It was about five years ago..the five of us sitting on the stairs of the Mary Ward building of our school..it seemed that time that come what may, there could not be anything so potent so as to effect even a single strand of our friendship..now five years later, two days ago I passed my school building while going somewhere and then I wondered that nothing big had to happen to effect our friendship …but from phone calls every day,to mails every weekend, to get togethers once in four-five months we seemed to have drifted apart..and though four years have passed since we left our Alma mater it pained me to acknowledge the apparent loss of four people who once were more or less the beginning and end of my days…but that was before we were introduced to the hostels in lucknow, vellore and allahabad…that was before we knew what it means to be with your friends throughout the day..engrossed in our hostel life and new frnds we slowly drifted apart so much so once one of us forgot to wish another one of us on her birthday..ohk the another one of us was me..and that hit me hard…not talking for months was ok with me but my friend forgetting my bday would never be..so I consoled myself that maybe friends are like the teddy bear I used to carry around in my childhood..so very dear when we are around them but we have to grow out of them some time or the other..
Today I was proved wrong by a phone call from one of them. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t remember when I had last met her..but when we talked it seemed that the distance , the time apart has melted to pave the way for our friendship as strong and nurturing as it was years before..we talked continuously for an hour and it was like high school revisiting us..i realized that if we don’t communicate for months and even years we will never grow out of each other, that we will always have things to tell(and that includes every interesting and non-interesting details of our lives), that we will seek each other out in times of needs, that their presence is enough to bring a smile on my face, that I have people who will never judge me even if I did something directly opposite to their moral code, that as long as I live the word ‘friend’ will remind me(along with a very few others) of these four darlings even if they forget to wish me on my birthday for all the remaining of my birthdays. For they have done something far more important – they have given me a reason to celebrate each day of my life. Touchwood.
