How are you

Who really means these words when they say it? Who really wants to know how you are?

Does he want to know that I am thinking about future career options? that I am feeling sick of modular furniture and power points? that I am feeling happy at having listened to my favorite song on radio? that I am contemplating whether to buy more light-white curtains from fabindia or save some money for car accessories? that as soon as I have free time, all sorts of thoughts enter my head and plague me? that I am thinking of the painful deaths I have witnessed in the past decade and the horror that accompanied each of them? that I would like to talk about what is more attractive - humor/intelligence or character?

It takes courage to genuinely ask a person "how are you" and wait to get the real answer. (normally one would use the word sensitivity, but I disagree. I think sensitivity is too passive. This requires being able to get out of your own world, put it aside and look into someone else's and understand it, absorb it with all its deficiences, accept and appreciate it. In other words, courage)

Cheers to the courageous people I know - Mum, L, U, Viv.