Friends Forever !

"Har ek friend jaruri hota hai"

World is becoming more and more accessible through internet and people are coming closer. Oh yes, I meant to use the word "closer”! Even if this is frequent complaint from my mother "Keep your phone away and talk to 'real' people”, i am firm on my opinion that I am so grateful to gtalk , skype and obviously watsapp for enabling me to ask my best friend once in a while "kahan gayab hai be? Sab theek toh hai?”.On this friendship day, I finally found sacred moment "muhurat" for writing my first blog and connecting to the world in one more way - Blogging! It is friendship's day and i am obviously going to talk about a friend or else it would be an insult to the day ;). 

I find celebrating "days" so cheesy and meaningless but then ‘not celebrating’ also does not carry much meaning.

Why one needs a day assigned to tell your friend - "You mean a lot to me" !

Why one hesitates to say “You mean a lot to me” even when there is a special day assigned just for that :). 

Well, there are all kinds of friends, aren’t there? The one I am going to tell a story about is from the type -"Silent Sufferers" – I am sure it will remind you of someone for your friend circle.

*** Spoiler alert - there is nothing dramatic in this story J ***

                  She looked in the mirror, looked down in the neatly arranged drawer of the dressing table, picked up pair of her favorite ear rings, put them on and looked one more time to make sure they are going perfect with the dress. Her reflection in the mirror showed a little disappointment on the face, but then she had to rush to catch the office bus. Picking her backpack and going through routine process of checking Watch, handkerchief, phone and earphones, keys and most importantly the ID card, she got out of the door, shouting “Mom, I might be late from work today". Mom did not bother to reply as she knew that her good daughter will call her again in afternoon to inform.

She increased the pace looking at her watch after every two mins and finally saw few familiar faces on the bus stop. A silent sigh of relief escaped and she was back on her chain of thoughts which she had to pause while walking or practically running.

                  When she had looked in the mirror, she was disappointed, but not because the ear rings were not perfect on that dress but because it reminded her of Swati. Swati had gifted her those ear rings on her birthday. They had gone for shopping that day when she mentioned Swati about those ear rings and how the next day they were sold out before she could buy. Swati was exactly opposite of her. Swati - least bothered about her looks, lazy to go out for shopping and always hated to get all dressed up for family functions. That's why the ear rings were special, Swati had gone out of her territory. her love for nice jewelry always drove Swati crazy. But for this gift, she took all the trouble to go that local shop and ask them to order exact same piece, follow up with them for a month. Swati had made her day. It is not the actual gift which makes your day but the effort taken by the other person to make your eyes sparkle is what makes that moment a memory. She always knew she was an emotional freak or fool. Swati had made fun of her the whole time when a tear or two rolled on her cheeks while putting those ear rings on!

They complimented each other. Both of them often wonder “is there anything in common between us to be so close friends?”, and they gave up on concluding that thought forever J.

She boarded the bus, found her favorite window seat unoccupied, she opened the window, and got her ear phones out from bag, spent 2-3 mins untangling the daily ear phone wire mess – and she was irritated! She somewhere knew it was not messy ear phones, but thinking about Swati had got frustrated out on the surface.

 She decided not to think about it more and put on ear phones and searched for song "kinaare". It was her favorite song these days, it made her feel free, liberated and said "everything will be okay" to her when she needed to hear it. Well - you have to rely on music when your best friend is not around to tell you that. It is a strange same exact words "Everything will be fine" don't touch your heart and does not make you feel better at all sometimes, but when that one person says it to you and you blindly believe as if she/he has magic wand to make your problems disappear for that moment.

She felt helpless being unable to push Swati out of her head. The next moment, she was desperate to message Swati one more time. She thought of backing out from another futile attempt of contacting Swati. She decided it was going to be last attempt, like she decided every time. She learnt to keep her ego away, but also felt nervous if it was not ego but losing self-respect instead. Other friend called her "spineless" once and she started thinking if it was true. She forgot the song she was listening to and got angry with herself - and started to find ways to divert herself. 

She had this new friend. She was her 'go-to' girl for everything nowadays. They were best-friends at that point. It feels odd using the term "at that time" for best friends. Certain people only come-n-go from your life to change your beliefs in good things and certain people stay with you for ever to break your beliefs in bad things. She was not yet sure if she was ready to put Swati in first category and her current best friend Anuja in the second. Falling apart was apparently easy for Swati and so difficult for her. What if Anu also disappears some day?

Anu kept assuring her every now and then that she will never be out of touch. She somehow believed Anu and didn’t know why. Anu was happy go lucky girl. She used to literarily scold her friends as if she owns and deserves part of their life and they owe her their time. She always took charge of the friendship and made sure that it does not fall apart. Even then, she was destined for few broken friendships. Anu has that amazing capability of having faith in good people that they will be there for her all her life. She was passionate about making an effort to make things work with people.

