These Are For Real

I got an SMS today. It was among the many 'happy friendship day' ones. It said, "Each day wid sum1 new, i do luk and find another new. D world is full of ppl, i know it's true.Yet no 1 cud ever equal, d one i found in u. happy f-ship day." Sweet. Came from a girlfriend. Somehow, I have never been a great believer in the celebration of these so-called mother's day, father's day, donkey's day et al. I think they are all driven by a consumerist society. But because today is friendship day, I have found my fodder for this space.

To talk about one friend would mean doing injustice to the rest. In short. I would just say that without frieds oops friends, my life is incomplete. It's one of the things you realise when you have been really ill or down the dumps. I have gone through this and so I value friends at all times. But do I need a friendship day to make my friends feel special? Not necessarily.I think you can do so in the most ordinary of circumstances or days.

What is friendship? I have heard a lot of people say, "oh, we are friends", but waste no time in bitching the moment their backs are turned. It's human to bitch. I am no exception. And that's where it ends. If I have reason to bitch about someone, then that someone does not fit into my friend(ship) scheme of things. Friendship is an act -- of being funny, helpful, sympathetic, understanding and critical, too. I hate it when people say "my school friends are my real friends,I can be myself with them." Not true for me. Friendships can happen anytime. And you cant take your friends for granted. Also if you are you only with your friends, does that mean you are unreal and contrived at other times? I am myself at all times -- be it at the workplace, with strangers, at the street, home or just anywhere. And I have won equal number of foes and friends just being me.

People talk of one best friend in life. I have so many best friends that I have often met with a "Oh, you have too many best friends" slam. Made me almost guilty, as if I was changing friends rapidly. The fact is, with so many friends -- diverse as they are and each special in their own way -- my only term of endearment is to call him/her 'best friend'. Like best friend Kunaal, who paid us a pleasant surprise yesterday evening from Bangalore. We share the same birthday too. Much as I wanted to desist from naming, this one is a slip of the tongue.

Two years back, when I joined BW, I hated this thin, buck-toothed, overly sincere worker at the desk. His sinceriy to work was something I couldn't compete with. Soon I soon learnt that I couldn't compete with a lot of his other virtues too. So much so that I bitched and objected to all his scrawls on the blacks. And he wouldn't give up arguing! In the end, he won me over with his sheer niceness and loads of humour. We left the fights for the workplace. Out of work, we were friend for each other. When a friend changes you, you know that the friendship is bound to stay. Yesterday, we had a three-hour full session of gossip, mimickry and laughter over mugs of beer and dinner. A coincidental toast to our friendship on the eve of this touted friendship day :)

Which brings me back to my unfinished defination of friendship. My experience with all my best friends has been -- trust. It's something that the experiences total up to. So I am not bothered whether I am broke, I don't have to watch or weigh my words, I don't care if my house is in a mess or how I look. Most of all I can trust them with my life's secrets and vulnerabilities. Of course, my friendships weren't built in a day!