Random forays | Time, distance cannot ravage old friendships

I have a couple of friends who have always made me feel utterly chilled out in their company, over the decades. People in public life who have to put on an air and some layers necessarily because of the nature of their profile, but when their closest friends are around the years vanish and distances dissipate.

The most selfless forms of human relationships are friendships without pretences, agendas and jealousies. Our most delightful moments are often spent with friends who have no romantic or business-like inclinations, but are just there for us, anytime and every time we need them. Those coffees and chais enjoyed over hours of meandering discussions in college canteens exemplified my own initiation into the world of selflessness and even timelessness. These were, and are, people with whom one cannot only let one’s hair down, but also vent from the heart, whatever needs to be vented out.

The most selfless forms of human relationships are friendships without pretences, agendas and jealousies. Our most delightful moments are often spent with friends who have no romantic or business-like inclinations, but are just there for us, anytime and every time we need them. (Represenatat)

I have a couple of friends who have always made me feel utterly chilled out in their company, over the decades. People in public life who have to put on an air and some layers necessarily because of the nature of their profile, but when their closest friends are around the years vanish and distances dissipate.

Gup-shup, chai-shai, laughter, banter, bonhomie, gossip and hordes of selfies are the more at such get togethers these days, when old chums get together. Whatspp groups which are named “Class of 84” or “Batch of 96” keep us all in touch anyway, but when we actually meet, even if only a dozen of us, the warmth of old friendships is effortlessly renewed

The intangible and immeasurable ingredient of a friendship which germinated in one’s childhood is that it endures forever. Old friends who meet even after 20 years are found back slapping and teasing each other as if they had been meeting every day for all these years.

At times, instances of mistaken identity also occur when old mates meet. As the story goes, an elderly woman happened to visit an unfamiliar dentist for check up. On noticing that the doctor had the same name as her crush from school, she felt a mild sense of excitement. “What if it is him?” she asked herself almost nervously. She patted her hair into place and waited. But when her turn finally came and she was face to face with the man himself, she was disappointed to note that his was a balding, pot bellied persona. “Were you ever at such and such school?” she enquired later though, just to rule out the possibility. ‘Yes I was!’ he declared, much to her surprise. “How could he have deteriorated so much?!” she thought. But the tables were turned, much to her chagrin, when the good doctor came up with an inadvertent query of his own. “Which subject were you teaching at that time, ma’am?”

The journey of life navigates through so many convoluted turns, that the old Hindi song comes true with almost all of us. “Hum rahe na hum, tum rahe na tum!” (Neither am I what I was, nor are you the same any more...) But true friends stay with us through thick and thin, even if old romances fade away, and heartthrobs eventually turn into fuddy-duddies, which they must, one day!

I lost my closest friend some years ago, and though there are some others around with whom I can simply be myself even today, I do miss his understanding smile and his ever-ready ear.

Friendships without angles and tangles therefore represent almost the most superior form of human bonding. And sometimes these friends have perhaps been our mates in earlier lives as well. We connect with them instantaneously for the very first time, and they stay on till the very end. Clearly, the vibrations that such souls emanate are close in frequency to our own and our intuition tells us that they are our own, even if they are unknown!

They are our “Friends once more to be!” as Paramahansa Yogananda termed them. The youngsters of today would do well to realise that the friendships which they forge early on in their careers, or even before that, will outlive most other relationships in their lives. To not take good friends for granted becomes almost our duty. They will be there when none else is, and their warmth will comfort us even when everyone else gives us the cold shoulder.

vivek.atray@gmail.com