LOL: Life Of Leo

Image Source In my teens, F.R.I.E.N.D.S was more than a television show. It was a warm, familiar escape that aired like clockwork on cable (remember Star World and Zee Cafe?), the background hum to my after-school evenings. I didn’t just watch it - I inhaled it. The theme song was practically a mantra, and the six characters felt like companions who made adulthood seem whimsical and liberating. For a teenager growing up in India, F.R.I.E.N.D.S was my first real peek into Western television, a world where twenty-somethings lived in quirky apartments, drank endless coffee, and navigated love and life with a certain lightness that was irresistible. After Sidney Sheldon's books, this is what opened my mind to the "real" world.

The road bends sharp, the sky turns grey Just when hope begins to sway A whisper in the soul declares You’re made to walk through storms this way

Image Source Growing up, I thought that the only mode men came in was "angry". My father and uncles were perpetually unhappy and always ready to blow their fuses. We had to walk on eggshells around them with a constant fear of taking a misstep. My poor dog bore the brunt of my father's frustrations back then. As much as it was a toxic environment to grow up in, I now think that all they needed was a space to express their emotions. Clearly, they weren't able to come to terms with the pressures of taking care of the family. I strongly believe that the most burdened being on the planet is a middle-class Indian male who is expected to singlehandedly support his family, while keeping his ego and pride in check. My mother was the primary breadwinner of our family; this should have minimized my father's frustrations, but it only seemed to multiply it. Taunts by relativities didn't help either. A man is expected to do what he should, after all.