. Till then, we did not meet, but one day, she messaged me that she had seen me in a particular location where I was exactly there. I told her how she knew it was me, and she told me her father had shown me to her. On asking, I learned she is the daughter of one of my younger colleagues, and she shares all our messages with her parents .it was a great surprise both enjoyed. Many similar incidents happened to me in the real or the virtual world.
In the meantime, my Facebook friend was growing, and I was communicating with very few of them out of the total list. Actually, due to some health issues, I left smoking and drinking totally, and so gradually, I could not enjoy parties of our classmates or ex-colleagues. They have also become uncomfortable with my presence. I almost avoided such gatherings, politely giving some excuses and keeping myself busy with other activities. After my retirement, My friends and ex-colleagues also had come down drastically. I prefer to the friends on Facebook on my free time, but though the numbers are growing daily, I have only a very small group of people to whom I can open up and enjoy messaging. I started messaging when free and had a very limited number of people with whom I opened up. We share many jokes, important pieces of information, kinds of music, and comical videos, and rarely talk about families. Some relations were becoming closer, and some went away automatically as our mutual interests were not matching
One day,- I was sharing a beautiful Shayari I got from one of my friends, which I liked very much and therefore shared with a few of my friends. Almost everyone liked it and sent a return message to me, but I was shocked to get a message from one of my good(?) friends telling me it was jabbers and not to sernd such jabbers. The same person shared such messages with me earlier, so I was shocked. I asked what the problem was, I thought the person might not have been in a good mood on that date, but I requested to tell me why the message was but did not get any reply. After some repeated messages from me were ignored, I was forced to delete the person from my friend’s list. I can not change my nature at this age, and I want to live a life like Rajesh Khanna in “Anand”, even if no friends are with me. Romance in older age is rare but being romantic in mood is life long . Shayeri is one such think which make people romantic by its expressions and all shyer express such emotions so niceIy. Normally being in Urdu , sometimes it become difficult to understand but if one read it repeatedly , It becomes easy .None dislike a romantic melody . I can not be like a dead man waiting for my last days in remorse and would like every opportunity to enjoy my life, of course, without harming the ego of anyone. Be a joke or music or anything where there is humour, sometimes point blank or sometimes intelligent and tricky, which have to read a few times to understand(Tube Light) and enjoy my time. But this comment from a good friend was unexpected and hurt me a lot. That should not have happened, at least with me. Yes, I share jokes and other such things with people without any motive except to share the laugh and entertain someone I consider a friend and, as a result, get enjoyment myself. But this incident has made me consider whether to continue on FB or uninstall it. Several times, I tried to uninstall it. Still, I did not do it as my WhatsApp is not only used for communication with supposed-to-be friends but the various other activities I carry out beyond FB, which I used only to connect with my invisible friends, without knowing whether they are genuine or fake. So I gradually thinning down my friend list and am still to decide where it will stop in this process.
After some days, I may be cracking jokes with Brownie, my sweet dog who knows nothing about this virtual world and human as species.
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