Friends and Friendships

The election results are out, and we will soon find out who is a real friend, or who is just a friend for immediate needs (and greeds). But that is not the subject of my blog, this week. I want to examine the nature of friendship, and what it takes to keep one going, even after a lengthy passage of time.

Of course, we have friends; we even have friends of friends, and I don’t mean your enemy’s enemy. But, ponder a moment (or much longer); aren’t we actually talking about acquaintances? Tell me honestly, dear Reader, how many “friends” do you really have? Are your parents your friends? Or your siblings, your cousins, your relations, down to the -nth degree? What about your schoolmates, college-mates, work- buddies? Do they count? Your answer may well be more reliable and sincere than mine.

In School, I thought I had a good friend; we were in the same class, we finished our studies together, we had six glorious months of free time before being regimentalised in College, but those six months also meant that the situational bonds of our youth were soon to fade. Taking up a professional career meant new friends, again situational, often utilitarian, even pleasurable, but seldom the real thing— the kind where friendship is a virtue, a blessing (on and for both parties), a God-given bond that matures over time, and is enjoyable even in solitude, because, as the song says: “You say it best, when you say nothing at all”. This is the sacred knot that real friends have, a bond that transcends borders of sex, culture, or upbringing. You have seen it, dear Readers, in the eyes of lovers when they look at each other, or perhaps in the star-struck gaze of a parent, or even in the haunting look of two friends meeting after a long period of time.

Do we have time for such gobbledygook? In this transcient and fast-evolving world, do we have time for such sentimental and puerile stuff? I must admit, that friendship becomes more valuable as we get older and older, for time seems to pass us (I mean myself) by, as we try to cling to memories of a bygone era. This is certainly true in my case, for I often keep journeying—in my mind and in my dreams—to those old familiar places, even as I conjure up some of the old familiar faces.

This brings me to another postulate- the idea of a “rhythmic friendship”. Every year, for the past ten years or more, I have undertaken a pilgrimage to the School in which I studied. Come September, and I return to my roots— my dearly beloved Vestry School, in Trichy, to participate in the annual reunion of past students. Very soon, I will be one of the oldest to revisit the campus, and I share this lasting bond with my dear, dear friend and classmate, Abdul Mohammed. We are like “Old Faithful’s”, making it to Trichy from Madurai and Chennai. Of late, we have gathered together in the sacrosanct Penny Hall, which will soon be completing 100 years of existence. When Abdul and I passed out in 1968, Penny Hall was still the centre of all the activity of the school year. Today it wears an abandoned look, but the memories that it generated will never be erased.

Penny Hall, a memorial for a great philanthropist and academician, is like the “still centre” of a constantly turning world, a fixed point in the lives of Abdul and myself, for it takes us back to the joyous days of our youth, even as the years roll by for the Hall and us, friends for life. The reverie is over all too soon, for I have to catch the super fast evening train that will get me home in time for a night-cap.

When Abdul and I meet, there is no formality at all. We lived and shared much the same experiences in school, and though we went our separate ways after, we always took up the same slang, the same boyish interests that engaged us then, the same nostalgia, the same maturing of our time together. Vestry always bridged the time-and-tide gap for us, and we parted knowing that the School, and Penny Hall, will be remembered—nay, cherished—forever.

Lastly, I would like to say that one good friend is more than anything this world has to offer.