She got down from the bus and started walking towards food court for breakfast. Anu watsapped her that she will reach in another 10 mins. She was waiting in food court but didn't expect Anu to really reach in 10 mins, she knew her well over last 7-8 years, and it really meant 20 when she said 10. She ordered parathas for both of them and dind't forget to mention "without butter" for Anu. 

Anu - "Helloz dear, Morning , kya mast mousam hai aaj." 

She smiled and said "Hello"

Anu - "What's wrong? Don't tell me you already started thinking about the work, come on! We still have another half an hour to go to desk"

She Smiled - "Nothing, I have ordered your Paratha and mom had given extra Pavbhaji for you in tiffin"

Anu - "You are the best ! but what’s wrong ? Any tension at home?"

She wondered if her face was transparent to every one of only Anu could see right through her.

Anu - "Please don't hold back just cause of my good mood, tell me if something is wrong, I'm all ears”

She knew Anu was not going to give up until she told her what was wrong.

She  – “Nothing, was just thinking about Swati.”

Anu  – "what happened? Did you call her?"

She  – I decided not to.

Anu  – “Why don’t you just go and meet her?

She  – “Apparently, she does not care about meeting.

Anu – “Give me her number, I will call her. She will pick up an unknown number call.

She  – “No. I don’t want you to call her. I mean I don’t want to force her to talk to me. She will have a good reason not to talk to me, right?”

Anu  – “dejavu”

She – I know we are having this conversation every month. I am so damn confused what is the right thing to do.

Anu mumbled – “why do you always have to think about doing the right thing?”

She ignored Anu’s comment and continued, she knew what Anu thought about all this.

“I have tried almost everything I could try to get in touch with her. And it’s killing me to think about what’s exactly wrong with her”

Anu – “I don’t understand how can you keep your best friend away when you are in situation when you need her the most , I will go crazy if I did so”

She – “I don’t understand either. She wasn’t like this, something must be terribly wrong with her life and I am here doing nothing about and not even be able to support her, maybe she does not want my support and I am helping her by not asking her about it”

Anu – “but , what about you , you have been through horrible situations for last 2 years and you need her too”

She – “Yes , but I can’t be selfish and ask her to be there for me”

Anu – “ for once , you got to stand up for yourself and claim what you deserve. Just stop being so nice to people who might not even deserve that much niceness”

She – “but, isn’t friendship all about giving space and understanding each other and hold on to things in tough times?”

Anu – “It is. Does she know your this ideal definition of friendship and follows it? You know each for years now!”

She – “I believe she does, she knows I am an emotional fool and, I just don’t know how can she ignore the fact that I am so worried about her? That too for so long? My devilish mind is wondering in every possible corner of her life and imagining worst things, is it her health, is it her marriage, and are her parents okay?”

Anu – "Let me call her, you have cried over this thing for almost a year now and it is terrible I do not have patience like you.I am sure every harsh problem gets easier with time. She might not need you but you need her and she needs to know that."

She – "let’s see."

Anu – "And  what ?keep having this conversation for another year?"

She – "I don’t have any option than waiting for her to be okay. I guess I kind of failed to be a friend when she needed one."

Anu – "Ohh come on, don’t blame yourself for all this now. And you do have an option."

She got up with plate in her hand and said – “Don’t you have meeting now , let’ go. Let’s stop the gheesa-peeta topic.”

Anu – “Yeah, don’t think about it much okay ? you already have lots of things to worry about”

Anu knew it was not every day she would feel this low about Swati, but she just could not let this thing go. Anu wondered , Does Swati really know how hard it is to find a friend who cries for her even after she turned her back on her for over a year. Swati missed being there for ‘her’ when she needed Swati the most. Anu had to do something. Anu was willing to take a risk to listen to “It is none of your business” and to be called nosy. She knew most of broken friendships would have survived the misunderstandings if common friend would have made it his/her business.

Anu messaged Swati once, it didn’t work.

Second time - Anu was happy that Swati asked Anu to take care of 'her’ and promised to call. Anu didn’t tell ‘her’ about the message and waited ‘her’ to come one day with a big fat smile on her face and tell that finally she talked to Swati. It was almost a month - No news. Meanwhile, she thought of calling Swati as she saw her updates on FB, was active on watsapp, changing her profile pics with a happy n smiling face. Now everything should be back to normal, she thought!

She decided to meet Anu in CCD on a friendship day at 4 PM today ,  not because it was friendship’s day but they both have been busy in office , so they have not shared n talked much in last 2 weeks. And also because they had nothing better to do that day :D

Anu has messaged Swati if she can join … they both are chichatiing sipping the coffee on a rainy day…talking about frustrations and latest happenings on personal front and office front…….Anu knows she is missing Swati while ‘her’ mind was busy praying and wishing that Swati has someone like Anu by her side to help through tough times.
Anu is still hopeful that Swati will join them today to make ‘her’ burst into tears with joy …..well …Its still raining and they are still waiting ….. 

** End **

Do you have a friend like “her” whom you take granted easily? Maybe she messaged you and you thought it was okay not to respond and she will not mind and still care about you after years? Finding such people is extremely hard, are you okay letting them go so easily?