The wise and the elderly never get tired of reminding their children that a man is known by the company he keeps. He is supposed to be a man of good character and worthy ideals, if he is seen moving with well-behaved, courteous and intelligent people.
However, he becomes an object of suspicious looks, doubtful character and unworthy of the company, in case he is found with persons of loose talks and wavering temperament.
Even otherwise, the saying has every element of truth in it. Bad company is as much infectious and contagious as good company. It spreads like wild fire. It does no good to anybody. Whosoever comes within its area of influence is cut to pieces.
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In certain cases, it is worse than even a cobra. A cobra’s bite invites quick death but the bad company’s sting makes a man suffer the pangs of slow vanishing forever.
When still in school or college, you are more prone to falling prey to bad company than adults. Grown-ups are conversant with the bitter consequences of bad company by virtue of their mature age and rich experience of life.
But the teens, which look upon their elders as eccentrics, easily fall prey to the allurement of bad characters and their vices. They are imbued with a spirit of adventurism. While looking for the fields of adventurism, they become unsuspecting easy targets. These evil persons paint a colorfully rosy picture of life before them.
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They take them too easy and short-cuts of earning their livelihood. The resultant effect is that they are initiated into a world of crime, exploitation, intimidation and other evils.
They start waylaying the passers-by, holding them up at the point a pistol or a revolver and killing them, if they are reluctant to part with their hard-earned money. The end is a life behind bars, utter gloom and despair, leading to social boycott.
Sometimes, the youngsters seek company of human wolves, prowling in sheep’s clothing, out of ignorance, lack of right judgment and utter foolishness. They take such people on their face value, without knowing anything about their present or past background. They wake up too late to realize their folly, and come out of the den of evil associates.
These young people are those who always ignore the timely advice of their teachers, parents and elders. They are the ones who mock at their true friends and adorn them with such rich epithets as ‘timid;’ or ‘chicken-hearted fellows’.
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A selfishly evil friend drags his victims into evil ways on one pretext or the other. As a bait, he offers his innocent friend a cigarette stump, which the latter willingly accepts with gratitude. On taking its first puff, he finds himself highly elated.
He feels so overjoyed that he starts considering his giver a celestial being and his real well-wisher. The act becomes a routine and the outcome is that the poor soul gets addicted to smoking.
The field of the vice-den becomes larger and wider day- by-day. The unity lad becomes a truant and misses his school to spend his precious time in the gallery of a cinema hall or to take drugs with his newly acquired friends in a lonely, secluded place.
For a change, he neglects his daily lessons for playing games of luck. He becomes a liquor addict. At the end of the term, when he is declared last in the class, the fond hope of his parents is dashed. The teachers fail to reform him.
With his unwise and foolish acts; he brings bad name, disgrace and unhappiness not only for himself but for all those who had once considered him the only hope for the family.