How often do you feel like everyone is thinking something and talking something else ?
How often do you avoid someone because they don't feel like the same anymore ?
How often you have to keep saying nicer things otherwise you feel they will just hang up ?
How often you feel people like the wrong you as you don't think they will end up liking the real you?
How often your child bursts into tears, and you stand there while making your mind that she needs to deal with this experience herself?
How often you walk backwards to settle your ego and apologize, but you simply cannot?
How often you have heard someone talking about you, when you get to overhear and you fear this is it?
How often when you voice your opinions that isn't in sync with what the person in front of you has bought you a drink for?
"There is always a friend beside you..
but the one inside you needs to know that one is the right one for you.."
My grandfather once said, "a friend can be highly annoying to every other one in the room, but will always be different the moment you walk up next to her/it/they/him."
My elder brother was my first logical friend, since a kid who guided me, about the essence of friendship, of what we look in a friend? and used to factor me into his friendly mix, early on to give me an experience of it beforehand. I call it experimenting the truth of life with someone or a group of people, who are highly likely to never hurt you whatsoever, as you are so timid in front of them, that they feel like protecting you.
I remember, he being up the whole night teaching me a break dance number on the song of famous Prabhu Deva, during sixth grade talent show, so that I get to climb the popularity ladder instead of crawling under the shelf of cobwebs. I finally did pass the test, and there was no looking back after. The thing with popularity is just don't get too blindly into it, landing on the surface is just fine, while flying too high, might land you with broken bones, that I was definitely not a fan of.
Then came my parents my second friends, as I spent almost 22 years with them, in the same house and to be honest they are pretty brutal when it comes to active feedback on my social skills till date. My mom just couldn't stop her from giving feedback about every friend who came around and she used to even predict the longevity of our friendship.
For those who haven't read the first part ,this is for you ...
There are times, when a small girl wants to be desperately invited to a birthday, get to know the world that is outside of school, glamorous and gorgeous with games, candy, cakes, yummy delicacies, and friends in pretty dresses. Yes that was me, in 5th grade, trying to fit in and making sure I get invited to every birthday party I can make it to. I used to be very upset if I wasn't invited. That's the feeling of being left out.
That is a baggage that you carry everywhere you go, to get invited, to get considered, to get smiled at, to get to belong and fit into a place as quickly as possible.
I had a tough time fitting into college as a day scholar at first ( a person who doesn't get a dorm room, and stays with either a local guardian or parents). The 12th results were out, and as usual I didn't fair well as expected, with results comes the awkwardness of friends who have certainly scored well, forming a sort of alliance, where obviously if your scores are lower, you go invisible at a span of cease to exist anymore. Specially with the girl clan, it's either you have to be rich or you need to have an extraordinary score card, or you need to like the same boy. Which in my case none of them held priority in the same order.
But with time, friendship is all about getting to work with what you have versus rooting for someone who physically doesn't exist. I started to get along with the folks who were readily available, in the parking garage, in the mechanical lab, in the middle of a lecture, and an exciting journey of eternal bonding started with just few fart jokes, and common grounds of being a middle class philosopher trying to pursue a career in computer science engineering. Gender wasn't an issue this time, as all types of genders are permitted in grad colleges.
There is a phase of epic loss in friendship, during college time, as because we tend to talk to anyone and everyone. There is clearly a percentage of crowd, that gets calculated in a diminishing factor. Like the lab results are always on the basis of approximation of a zero error, similarly your friends are always on the approximation of mostly erroneous encounter than finding an actual character that will bond forever. And thereby by the time you manage to get your first paycheck in your first ever legit job, these friends are nowhere to be found.
Then there is a feeling of belong, that I brought up earlier. During 5th grade, of my Carmel Convent School, there was a huge group, that everyone wanted to be a part of, I even attended an interview panel to get through this group. But by the time I qualified, something inside me convinced myself, to get out of it and have a group of likeable lot rather than be judged a lot, that triggered a court room for classroom drama.
By college, you kind of know that these groups, are just vicious torture circles, where though you have a sense of belonging, but even if one fine day you don't show up, they will still distribute the pack of cards and start playing without you.
That's when you start looking for those eyes, that seek you, those one off folks who stand next to you, when everyone else has butchered your existence. I had a college incident, where I was returning from a tiring workshop and got bullied by a bunch of seniors, I shouted and fought back, only to my surprise that the next day my whole batch, had been asked not to talk to me. That's when some of the handful lot, stood beside me as they mocked at the ridiculous misdirected rule passed by a bunch of bullies.
