Recession everywhere…………..

Recession is the most popular and widely used word which is being used by all and sundry today. But before the recession had hit our economy, it had hit our life, our being, our relation. A friend of mine has quite rightly pointed out in her wedding invite, that in these turbulent days of relation recession, she is going for a life long mergerJ.

This can be traced back to the time when we started getting exposed to CHOICE everywhere. Plastic money (credit cards), cell phones, latest garments, shoes, accessories, vehicle, coffee, tea, options were everywhere… one just need to choose and pick…

It reflected in our relations as well. Options were open in the chats rooms, at office, in the coffee shop. Suddenly words like commitments and true love became clichéd. Everybody was referred to as friends even if we have met them over popular electronic chat rooms for as little as 5minutes and even if there was no surety neither a longing for a next time. Being in a relationship suddenly became old fashioned. And if you do not have at least a couple of broken or semi broken relation, you were just not considered to be in the league.

This is even more prominent in cities like Bangalore where the crowd is young and working. We do not belong to this place and we do not care. All are here to work, get a career and in course of that, one or two “Friends” comes your way and you spend time and comfortably forget them. I personally know a person who was in a very intimate relationship (according to me) with someone for two years and suddenly decided that they are not meant for each other, there is apparently no reason, none that can be thought about (by me certainly). This couple has now decided to move on in life and probably get married to someone else. When asked what went wrong, both were quite upfront in informing that they are not CONVINCED that they can stay together for the rest of their life. There was no hard feeling and it’s a mutually satisfying decision and both are in agreement with this.

In older times our mommies and grannies (in spite of the fact that there is a generation gap) were so smart that they required only a couple of minutes or a couple of meetings to decide on the perfect match or not so perfect match. But we need years of courtship, hours on phone, innumerable meetings at coffee shops, restaurants, pubs, discos, weekend getaways and any other option that is available to decide. And then if we marry finally, there is no compulsion to stay in that relation life long and at the slightest of problem, we thought of calling it off. No wonder words like single parent, single mom is getting popularity. On one hand it shows liberation of a society, acceptance and on the other its scary, considering that there could come a day when from a nuclear family we can graduate to atomic families.

While economists / finance professionals / governments all over the world are going absolutely crazy trying to fix up this recession thingy. Companies are cutting costs vehemently, laying off people.
But who will fix up our relations in such difficult times???? Do we need experts for that too?