The Art Of Friendship

The talk show Koffee with Karan this season may have been about generating media controversy but the episode with SRK was different from the previous few shows. There sat the King of Bollywood on the famous couch and he talked of his fears, his failings, his regrets, his happiness, his blessed life & ultimately about not having Friends. With all his open heart thoughts that spilled out, what stuck with me was those words he repeated a few times, “I don’t have friends.” This even prompted Karan to open one segment with, “in conversation with my Best Friend.”

Detractors will say this was a performance, but I am not one of them, during the show I felt here was Man who was successful, and had led whirlwind of a life and at the ripe age of 45 he has taken some time out to look at his life. In taking a deeper look he finds that his life is blessed and he is a superstar, may be he is a Great actor but He is also Alone. He has his family which includes his wife, kids and Sister, but even then he feels he is alone. A man cannot merely survive on Family. I have always believed so. There is need for interaction of other humans, there is the need to build and forge other relations not just of law and blood but of hearts, of life experiences, of love, of spiritual journey.

So, being this hugely successful individual does not lessen the pain of not having friends. During the course of the Show SRK seems to journey from accepting that he does not have friends to the realization that he has problems keeping friendship. He finds that many people have been around him who he considered to be his friends and then realized rudely that they were no longer there. They were taken by death or by misunderstanding. Being successful comes with a lot of baggage which he feels unable to carry. At the end of the show he says that he will call people who are estranged from him. He will make an effort to get back to them. He feels his inability to sustain friendship is his early loss of his parents.

But this is all conjecture, I know myself that some of us have had trouble keeping our friendships. Somewhere we became complacent, or felt that new friends would replace the older one’s. There has been many a time when we have failed in our duty to keep friendships. We have taken the easier way out blaming work, time, distance and what not for it but truth remains, and it is very clear to us if we delve deep within ourselves, that we have let our friends down.

I cannot say that I have been a good friend to many, I have been a good friend may be to a handful of people. That is also a statement stemming from a bit of Ego. Yes, friends boost our Ego and they make us feel good, they remind us life is tough but beautiful, that we are never faced with a task unless we already have the ability to achieve it. We can never survive without our friends. At least I can’t.

I have this whole list of people who have been friends with me and I have let them down and not even bothered to say sorry. There are many on that list who I wish I could have called back and begged to stay. Then there are those who misunderstood me and I in my Ego Cloistered existence ignored the signs of cracking foundations until it was too late to save anything. In the same way I have, thankfully, a list of people who seem to have been there, on and off, always, often, sometimes, but There… for me. I can never really understand why. I try telling them, “I wouldn’t be my own friend.” I am such a pain sometimes, I am loud, moody, temperamental, psychotic, paranoid, foolish, bully, what not. But people on both the lists have survived as long as they could. But unlike SRK I realized early in life that I need my friends. So, every opportunity I get I remind myself and them How absolutely Blessed I am to have them in my life. Words turn into poetry or a manuscript and they seem like forwarded sms or mails, or a rip off from some movie, but these are genuine words for the genuine love I feel from my friends. I cannot imagine a life without them.

I have had the misfortune of losing a friend a week back, to a whole lot of bitching (my doing) and her insensitive behavior. I cannot lie to myself about one basic truth that never in the last 3 years have I made an effort to tell her what is exactly that bothered me about her behavior. I have never shared with her my irritation with her insensitive attitude towards our other friends. Yet that’s exactly what a Friend is supposed to do. So technically I had removed myself from the responsibility of being her friend and now that the friendship has turned sour, I cannot complain.

But like all things in life, no door is closed without another window opening somewhere.

I am thrilled that I make new friends & meet so many wonderful people. Although I have never really believed in New Year Resolutions, but I d hope that this year I can keep my friends and not lose any over some silliness.

As always, Love you folks, you do truly make My WORLD go round.