Friends I knew

Let me post something a little more personal for once. This post was long in the making. That’s because it has touched me the most and deals with something close to my heart. It deals with several of my closest friends. I see them as part of my family. They changed me and they taught me things I might never have learnt.

We make lots of friends in our lives. Each time we meet someone new, we can’t help ourselves but try to understand them. There is something in us, as humans that make us wonder and wish to meet people of our kind. Even the Spanish conquistador, Cortes tried to understand the Incas before he vanquished them and their empire. In a country as diverse as India I meet tons of different, yet similar people. They are different because they come from different backgrounds, communities, regions and religions but they all share a common culture and understanding. Yet there are often so many misunderstandings within my country. Imagine an Indian who goes to an international forum. He must be a public menace, right?



This is probably true of other large countries. On the October of 2009, I was lucky enough to take part in the World School Forum, Japan. I and two of my compatriots boarded the plane with different notions and ideas. We might deny it now, but I distinctly remembered worrying if the Australians would find us ok (there were lots of race riots in Oz back then). Now you can ask yourselves, why would we even want to bother to go through these programs? I’ll come to that at the end.

I reached my room in Tokyo at past midnight. I was sharing it with a kiwi, Chinese and Japanese. India fought a war against China, and the Japanese plus, I didn’t know much about New Zealand. Of course all this was the last thing on my mind back then. I got into my room awkwardly enough. Tomoki (my Japanese mate) insisted on carrying my bags. I tried to apologize to the guys for waking them up. I slid into bed.



The first day, we broke barriers. We sat with our own countries but during the first break, we broke ice. I guess we were so curious about the others that we just couldn’t control ourselves. We were super excited and that brought inhibitions crashing down. I chatted up with some South Africans who loved cricket, kindred spirits. I met some awesome Canadians; my Asian brothers from Korea, Japan and Indonesia. I spotted my neighbors from Sri Lanka and the second best debater of Romania. I found a Fin and we talked about Stalin and met a New Zealander who loved Japanese Manga. I also ran into a very crazy but intensely lovable Aussie. It was a wildly awesome day.

We learned many different things from each other. As the theme of the forum was food and value, we understood a lot about the food cultures of the different countries. That was not the end though. Anything from games to movies, sports and dances was talked about or (in case of dance) tried. So with every day we kind of grew closer and closer, till the final day when we didn’t want to leave each other.



So why did we do it? What’s the point of these forums and meets?

There is this one thing and it’s called diversity. Its importance is not often realized and most often misunderstood. Exposure to diversity allow us to see problems from a variety of perspectives. It lets us use the diverse knowledge of different people to solve common problems. Take for example Japan’s problem of an aeging population. India with its strong family value system faces the reverse problem of too many young people and over population. Perhaps both countries can learn from each other and obtain solutions to their respective crisis. Again, when you try to find a solution to cut global emissions you need a personalized method for every nation.


Another thing we learned or rather experienced was what you would call the appearance of the Globalism . We communicated effectively amongst ourselves because most of us spoke English. Those who did not understood the importance of this particular language. We had common interests in music, bands, clothing and some foods (The Italians won with their pizza and spaghetti). We even face the same problems of terrorism, pollution, environmental degradation and economic meltdown. This does not mean we were completely alike. Rather each of us added a different flavor to the forum that just made it sweeter.

The best thing was the most personal. It dealt with how each of us looked at the rest as outsiders and someone different. You realize how pointless it is to worry about meeting and mingling with people. Different races, customs, languages and cultures coexisted together and worked on the forum together. In our pursuit to fight problems and work towards common goals (even in the football game) we found that our best allies were ourselves.



We have learned that and we need to live that. We make choices that do not cause prejudices. We work to make other s understand this. And we never let the friendship die. While we are students we have got to work hard to get good grades, because when we grow up we have to meet again. Then we will do more.