Friends Forever

This post has been submitted for Friends Forever under Blogadda's Win this Wednesday contest.

Friendship is a unique relation, as rightly said by a French poet “Fate chooses your relations, you choose your friends”. We know the history of human evolution, civilization and how the family system started. But I feel that friendship existed before family system came into existence. Even then human needed some company, which he got in the form of a friend. Even in Ramayana and Mahabharata we see many strong friendship bonds like Sri.Kishana and Sudama, Sri.Rama and Sugreeva, Sri.Rama and Vibeeshana, Karna and Duryodhana. There are so many great examples of friendship in old and recent times.

We all have our share of friends and so do I. I am a people’s person so I have always been blessed with many friends. From kindergarten till now (4 years of professional career) I made many friends. Wikipedia says “friendship is a bond where people always desire the best for each other, have empathy and understanding. They are honest to each other and give emotional support whenever needed.” But I feel we explore different meaning and sides of friendship as life progresses. I have a faded memory of my kindergarten time, but still I remember I used to sit with this girl Vibha in my class and she was my friend. As that time to me friend was, with whom I sit in class, with whom I share my lunch box, pencil, eraser and all. I had few more friends too but now I can only recall Vibha as we two met again during our 10+2 and are still in touch.

The meaning of friend remained same for me until I met my best friend Jyoti in Std 4. We used to sit together, eat lunch together, and play games together. When we learnt letter writing and in assignment we were suppose to write letter to our best friend, we sent letters to each other. We were competitors in class for first position but that never affected our friendship. I was very much involved in extracurricular activities, and that time she used to help me to cover the portions I miss in the class. We were together all the time and so our classmates used to call us chipko movement. Now for me Friendship was not just sharing but also caring.

During high school friendship was more of grouping and hanging out together. We were group of nine girls. We used to do lots of masti, used to play pranks and many girls became our victim. With all my friends, going to school was so much fun that we use to miss school on Sundays. After joining the junior college we choose different disciplines and our group broke, but we were still there for each other whenever needed. That is the age when we see many physical and emotional changes in our self and so our friends during that part of life influence us a lot. Then I learnt that during that phase of life friendship was not only sharing, caring, musti and dhamal but also supporting, correcting each other and guiding. In that age many times our parents can’t understand our problems that well as our friends can do. I must say I was blessed with extremely caring and loving friends. They not only shared their notes with me but also took care of me whenever I fell sick during our industrial visits and other camping. They not only stood with me while playing pranks on others but also stood strong with me whenever I did some blunder.

Many say that the golden ray of friendship vanishes with the start of professional life. There you see only cut-throat competition and backstabbing. And if it’s true then I may be very lucky, as in workplace also I always found very good friends. We always had a balance between our work and friendship. It was my office friends who landed their helping hand always to make me feel like home away from home. Now friendship is not just sharing, caring, masti-dhamal, supporting, guiding but an extended family too.

This is how with life I have explored the meaning of friendship and I won’t be surprised if it still has some more colours to show me. But there is one thing which remained same in all age or time, and that is the unconditional love among friends. That is the soul of every friendship. That is what keeps the connection live between friends who live in two different parts of world.

A good friend is our nearest relation and to get a good friend we have to be one first. I feel honoured to have so many friends and I feel blessed that I am still in contact with many of them. And hence I thought of giving this tribute to all my lovely and darling friends on this friendship day and take a chance to say thanks for all the love and support they gave me. I love you all. Muahh…. Happy friendship day to you all.  :)

Retro Style
Retro Girl