Thoughts
When friendship is the finest steel . . .
The finest of friendships are like the finest of steel. It begins as an iron ore and is shaped by the blacksmith of time, in this case into its strongest form. As more time passes it is molded into perfection, just like the blacksmith making a shiny blade or the shipbuilder building his heaviest ship. Yet once the ship is built it glides through the rough waves like a dinghy in a small stream.
The journey usually begins when we can sense there is someone else in the room who has a toothless smile or can do even more and crawl across. Values of friendship are installed early as well with very simple words from someone older who is trying to resolve a conflict of interest by saying that he/she is your friend. One thing is that it can never be orchestrated. Sometimes it's the kid who kept your favorite pencil box that you forgot to take with you on the last day of school before vacation started and brings it back to you the first day when school begins. At times it's the guy who calls you something that was written on the back of your tee shirt that you thought was cool for years until he finds something else. The person you went jogging with. There comes a point when you cannot remember where you first met or when you had become friends or if it was a friend of a friend. What is amazing is every single friend you make enriches your life in so many ways, when you pause to think about it. Life's journeys almost always take you along different paths. However, the finest friends, as one friend commented recently, will always occupy a part of your mind in some way. Strange as life always is the paths often cross and at other times when the initial struggle to chase our dreams is over we slow down to reconnect. Other times you find ways to reconnect as it is important for you.
The thing about having great friends is there are so many defining moments that you treasure for the rest of your life. You may have a number of suits in the closet now, but you always remember the friend who brought his blazer for you for your graduation because you were too careless to plan ahead for it. The friend who would wait for you any time of the day half way on the way to somewhere on something you had to do to give you company on the rickshaw ride. The ones that helped you align your internship report and print it and then accompany you on the last day of submission to your university although it had nothing to do with them. The friends who put your name in their music album not for anything but just that you are a friends. Friends who wait outside with you while someone in your family is having a surgery in the hospital. The friends (and everyone in your class) in fact showing up the next morning on learning that your father has passed away. Not to mention all the good times that you have shared, going to the beach, hiking, playing sports; even staying up all night putting up posters for some election that you can't even remember why you were part of it too. Of course, it is not that you make friends only at a certain point in your life. There are always new friends that you make. In fact, by this time you all know the norms that go with it but still it takes time for the roots to grow deeper.
For my generation the technology advances of the last decade or so have made it possible for us to feel like we still live next door. As I have mentioned life flings us all over the globe. Even if you are still living in the same town it still becomes impossible to find the time to sit around a tea stall or in a burger place with no care for time. I will mention again, my friends, words about occupying the heart and mind. I believe this so because now all it takes is a click of the "Like†button to say that you like the photo or the thought or anything else for that matter. That is how effortless it has become. We still share the most inconsequential of thoughts on a message or some other application even though one may be waking up while the other is about to go to sleep. Still you debate, disagree on a thought or opinion and on a public platform where everyone can voice his or her own views. Sometimes you learn from the friend who has some interesting thing to share or a point of view he shares through a comment he made on your post. Most of my generation use the platform to essentially strengthen the steel. At the risk of being judgmental, I cannot fathom how the present generation send out requests first and then become friends. I doubt seriously, though, if that kind of friendship would be defined by the kind of selfless acts that we have experienced at some point or the other. I do strongly believe we have gained much more from social networks and instant messaging systems.
Only because we have learnt to pace it just right. By that I mean using it without disrupting our lives. We have learnt to connect to more people, in time zones different from ours while not halting the activity in your current physical environment. The way we connect has evolved so much that we could not have imagined just a decade ago. In the next decade it will evolve even further. But basic premise will always be the same: the ore will always mold into the finest of steel for the rest of our lives.
Syed Nadeem Ahsan writes from Washington DC.
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