Friends – Who are friends? How do you classify the word friends? Are friends made for life or are they someone who happens to be there during a certain phase in your life?
According to one of the dictionaries available – the word “Friend” means one of the following:
a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.
a person who gives assistance; patron; supporter
a person who is on good terms with another; a person who is not hostile:
a member of the same nation, party, etc.
There could be a lot more definitions per se for the above mentioned word – in just as many contexts as well.
As a young boy, before entering into my teens, anybody who used to play with me used to be termed as a friend. It did not matter whether that person was a boy or girl, younger to me or elder by a year or so. Of course, if any elderly person used to play with us, they did not classify as friends.
As I grew older, into our teens, boys from the same age group became friends. Boys who shared common interests became friends. The friends were generally classified into 2 sections – the school friends and the friends who were staying in and around your house. I used to stay in Chennai in a colony called Krishna Apartments. There were about 80 flats in this colony and generally every house used to have more than 2 kids in various age groups. I have stayed in this colony for many years – from 1973 onwards and till about 1999. My parents moved out of this colony to another part of Chennai after this.
I started working from 1991 and hardly used to meet any friends with whom I grew up with. All of the kids were into various things – studying, working, travelling etc etc. We used to catch a glimpse of each other as we leave the colony or come back after our daily chores. As we moved out of the colony I lost touch with most of the people with whom I had spent so many hours of my life and never ever thought I would not be in touch with any of them.
In between these years, I also spent a couple of years in Tripunithura (Kochi, Kerala) during my final years in school. I became quiet close to some of my batch mates during these 2 years – studying together, spending holidays together, and going for tuitions and the like. We have spent many hours sitting on our cycles talking about everything under the sun. After those 2 years, I came back to Chennai and continued to be in touch with a few of the batch mates for some time on a continuous basis.
As work took more priority in my life, it was colleagues who became friends. A few people who I grew close to during my years at NIIT, continued to be in touch during the first few years I started working. By this time, friends who I had assumed to be friends for life during my schooling years had completely disappeared from my life!
At work, a few of us became good friends. During these times, all the waking hours had to be spent in their company – either at work, or going for some movie or travelling together to some place with absolutely no plan made (more about this later). Every weekend holiday, had to be in their company. Either they would come home or I used to go across their rooms/houses. We used to gang up at somebody's house and used to have a gala time together. Every time a friend who would quit the job or get married or moved away, they soon become just memories or faint acquaintances.
As I moved away to a new job, friends who were very close earlier started becoming just acquaintances – catching up with them only once in a while. Very soon this also stopped. Everybody was busy in their day-to-day existence that old friends no matter where they were did not matter anymore!
I soon moved to another country all together. Again this cycle was repeated. By this time, internet had caught on in such a big way. You had to have at least 2 – 3 email ids in just about every “free” email service that was coming up. And then keeping in touch just meant to forward emails that you received from others to your contact list – whether you actually read that email or not did not matter even once.
With ORKUT/FACEBOOK and a host of other such social networking sites coming into existence, it meant that you could keep in touch with your friends more often than before. Yes, it did help to find old friends who had become just memories. You start following them on Twitter and other sites. I have found a few long lost friends who had become mere memories by becoming a member on such social networking sites. It was good to get in touch with them and catching up with their lives as they did with mine.
As time went by, they all soon became just another member on your list of contacts – wishing them once in a while every year – whether it meant for the New Year, Christmas, Vishu, Onam, birthday etc. Yes, you could also see all the photos they upload to the site – indeed it meant catching up with their lives!
I know for sure that there are many people in this world who face this similar situation. Yet, do we still classify these people as people without friends? I don’t think so. I for sure still consider all the people who came into my life at some point of time and who I have not been in touch for the last so many years still as my friends. Do I consider them as my close friends? I don’t know. I really don’t know!
Will this keep happening for the rest of my life? I hope not. I personally feel that I have to take the initiative to try and keep in touch with friends from a bygone era! Whether I will be successful I don’t know.
There are quite a few friends around who I feel I should find out where they are, what they have been up to for all these years that we have not been in touch and try and keep them in contact for the rest of my life.
But then, how do you find out where they are? Whether they are still alive or dead? Whether they do remember me like I do. Whether we would be able to have the same rapport that we used to have when we were constantly in touch? Or would there be some kind of ice that would be difficult to break? Whether we would be in touch for the rest of our life?
Don’t know. At this point of time, I don’t have any answers! I’m sure time will tell.....
