How long a time is six months? Is it long enough to know someone? Is it long enough to fully understand someone? Is it long enough to develop a lifelong friendship with someone? Is it long enough to fall in love with someone? Is it long enough to fall out of love with someone? No matter how long a time is six months, it is not long enough to stop surprising at the unbelievable things my roommate does. The point to be noted is that he does so many unbelievably irritating things that I felt the need to write and dedicate an entirely new series related to all the roommates I have lived with.

From the very first day, when I met him, he has left no stone upturned to convince me about the fact that whatever he does, in whichever way, is the right thing. I must admit it takes lots of guts to possess such a high level of self-confidence. Yet he suffers from a high degree of low self-esteem and hopes that in time, his god will provide him with everything that he needs. I wonder why the feeling of self-confidence doesn’t trigger the feeling of self-action in him to change things for himself. Anyway, coming back to my series of writings about roommates, you might find at certain points that I am talking about you, or about someone you know among your friends and family. Reason being, we all are made of the same stuff, so in a way, we all are alike, a little more or less.

Discussions tell me a lot about a person and help me understand the true nature of the person I am communicating with. Discussions also allow me to understand whether it is worth having a discussion with the person or not. Most of the times, it is not worth to talk about anything. Most of the times I don’t even look at people, and sometimes I end up having a discussion about the weirdest things possible. I have had many roommates over the years and it is simply the experience of living with different people that enables me to adjust with any kind of person nowadays.

Old memories have begun to crop up suddenly. Roommates. I have had all sorts of roommates over the years. With some, I lived for a couple of years, with others I lived for a couple of months and with two, I lived only for a couple of days. Each one of them was different and unique in their own way.

According to Newton’s law of gravitation, everything in the universe is attracting everything with a lesser or greater force of gravitation. When I think about people attracting other people, I don’t think about the physical attraction only. I also think about attracting each other’s thoughts, each other’s dreams.

There was a roommate I once lived with, who was the simplest man I ever saw until then. He was the perfect example of an utterly satisfied man who thought if he is getting food, shelter & clothes, there is nothing else to bother about in life. He made me fall in love with simplicity and stay contented with whatever I had. There was yet another roommate who was always cursing the present moment and talked about a time when all his worries would end and he would start enjoying his life. I haven’t understood till date what he was actually looking for to start enjoying life. There was a roommate who used to download all television reality shows and watch them continuously during the weekend, glued to his laptop screen. There was a roommate who always wanted to know about my sexual life. There was a roommate who, instead of managing his financials, was always interesting in knowing other’s financial condition. There was a roommate who used to wake up at 2:30 every night to perform his religious rites and rituals. There was a roommate who was a technology freak and slept with all his gadgets around him on the bed. Boy! I have had a large variety of roommates till date, and now seems to be the time good enough to share my experiences with different people as I lived with them.

The biggest disadvantage of living with people is that we begin to take them for granted. We assume they will stay around us forever. I did take few of my roommates for granted. I do miss few of my roommates very much. I want to know where they are, what are they doing with their lives these days. Did they achieve their goals in life? Did they become a good human being? Did they change what was wrong in them? Did they use what was good in them and brought out good in other people as well? Life is full of surprises and so far I have had the privilege of getting surprised more than often. I owe it to my roommates to a great extent because I have lived a greater part of my life away from my family. I have lived among people who were strangers first, but became more of a family in a matter of days.

I won’t be sharing names because most of my friends read what I write and what I write often pisses off people. Truth usually does. I will be as truthful as I can be while sharing my thoughts about them. I will write as simply as possible and now that I have a new laptop, I will write as regularly as possible too!