Those were the friends not a group as not one person knew another, but they knew the real me, and still didn't thought of running away. For the second time I felt good, the first time was when I had friends rooting for me at a dare, where I sang a funny song about a guy who was too shy to be true.
"Friends need to know, what it is that you bring to the table, rather than just forcing you to eat left overs."
Addiction of friends, realism, sense of belonging, sense of frequent responses, sense of indifferences, never goes away, no matter where you are at your life. Even with wrinkles, you need that one friend, who you wink at and they understand what you mean. With friends you feel that sense of fulfillment, of heading somewhere, no one has ever taken you before. Where even at the middle of night, you can fight and make up, at the same time. With whom getting a scoop of chocolate ice cream and a bike ride while singing Kishore Kumar and Rafi's songs are eternal bliss.
The worst part of friendship is when a friend asks you, why are you mean to her friend?, when all this while you ended up waiting for her in the rain by the bus stop. You are so confident, that your friend is just yours forever, until that bubble gets busted and there is someone else who is far more important for them.
There is this constant poking inside, that you want to hide, as that friend becomes someone else's friend in no time and the seat beside you has gotten empty again. For me departure of friends, was heartbreaking, as finding a friend again from scratch for a person like me, was hard, because I don't forget like a spell of never happened.
What's the philosophy of seeking someone else other than the one you have?
Why isn't that someone who literally left a warm meal to shiver right next to you not enough?
Why do we pretend we have a lot going while no one else is waiting back at home?
I had friends in a scattered manner, during college, and I literally used to spend hours talking to them on phone, driving my two wheeler to their houses, making acquaintances with their siblings, trying to solve their boyfriend problems, trying to solve their career dilemma, while all this while there was no one for me. And I had made up my mind, after some pretty flawed solutions I was groped up into, which were far more messy, than getting stuck in your own grave at one point, harder to die, harder to try. I finally pledged to start handling myself with much sophistication and entourage by the help of my first ever furry friend, Tiny and my journal, writing everyday.
I remember I was slapped once on my cheeks at high school, by a girl, who I hardly was familiar with, but the part that was more painful, that all the spectators surrounding me when that incident occurred, right in front of them, were supposed to be my friends but no one did anything heroic to save me from this hideous lady who thought it was okay to physically abuse a person out in public. I didn't react at all, I took that slap as an act of learning, that I wasted my time with the people, who were never meant to be by my side.
While I was in Mumbai to search for a job from scratch, I knew no one, not even my room mate, she was a kind soul, but still, day one, started from not knowing her at all to the day she gave me courage to not give up on my quest of finding a job by actually pivoting my journey to give startups a chance.
After which, I had started to make friends with shopkeepers, gatekeepers, a man who irons clothes for a living, a girl who sells mobile phone sim cards, a transgender lady who blesses me every time I rushed to catch the train giving her a ten rupee note, an auto rickshaw driver, who taught me the art of saving money using public transportation, a cobbler who fixed the hole in my shoe, right before an interview for free. There was a never ending trail of remarkable friendships.
You need to be a friend that makes living easier as it goes a long way. Being an outsider, in my starting days in Mumbai, I had learned to be part of multiple groups, be friends with strangers, go back to friends from my childhood and college that never got over me, and find friends that always found me no matter what.
At that time I did make friends at work, but they always made me alienated after a while. As they zoned out at the fact, of me entering their world from a comparatively lesser outlook than they had about movies, music, entertaining gimmicks, places of fun, multitude of people knowing them from forever and so on and so forth. Even got cheated on with stealing, betrayal once or twice, which pushed me into the darker caves of solitude, where I was too scared to mingle with anyone anymore.
The addiction of a person who likes similar things is hard. It's like the drug, you feel like having on days you feel the worst. A call, a message, a known face, a familiar tone, a sensation that you still mean something, a conversation that fills the room with emotions and a notion, that you are amiable and worth a shot.
If you call me a friend,
I promise not to pretend,
But if I am not,
following till the end,
then this might be a twisted bend,
that got entangled,
to an illusive knot..
A friend is someone ,
who brings that laugh,
when you had it rough,
until someone asks,
that you had enough,
while you leave the store,
there's a smoke and a choke,
with the echo of giggling encore,
right after..
It's when you sit with them..
you know them,
it's when you talk to them..
you know them,
it's when you walk with them..
you know them,
it's when you are alone with them..
you know them,
you don't make friends amidst crowds with
noises..
you make friends hidden in smiley corners, or teary eyes, where secrecy lies, or an exclusive call to your inner sighs..
Or where time flies, while you are the same girl sitting alongside a plate that just got filled with the most cheesy fries..
*Pic Courtesy : Pinterest Artist- Bella Luna
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