Lunch times : Now and then

Its some moments past 1pm and i got some innocuous message on office communicator displaying "lunch" .The reply to this has got monotonous over the months i.e 5min/2min/lets go and sometimes rare modifications. Sometimes i perform the ritual of asking others to gather for lunch with similar responses mentioned query i.e lunch?. In other words this is reminder i.e this is lunch hour and fear factor associated is join the group otherwise one has to eat alone .At time people move to otherwise deserted place in office i.e cafeteria.Lunch hour is the the time for social interaction with some typical smiles flowing around and typical social interaction stuffed with rudimentary questions "how are you ? " " all is well? " etc etc .This is
the time when one listens to particular tribe who are otherwise so busy and they carry their work all the time on their head/shoulders/brain ( if its there ) .Not to forget gossip mongers who don't fail to comment on their managers and olleagues .One should not forget souls want to share from miniature "dabbas" that they carry religiously from home to office. I wonder how one can cook that small quantity and to carry that and at the end offer that to 10 people(assumption).I don't khow if they are best at resource phenomena. Not to forget souls who survive on juice and they sip juice as if that has arrived from out of this world on their service .In between this sometimes chit-chat subject becomes "Cafeteria food is bad" and not so good caterer.Caterer in my behave as if they are here on charity mission feeding hungry people/Who don't have access to home made food...charitable catering. Another tribe is who eat "fasting" food , its a misnomer..how can one eat in fasting?...but in India we do many weird things on the name of god...khuda ke liye. Its not difficult to find people who are on dieting and on special diet . They say," i eat highly customized food ", calorie count is in fashion.Clearly ,we care more for our health if the fashion trend supports that.

Enough of office talk...to refresh the mood i'll trace back to lunch timing in college days. Lunch time there was like another typical session to discuss " how bad the food is?". Different pros and cons of this topic were discussed at length.Eating roti "just_out_of_tawa" was a must do event. Anything cold was strict no no.As i look back hostel food was not that bad , at least multiple times better then the diet i eat these days. some dishes were "so special" or trademark of our hostel mess to be precise.Those french fries can easily beat much revered french fries of McDonald's and other places i have visited.

Coming to important question, what was my answer to "with whom i'll have lunch ? " The answer is it was highly dynamic...with anyone present there in hostel mess. All tables were equally likely .....side effect of having so many friends . It can be said there were several layers of friends between close friends and distant friends. Interestingly as i remember close friends were not my lunch time friends.I would like to add dinner time to previously mentioned phenomena. As i talk about dinner/lunch time friends i can't forget to mention other tribe of friends. Sports complex friends,pizza friends, Table tennis friends, watching TV friends,pizza friends,watching movies friends, cricket friends,bakwas talk friends,frustration session friends , study friends ,jhaduu friends( somehow my room was jhadu/broom room.....people cared periodically to clean their room i.e monthly/bi-monthly) ...gosh!! so many divisions ...but why i'm counting that? Wasn't it effortless?

How things change so quickly . Being formal has become the rule. I see everyday one of my fav lines personified in many souls working in office environment ...the line being , "we are prisoners of own identity , living in prison of our own creation ".
The fear is can i save myself from being typical prisoner....i'll have to look for answer in future. 5 years down the line ,what i'll be doing? Will i ping colleagues for one typical lunch session and have typical lunch time talks.Its scary ...it would be interesting to see what happens...which path to choose...so much of confusion and that is magnifying the fear.Before closing , getting company while having lunch/dinner is privilege , if no is around , silently ,i arrange for the sweet debate , me v/s myself moments i call it .