The Friendship Cycle ............. !!!

It’s been almost 14 months now since I arrived at XLRI. Whenever you arrive at a new place the best part is meeting new people. Crazy people, funny people, silent ones, arrogant ones, moody, you get to know so much about them in a relatively small span of time and at the same time you are able to share a lot about you so in turn you get to know yourself better. You get to hang around at new places with new people and that’s a completely new experience. During one such expedition, someone asked me to write a blog about it and that’s why I decided to write about how friendship starts. I had no idea what role this girl will play in my life. I have just met her 5 days ago, whether we will be friend or just group partner for a project and then part away. It’s hard to tell. The guy with spectacle sitting with us looks very serious and disinterested. I had no idea whether he will be friend with a person like me who is always talking and take things lightly. As it turns out, they are integral part of my XLRI life now.

Why we are able to tune much better with a group and not with some other group, why we have a hint of dislike for some people even if we haven’t talked to them yet, why we prefer few over others, why we talk to so many people in the beginning but after a while get confined to a group of few? There are so many questions to ponder over and too much uncertainty in the answers.

So how friendship starts? Try to think about 3 of your best friends.

Done?

Now try to recall how you met them first, what kind of conversation you had with them, what was your initial perception about them, did you thought that you would have a life long relationship with them. It may be the case that you despised your best friend in the first interaction, you didn’t like their attitude and never thought that this person would have such a big significance in your life. On the other hand, there were many with whom you had a great bonding and tuning in the earlier phase but they fade away quickly from your life and are mostly a blurry image now.

The more I ponder over friendship, the more it appears a freakish coincidence. You met with some people and you become good friends with them. What if instead, you would have met some other person, it’s just a coincidence that the person you met become your best friend. The story could have been completely different if you had met some other person. Are we destined to be with some people or it’s just governed by the rule of randomness? Friendship is result of just a chance, or we would have become good friends with people we are now anyway no matter we met them 1^st or we met them after meeting many other people at the same place.

Some of us are lucky enough to be blessed with having the eternal company of a friend since childhood, while some of us have people who came into our life for a while, made a big impact and they are strangers now. The cycle of being a stranger first, then acquaintance, friend, close friend, old friends and stranger again is quite complex and painful. You are part of someone’s friendship day’s wish status on Facebook in some year but now you are replaced by other names and this change happens automatically. Not all friendship turns into being stranger by an ugly end or fight, they just transform gradually with time and next time you talk to a person, you have no idea who you are talking to, it feels like talking to a stranger.

I have seen lots of people sharing a particular picture these days on Facebook which states that we have grown up and we all are busy now so there is no need to stay in touch regularly, people must know that we are there for you when you will need. I find this picture very ironic and insensitive. Helping others in need I think is just a very small part of friendship. When required, even strangers help, the neighbour you have never talked to will also help, and friendship is not something that is done for taking and giving help. Friendship is about sharing memories, creating them, making life awesome and sharing and celebrating it. If it was about helping, it’s a business. I personally don’t think so there is anything called busy. We are not busy 24 hours and even if we are it can’t be for 7 days and if you are then there is something really wrong with the career decision you have taken. For most others, new people just replace old people, priority changes, relevance and importance changes, we just don’t feel to stay in touch with people who were insuperable part once. It is a reality, no matter how cruel a joke it is, people come and go in your life.

Some people’s emotions are temporary, they make big promises when they are in your life but they will move on much quickly. It’s rather a painful part of life which exists in all of our life, and may be knowingly or unknowingly we might have done same with some person. Are we in touch with all the people we were once? Have we tried to rekindle any old relationship which was very dear to us once? How often we try to revive our friendship before giving up? It’s very easy to quit, it’s very easy to take things on your ego or self-respect and say that if he/she doesn’t need me, I will walk away from his/her life without bothering. Quitting is perhaps, in any field, most easy part in life. But it takes courage to hold on to  a relationship, it takes courage to heal it and revive it, it takes courage and effort to keep watering dried up roots of once a very fruitful tree but if it’s worth it, we should do it.

The worst that can happen with any friendship is it getting converted into a formality. I would rather prefer an ugly end with all bridges burned than just wishing a friend twice and thrice with having no idea on what’s going on his/her life. A friend, specially a close one should always be someone you should be eager to share your success or find a shoulder to cry on. It’s good to have few close friends in life with whom you can fight as much as you can, say bad things without thinking anything, judge them, tell them they were wrong and when they are wrong laugh on them saying I told you so. It’s good to have few close friends that you can call at 2 AM, wake them up and say that you just called to disturb. It’s good to have few close friends because you know you can count on them.

For others, who were part of your life but now aren’t and you have put enough efforts to stick on the relation but you know it’s not worth it anymore. It’s good to let them go. There is no point in holding any grudge against them. They have played the part in your life destiny wanted them to play. They taught you what they came far, they changed you as god wanted and now they are on their separate ways. Life is not always what we want it to be, but there won’t be any point living if we always get what we want. I have tried to hold on to many important relationship since my graduation ended. I tried to message people regularly, call them, share with them what is happening in my life and I was disappointed when people didn’t reply. It’s hard to see people changing without any reason, people giving lame excuse is further painful but that’s a part you have to accept. You can’t retain all the people in your life but those who you would will be worth it. As you move on in your life, you will have fewer important people and far more once ‘good friends’ type people. Hold on to those fewer important people, rest were just fellow travellers who left at their destination, but these few will walk with you till the very destination.

I am recalling every important person right now who have crossed paths with me ever since I gained conscious and I suggest you also to do the same. I am thinking about those who left in between, why they left, what they are doing right now. Was it really their fault that they left, did I have any contribution for breaking of that relationship, can I rekindle it again? How many of those are worth rekindling? Why not give a try? Why not filter out some of those relationship who could make our life wonderful and better. Why not catch up from where we left with them. Let us tell our story and hear their story. Let us refresh some old memories and laugh again with them.

Also, those who are still there. Why not tell them that you are grateful for their presence. You appreciate their presence in your life and you acknowledge the fact that their presence have made your life more legendary. Friendship is about small gestures not big show offs. Friendship is about small talks not big dialogues. Friendship is about sharing a smile. Friendship is about pulling legs and teasing. It’s a wonderful experience, it is god’s gift to us, it is like reading a book and creating a story. Every character is different, you live in a story and you are the god of your character, why not make this film a happy movie. Why not appreciate and acknowledge everyone for what they have done for you. As I finish this, I have prepared a list mentally and I know it will be awkward but it’s worth it. I hope you have created your list as well and pick up your phone soon you stop reading it.

I started this blog back in June 2015, I wrote parts of it in different timelines. My views of friendship changed a lot in between. Many characters in my life changed in between. Those who were important are not in the picture, some others have joined, and wheel of life keeps moving. I don’t know how many people will stay, I don’t know whether I will be a good friend to those I am right now, I don’t know how life will change my priority but I hope I won’t lose my faith in friendship and I hope you also won’t.

Keep smiling! Happy friendship day to all !! J