Palling Around
Making friends as you grow older may be hard; but it’s even harder to keep the ones you do have
I’ve always been sceptical of those who say that it is impossible to make new friends when you hit middle age. You know how the theory goes, right? The best, the most intense, the most valuable relationships are those that are forged when we are children or in our early adulthood. It is these childhood friends or college buddies who become our support structure as we grow older along with each other.
This tight-knit group has no secrets from one another; they have seen each member at his or her absolute best and horrific worst; they share memories and secrets; they have witnessed the seminal moments of each others life; and the bonds thus created are unbreakable. You could never replicate that kind of friendship with someone you meet when you are fully formed.
Well, that’s the argument, anyway. And I must confess that it’s not one I necessarily agree with. As someone who moved town because of my career and lost touch with most of her childhood friends (who are now scattered all over the globe) I could not have negotiated life without the friends I made in my 30s and 40s.
These friendships are arguably even better than the ones I had forged in my youth and teenage years. For one thing, they are not based simply on proximity, on the coincidence of attending the same class or living in the same neighbourhood. These are people that I actively sought out and befriended because I felt I had some sort of special rapport with them. And more importantly, these relationships were formed when I had a better idea of who I was and what I wanted in a friend – and at a time when I had zero compunction about walking away from people who simply weren’t doing it for me. So, these are the friends not just of my heart but my mind as well.
But as I grow older, it is not the thought of making new friends that preoccupies me; it is the dread of losing any of the friendships that I have spent so many years cherishing and preserving. And yet, as life gets more and more frenetic, as our familial obligations increase, it is an inescapable fact that we have less and less time for friends.
We all know that relationships are more like houseplants than trees.
While trees do well even if they are neglected and left to their own devices, houseplants have a most disobliging way of dying on us
If you only turn to your friends when you are in a funk it won’t be long before they start dreading your call or email
ON THE if they are not nourished and looked after. So, how does one keep a friendship going, so that it lasts us a lifetime?
Well, here are just a few tips, based entirely on my own experience:
Stay in touch: And by that I don’t mean that you should share
the occasional joke on WhatsApp or like each other’s pictures on Facebook or Instagram. By ‘stay in touch’ I mean that you should be present in one another’s life. If your friend gets promoted, buy her lunch to celebrate. If she loses a parent, don’t think your duty is done if you attend the funeral; call her every day for a little chat just to check that she’s okay. If she is depressed, don’t just send her motivational quotes; show up at her house with a box of chocolates and spend time raising her spirits.
Don’t let feelings fester: If you are feeling neglected by a
friend, if she hasn’t been in touch for a while, don’t respond by deploying the silent treatment. If you value that friendship, take the initiative to change things for the better. Pick up the phone and speak to her. Be honest and admit that you miss her presence in your life. Ask her for the reasons behind her absence. If she is upset about something you have done, address the issue head-on. Similarly, if you are upset with a friend about something, don’t just sulk in silence and assume that she will pick up on your unhappiness. Express your displeasure clearly and firmly; only then can you move beyond it.
If yours is a true friendship, it will survive this honesty stress; if it doesn’t, well then it wasn’t much of a friendship at all.
Do fun things together: If you only turn to your friends when
you are in a funk and need cheering up, or you are in a spot of trouble and could do with some help, it won’t be long before they start dreading your call or email. So, it’s important to ensure that you guys have some fun times together as well to remember why you became friends in the same place. Meet for a few drinks in the evening, maybe go for a walk on a weekend morning, or just share a meal together to catch up on the minutiae of each other’s life.
Make an effort: You do that in your romantic relationships,
don’t you? (At least, I hope you do!) You put a lot of thought into buying a birthday present. You send flowers on significant anniversaries. You plan surprise parties on special occasions. Well, a friendship doesn’t deserve any less effort just because it a platonic rather than a romantic relationship. So, do your best by your friends, and more often than not, they will do even better by you.
We aren’t ready for mass adoption of EVs. They are too expensive, there’s no charging infrastructure and there’s fear of running out of charge.
February’s got to be the most ‘charged’ month in my motoring life. It began with the Auto Expo where everyone and their uncle unveiled electric vehicles in all shapes and sizes. Motor shows are the place for manufacturers to flaunt their green credentials, to show they really care about planet earth and beat the EV drum to the tune of policy makers, environmentalists and even the courts. But what about the consumer? No one’s asked him or her if they want one. And that’s led to a huge disconnect between what you see under the bright lights on the show floor and what you can actually buy in the showrooms. The truth is, we still aren’t ready for mass adoption of EVs. They are too expensive, there’s no charging infrastructure and there’s that big fear of running out of charge, which by the way has added a new phrase in the lexicon: ‘range anxiety.’
HOW FAR WILL IT GO?
Range is everything in an EV and the question ‘how far will it go?’ is topmost on the mind of every EV buyer. Which is why we decided to set a record for the maximum distance travelled on one single charge in a long-distance drive dubbed the ‘One Charge Challenge’.
The car we chose was the MG ZS EV, which has a decently large 44.5kWh battery and an official range of 340 km. In the real world of bumper to bumper traffic and with the aircon always running, range drops to a still practical 200-240 km, but we wanted to stretch that figure by more than double.
Yes, double! The secret weapon was
chief test driver Rahul Kakkar who once ‘hypermiled’ from Delhi to
ON THE
Mumbai on a single tank of fuel. Hypermiling, which is essentially a technique of driving to squeeze the maximum range out of any vehicle, is a popular practice amongst EV owners the world over. So when we set off from the MG showroom in Gurugram towards Udaipur, it was a drive with no air-con, the windows tightly rolled up to reduce wind resistance, cruising or rather crawling at steady speeds between 35-40 kph and driving only in daylight to avoid the use of battery-sapping headlights.
Two days later, after juicing every volt, watt and ampere out of the battery, the MG ZS EV finally ran out charge and stopped just short of Udaipur but not before covering an incredible 563km! And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a new record for the maximum distance travelled in an EV on one charge in India!
Now, the average EV owner won’t drive in such an extreme way but the whole point of this record breaking run was to show that with the right driving technique or hypermiling, an EV can go a truly long way on a single charge.
REAL WORLD
Back in the cut and thrust of Mumbai traffic, I’ve been living with a Hyundai Kona EV for the last two weeks and I have to admit that it’s converting the sceptic in me. With a charging point installed at home and office, the Kona EV is so easy to charge. The other thing I realised, which no one really speaks of, is how easy it is to drive. Compared to a car with a conventional engine, EVs are much more responsive, and the instantaneous and seamless power delivery from the electric motor makes them utterly suitable for the stop-and-go traffic environment we are perennially in.
So, am I now fully converted to the EV cause? Not quite. The Kona works fine as your second car but not your only car, because without fast charging infrastructure on the highways, you can’t stray too far from your home base. And priced at around ~27 lakh even after all the taxes and subsidies given to EVs, how many can afford to have the Kona as a second car? Which is why, until the issues of affordability and charging infrastructure are addressed, EVs will remain a niche for the rich.