Happy Friendship Day!

I remember back in college, FRIENDSHIP DAY used to be quite an occasion in our hostel. I shared room with 5 other girls and all of us were quite close. One was my batch-mate but in science stream and one was a year senior in a different stream. Those were the days when I really understood the meaning of friendship. Till school days, I never dwelt on anything serious with any of my friends at that time. We were too guarded to discuss our fears and insecurities. I was not too sure whether the other person is worth our trust.

But once I moved out of home for my Graduation, I was on my own. There was nobody to turn to but in a way, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. There are a lot of things which you can share only with your friends, who are at the same wavelength as you. You are close to your family, but friends have a different place altogether. I made my first real friends in hostel. With my best friend, who was also my room-mate, we shared so many wonderful moments, which I cherish till date and will continue to do so forever. I told her every single thing about me, my insecurities, my failings, my nightmares and my fears; without any fear of being judged. And she never judged me. Somehow she always made me appear right, at the time, under the circumstances. I would always love her for that. That was the time when I understood that nobody has perfect lives, and it is quite OK to have insecurities. That was when I found a new confidence in myself and my abilities – confidence to stand up for anything I wanted and got it. I remember how she used to wait for me to take lunch, and in return I used to do same when she used to be late because of her classes. We used to have long chats on our lives. I have cried a lot on her shoulders. She was very compassionate yet a very naïve girl, almost gauche.

I always remember a very funny incident. We were studying for our exams, during our Final Year. We were sleeping and studying alternatively throughout the night. When I woke up sometime around 3 am, I saw her very tensed and searching for something. She said she has lost her spectacles, and the irony was she was not able to find it without spectacles. What we had done was, we had put one of the beds on another bed to make space in the room (most of the girls had gone home and only we were there for exams). We used to study on top of the higher bed sometimes; she had been doing the same, and slept while studying. When she got up she could not find her spectacles. She was almost into tears imagining all sorts of things – how would she write the exam with her “eyes”! Then I searched around the bed, and found it lying there. We were really into splits on that because she had gone completely overboard imagining all sorts of things she would do to write the exam.
I spoke to her yesterday after 7-8 month. She thinks I have forgotten her but I have not. How can I? I even wrote a poem on her, quoted on one of my earlier posts.

There was another friend, a year senior to me, but our wavelengths matched so much that we were quite close. She was also room-mate. I have kept in touch with her since then. She has had an inter-religion marriage and it all happened before my eyes. It was so weird how her love story started. If It is not fate then what is it? It is common knowledge that girls’ hostels are flooded with random calls from anonymous guys. Some girls used to pick up calls during night just to have fun, without knowledge of warden of course. One of our room-mates was quite a pro in talking to such calls – giving tit for tat to the foul speaking guys. During one of such calls, the guy who called was quite nice and spoke well to her. She passed on the phone to my friend also for a chat. She also took it to have fun. She used a pseudo-identity and gave him a false name. The guy called up again later, asking for the pseudo-name; somehow the call would always reach my friend. So the story started and after years of hardships and struggle, they were finally able to marry about a year and half back. Now she is expecting her baby this September. She is happy with him but keeps cribbing about how she has no career. But I love talking to her. She is quite talkative and warm, so even if you have some work, you really can’t put her off and keep the phone down.

I am also close to two of my school buddies, actually we have been friends since Kinder Garten but the friendship really grew stronger after college. All three of us are in different facets of life, lost touch a couple of times, getting busy with our respective lives, but now somehow fate brought us together and even if we do not talk on daily basis, we always reach out to each other when we need to talk about something. Knowing each other’s families and growing up together, there have been a lot of things in common and there is a lot of understanding; so we are on same wavelengths.

So to all FRIENDS, who have shared some wonderful and some crucial moments of my life, this day is a celebration of a beautiful relationship we share; and that you are my pillars of strength. I don’t know if they will read this or not, but nevertheless I cannot not acknowledge this.