So, I learned a new meaning for an old word last week. Plastic. Sure, it's an old faithful word with many meanings, but this new meaning in particular has resonance in my life right now. It was taught to me by an old Bengali man last week while I spent time at my mother's house being ill. He's someone I've known most of my life, but never really looked at in the light that I now see him. He's about average for a Bengali man, small in size. Salt and pepper hair and balding in the middle. He has a matching beard and mustache combo His age is showing in his face and around his eyes. They emote a sense of sadness and a life missing something essential. Something that was there before, but now has gone.
He sat in my mom's living room, on her deep burgundy couch, sipping red wine, chatting about nothing particular; completely unaware of the impact he was about to have. The conversation changed topics like the direction of the wind until it finally landed on the subject of my generation and its general apathy towards Bengali culture. This lit a fire under under our family friend. He was much more animated about this topic than he was about any other topic. His hands were much more active, he waved his head. He stated that the issue with this generation and their passe attitude towards Bengali culture was to be blamed on their parents. His generation. The incoming immigrants are too concerned with earning money, buying a house, impressing their "friends", and sending money back home to take too much on an interest in getting the younger generation excited about their own culture.
It was this passing reference to "friends" that brought on the new meaning of the word to me. When he said the word "friends" and made quotation marks in the air, I thought I might've been stuck in some Bengali version of a Norm MacDonald movie. I just chuckled to myself and was almost immediately challenged. I told him that I never saw someone of his age and stature use air quotes.
Maybe he had a little too much to drink. Maybe I spoke too fast. Maybe my Bengali is a little more broken than I would like to admit, but for SOME reason, he thought I was challenging something about his friends and he settled into a story.
He spoke of his life 15-20 years ago as if it was foreign to him. He spoke of the people he hosted and that hosted him as if they were people in a movie playing characters. He had such contempt for people, but at the same time, it made him sad. He told me that before his wife died and he used the loads of money he made, he had more friends than he could count. He felt like the center of the universe.
Then tragedy struck. His wife mysteriously died of an adverse reaction to medication on a plane. He spoke of devastation. He told me about the people coming over to console him and bring food for him and his sons to eat.
Then his voice changed. What almost sounded like rage filled the room as he spoke of what he referred to as his biggest mistake. He felt lonely. He ended getting remarried and he was completely ostracized from the Bengali community. This woman ended up being the wrong woman to cure his ails, but the damage was already done. He had disgraced himself in the eyes of the socialites, and there's no coming back from that.
He's rebuilt some relationships, but nothing like the incredible social life that he had before. He tells me that he sometimes sits in his room, alone, thinking about exactly how alone he is. He tells me he feels helpless. Helpless. A man of his stature, his education, his wealth. Helpless. How is this possible? This is when the definition is dropped on me. He describes all his current relationships as "plastic" something that resembles reality, but is not. Something that looks good on a mantle at a distance, but when you get closer... It's just... Plastic.
After hearing this, I find myself obsessed. Is this the fate I am doomed? Am I... Plastic? Am I destined for the kind of sorrow he has experienced and is experienced? I find myself secretly evaluating the people in my life. Plastic. Real. How do you tell them apart? Obviously, some relationships are easy to evaluate, in either direction. It's the ones in the middle. Are these people for real? The people that I know I'd be there for, but would they be there for me? No matter what? I question Anita's friends more than anything. Even though I spend infinitely more time with them than I do my own friends, I wonder how real my relationship is with this person. This is probably mostly paranoia with some other irrational fears thrown in, but I still can't stop myself. I just don't want to end up like him. I don't want to be surrounded by people smiling, but not smiling with me. I don't want to be caught in a room full of strangers I call my closest friends.
I guess only time will tell.
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