Friendship is not just an emotion or a state that satisfies one’s emotions. It is a relationship that touches and influences the entire life of a person. Some people say: “I have many friends.” Even if you have many friends, how many of them can you really trust? How many of them are ready to help you in your needs? How many of them really understand you?
Just think about the social media friendships. Among the thousands of the friends you have, how many of them do you know personally? How many of them do you feel to open up yourself?
True friendship is not about the number of friends. A person cannot love more than one friend with the same wavelength. In a friend circle of five people, there will be deeper friendship between two persons – an intimacy that is absent among the rest. Everyone who joined you in the playground does not give signs. A spectator who watched the match from the gallery need not remember you forever. Whereas a person who stayed awake with you in your sorrowful nights, and invited you to share all your sorrows to him, will never forget you; neither will he abandon you. You will be in his heart forever despite the hard paths of life you both have trodden. He will remember those days of friendship just as one would pick up his old diary to read when he is alone. On sleepless nights and during long journeys, he will remember you when he listens to a song or odour that connects both of you… when the relics of your friendship rise up from his sub-consciousness… Friendship is not to be celebrated like a fiesta but to be gently approached like a candle light dinner.
It is not a small thing to maintain a very old friendship without much damage. There are people who preserve the friendship of their school days or college days like a crystal bowl in the showcase even to the end of their life. There are also people who forsake an old friend when he meets a new friend. Some people, who started a friendship like a joint venture, abandon their partner when there is a loss or profit. They do not have eyes to see the pain of the rejected one. Quarrels are natural in the life of friends. It is like a natural evolution that occurs where there is more love. We need not be scared of them. But we should be scared when infidelity, cheating, hypocrisy and selfishness creep into friendship. When you feel that you are on the wrong train, jump out immediately.
You should never hate your friend or feel disappointed about having quarrelled with your friend or got distant from him. If you are able to give him a hand or a hug with the same old love, your friendship has not be in vain. If there is still an urge to see him again, despite having gone distant, you should be happy. On the other hand, if you are daring to prick the old wounds and accuse each other, you must understand that there was never true friendship between you. It is better not to restart that friendship.
Let us try to redeem our broken friendship. Our relationship with our parents is not our choice, it is God’s decision. Likewise, there have been many criteria in selecting our spouse. We have taken into account the opinions of others and external factors in this. Friendship is the only relationship which we have selected without any external influence. Because of that, friendship is our existence. Our life is in it.
