Friends

A few days back, I updated my orkut profile. From living “with parents” to living “alone, friends visit often”. ..Friends are family now. More than any other relation in the world, friends brighten up your day, day after day. They are the people with whom you share every joy and pain and lay bare your deepest desires and fears. I like what Anais Nin said about friends:

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.

In a Utopian world, friendship would be only based on the kind of person you are. But fallible people that we are, glitter sells more than gold. Trivial things like the way somebody dresses or looks, matter. Else, we cage ourselves with shackles of our language or region. The other day, one of my friends asked-“Aren’t boys better friends? They aren’t selfish, jealous or gossipy. True, you can’t ramble on about emotions and feelings to them but, they’ll help you in need even after you’ve had a fight.” I asked back-“Why aren’t you thinking beyond stereotypes? It’s a person’s values and not their gender that determines good friends.”
As he caught the word “friends”, another friend observed-“You know why I love being with my friends. At times, when I am upset about something, and sit silently; my family will nag me about it. They’ll want to swoop out of the sky like Superman and solve all my problems. Even when they don’t understand. But with friends; with my friends I can just be…”
When I think of friendships, another thing that comes to mind is that why don’t people let a guy and a girl be just friends? A small spark starts a fire of gossip that can char a platonic friendship. Somebody please tell them to give it a rest.
At times, you have a friend so cherished, that nothing could ever dissolve or even threaten the bond between the two of you. For a friendship to be a nonpareil, friends should not be absolute copies of each other. Their basic plane of thinking should be same, otherwise they won’t find any joy in each other’s company. But, in other domains, they can be starkly different and still be happy together. Celebrating differences makes you grow more than closed cliques.
When friendship takes root in one’s heart, love blossoms. Platonic love does not bring with it the sweeping winds of teenage love. It is more the quiet intimacy of a couple celebrating their silver anniversary. Like true love, true friends are also hard to find. But, when you do find one, you no longer wonder what an angel looks like. Somebody who’ll always be there for you, before everyone else and even when everyone else has turned their back on you. A shoulder to cry on, a listening ear for life’s troubles. Just the thought of them brings a smile to your lips. They can make you smile through your tears. And they are the ones who’ve seen you crying out of happiness. And that somebody is so much a part of you that the thought of going away….It’s just too hard to bear.
Hard indeed it is when a friendship breaks. A broken friendship is a stinging wound. A wound that takes too long to heal. Misunderstandings and pent-up anger can break the bonding thread so easily. The bond shatters like glass when trust is broken. There’s an element of trust in every relationship, which when broken once, remains a scar forever. Have you ever lost a friend to things that need not have happened? A day ago, there was the joy of companionship; a day later, there’s a void. You are left behind with memories of shared laughter and tears. Had you been a child, you would have wiped your tears and extended a friendly hand, but, now egoistic adulthood has closed the doors.
“Ask and it shall be given unto you, knock and it shall be opened”. Sometimes in life we think we don’t need anyone. But sometimes we don’t have anyone when we need….So, if you have been keeping to yourself; go out and seek a friend. And…your world will become better.

Note: I had written this article for Sizzling Sands 08, BPGC annual magazine which came out in print last month.