I few days ago I was reading my friends blog post. It took me down the memory line.
This is the URL to her post : http://evinceread.blogspot.sg/2015/03/i-miss-old-us.html
I was chatting with a friend. He mentioned that friends were replaceable. He said that as we move on we should discard old friendships and gain new friends to suit new situations. He argued that we should rid ourselves and our friends of old friendships the same way we get rid of worn out clothes. I argued that friendships were an integral part of life that created good memories and made life nicer. We can get rid of old clothes but we can not get rid of old memories and these memories would not be what they are without friends.
When I was in Kindergarten, once the lessons for the day were over, I would rush to the Umbrella Tree on my school campus. My mother would come to fetch me from school. As she waited for me to arrive she would engage in some talk with the other mothers. My first friends in school were the daughters of these waiting mothers. As our mothers chatted we would talk to each other and wave each other goodbye as we parted. At that point of time friendship to me meant the companionship of other kids around your age.
The first friend I made, my first best friend was a classmate in third grade. As we sat next to each other in class we exchanged phone numbers. We did not even know each others names for a whole year. However as we grew up each of us had different likings and started to gel with different sets of people. Unintentionally we had drifted apart and had become part of different cliques. We continue to remain good friends to this date.
Post primary school, The next Best Friend's I had were through Girl Guides. Six of us had to spend almost a year in each others company. We saw each other for approximately 8 hours a day and at the end of it, three of them were my best friends. Their friends became my friends over time. Of the three of them, I speak to one friend once in a month. While I do not speak to the other two frequently, we still update each other on our lives. We live in different corners of the globe and haven't met in a long time.
Once I graduated from school, I entered university. The people whom I had known all my life were no longer around me. In the first year of college we had mixed classes where students from different branches attended classes together. Though I did not have a best friend in particular, I had 5 friends in the class. Four of them live in different cities now and one lives in the the same city as mine. I keep in touch with four of them.
Travelling to college was memorable and I made several very good friends on the Bus. Living in the same locality made it easier for us to synchronise our travel times. As the bus trod along Chennai roads, we would look through the grills of the bus window and animatedly chat while the breeze messed up our neat braids. All the friends I made on the bus live far away,
Though undergrad I made other friends as my Junior year friends drifted away. However the only person I would call my best friend was a batch-mate I met in my pre-final year of college. We did not have any common classes and met through mutual friends. He now stays over 15000km away from where I live now.
Of all the good friends I had before leaving India, I am in touch with all of them but one person?
Surprisingly, the person I seldom talk to is not the person who lives 15000 km away. Nor is it the person I met as a child. The person I seldom talk to is the person who lives in the same city as me.
The same scenario would have been different a decade ago when Skype was uncommon, Facetime unheard of, Whatsapp was nonexistent and international calls cost a bombshell. A good friendship does not require geographical closeness to sustain itself. All it needs is the willingness of two individuals to be a part of each others lives.
Some may argue that the world is becoming increasingly virtual and virtual friendships are unreal. Though there is nothing like having a friend beside you, it does not make sense to sever ties just because you do not meet often. Throwing a friend out of your life just because you can not see the person in flesh and blood every day or week of your life makes no sense. Circumstances may force the Best of Friends apart and a friend does not cease to be a friend just because a person does not reside in the same locality as you.
One of my very good friends is a person I met in the neighbourhood mathematics tuiton. She lived in USA and I lived in India. We wrote to each other and became good friends. I have met her in person only 5 or 6 times but that in now way makes her a lesser friend. My current roomates and a few classmates are my buddies in Singapore. A dozen years down the line we may be in different places and we may or may not be in contact. However if we lose contact it is because we have emotionally drifted apart, not because the distance has parted us.
And each time I call a friend or text a long lost buddy.....
Even if the distance does us part we shall not.
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