Friend- a word used so unanimously for every other association one can have with the other, but cannot name it. Word misused across the world for getting the emotional fools hooked with. I wonder sometimes if I had really understood this word and its clout so far, though I am often tagged with the acronym of having “Friend’s army”.
Fourteen years back, this date, I befriended the beautiful girl of my life and what a beauty to have her as a friend, my best friend sharing the same name as I do, Mita. Her arrival was the replay of the influx of my childhood friend Nandini. Both of them taught me few exemplary lessons of my life in their unique ways.
This morning, when I called Mita to wish on our fifteenth friendship anniversary, I realized this journey had been really long. We became friends on the last day of the three day school tour we traveled to Rajasthan. But before I tell you, how we became friends, I must surely share the incident which occurred that night in the bus and which is as much alive in my memory as the juncture of our becoming friends. The bus was on the way back to ahmedabad, and a small group of students was playing “truth or dare”. My turn , I chose dare and what a dare they barbed on me. I had to slap the boy who was fast asleep in the last row of the bus.
My heart skipped the beat to see that very boy who had, though very unintentionally, got into verbal squabble with me in the so called poetry competition which had held in the presence of almost 100 people, a previous night in the corridor of the inn, we had been put up with at Udaipur. We both had behaved, as the old rivals of ages and that was the time when I had realized all the more, my potential as a poet. The session that night had ended with lots of applause ( for me of course) from all the teachers ,students and friends. I was on cloud nine to have almost defeated the contenders by uttering loud the last shot of my poem at the door of the enemy’s room and having run back to ours without listening to their retort. Oh…!!! what a kiddo I was!! Till late night, we had enjoyed the glory of victory.
So..I had to slap him and that too while he was having forty winks-sound asleep. Alright then, as I am and never to give up, I touched him lightly on his shoulder and uttered his name to wake him up,raised my hand and hit him hard on his right cheek. In no time, the mischievous sprite roared up, held my hand tight, gave a devilish look and then, to everyone’s surprise, left it down again to get lost in the sleep. Thanks to the lord of Sleep who pulled him again in the arms of dreams. What a relief I felt, not to have got into one more quarrel with the same guy again and this time with all fault of mine, of course, I had hit him just to prove my guts. (Hey friend…if you are reading this, I am really sorry, the slap was never meant to equal the scores).
Time took its speed and so the bus, voice decibels reduced and so the enthusiasm around. Few were happy to be back home and few were sad about the end of the beautiful journey. I took a back seat and kept gazing the silent night moving parallel to the bus. Then came this sweet girl and sat beside me. She took me by surprise for her flair of getting me moved by her innocence. We talked and talked and ….it never ended.
Our friendship blossomed with every season, and was tested at every turn. We have enjoyed the best of time and have savored the salts of tears. But the beauty of life is this, that we are still together. Though we don’t meet so often, we don’t talk regularly, but we know we are there for each other, whenever we need. Communication hardly matters any more, right Mita? Even today, few of our friends addresses us with the same ellipsis they used years back.-.Mita square, M square. ..we simply loved it.
Today, I have lots of friends whom I can rely upon and I am glad they are there to share my happiness, my sorrows , to boost my morale, to support me when I am low and to guide me when I am lost. I just want to thank them all for being with me….!!
मानवी रे, जोवे छे शु, तू तकी तकी ने आभ मा
Gratitude is not to be deserved or given,
Call it a boon or curse, but I have been consecrated with a unique gift of insight by nature. I can trace it to my very young age when I was in class 4 and my father had gone to Mumbai for business. Mobiles were not yet the part of communication, and mom had not my father’s contact details in Mumbai. I believe, in those days it was very usual not to worry or get in touch with members gone out for work for long days. I had a bad dream about my father one night, and a strong intuition the following day about the happenings of the dream. I was sad for the whole day and kept crying alone. My mom observed and asked me what happened? I related everything to her. She just laughed it off and told me that bad dreams never turn to be true. I believed for that time. Few days later, on return from his trip, my father told about the similar accident which occurred with him in Mumbai.
