Man, why can’t you just grow up?

Tiffs among colleagues are as common as Salman Khan taking off his shirt to bare his chiselled torso on the screen.

How you deal with it and its aftermath, however, is what matters.

The other day, I boarded a train from Kurla, as usual. A minute into my 10-minute-long journey I realised the passenger sitting beside me was a former colleague. He was busy, or was at least pretending to be, reading a magazine.

The moment I spotted him, I greeted him. We were never pals, but I was generally happy to see a former co-worker. However, he did not share the same feeling and my hello was reciprocated with a cold and awkward smile.

Even in the cacophony of various noises in and out of the local, I could distinctly hear the stony silence that ensued. I got the message and eagerly waited for the remaining nine minutes of my journey to get over.

Now, here is the real story behind the distance. Three years ago, when he was a reporter, and I a desk person, we had an argument over some story of his. Some mistake had crept in the headline. Mistakes are commonplace in journalism, though it is the last place where they should occur.

We stopped talking after that. Not talking to a person with whom you can’t get along well is always better than constant cribbing and bickering.

However, that does not mean that one should never talk again. Baat karne se hi baat banti hai. Much water has flown under the bridge. It has been three years. Both of us have moved on, or at least I thought so.

He too has switched to the desk from reporting while I have quit that organisation. However, it seems he is still frozen in time and looks at relations through the same prism.

Contradict this situation to a hypothetical one in which one of us was the other’s boss.

At times, all bosses or seniors do get away with scathing comments only by virtue of their position in office. When one knows that he or she can’t afford to pick a quarrel with another person because he/she is the boss, this stuck-in-time attitude of never talking again vanishes into thin air. Yet, the real test in a relationship is where none stands to benefit from the other.

At the cost of sounding narcissist, with all humility, I would like to say that I accord utmost importance to relations — personal and professional. There is nothing wrong in having fights or arguments. Democracy in relationships is as much needed as in the country. Else we would be reduced to yes-men of whomsoever we are transacting with.

Yet, dissent or striking a different chord should not be considered discordant. After all, isn’t the ability to stomach dissent in democracy directly proportional to its level of maturity? Then why is there always a bid to crush dissidence, in the country or relationships? Why can’t we agree to disagree?