Thursday 3 November 2011

har ek friend zaroori hota hai!


Har ek friend zaruri hota hai” we all love this advertisement because we all love our friends. We bump into them in the early years of life and are glued to them throughout our life. This is one relationship, which has different stages, flavours and maturity levels but no caste or status barriers. Inspired by this commercial, I thought of categorizing all my friends.
Childhood friends were with whom I shared my tiffin and pocket money and competed with for the teacher’s attention. We also cried together over tough exams and bad marks. Unfortunately, I lost them touch with me as we grew older and our lives took different courses.
As I grew into an adult, I got a new set of friends. They were full of energy, josh and enthusiasm. We wanted to touch the sky with our dreams. Life was so promising and beautiful. Never worried by anything, we were always in a hurry to get what we wanted. All our mischiefs and adventures still bring a smile to my face. Thanks to Facebook, I found one of them. Let’s hope, that enthusiasm is still persistent should we ever meet again.
As I moved from school to college and from college to university, I was lucky to have a new group of friends. This was the most worrisome and fun filled period of life. Tension to submit the assignments and experiment files on time, pressure to do well in exams, big question-what after college. But amongst all these growing tensions, we found reasons and time to have fun. We bunked classes, shared our crushes, sneaked out of hostel without out pass to watch movies and did all the possible things to make the 
rival group’s life difficult.

I am fortunate to be in constant touch with these friends and when we meet, we are back to being the same mischievous young girls within seconds. Our families are often surprised to watch their composed mothers and wives go into fits of laughter and behave like carefree juveniles.
As I grew older and got married, I met new people at every new station wherever my husband was posted. Many of them became good family friends. Few of these friends, who were experienced, helped us find solutions to trivial issues of  family life. As time passed, we lost contact with some but few became friends for life. They are always there for us in times of happiness as well sorrow.
As parenthood arrived, so did new friends: parents of our daughters. These friendships arose as a result of logistical conveniences and later developed into deeper relationships. We wanted to be the best parents. We arranged birthday parties, picnics, fancy dresses, pick ups and drops of our kids; school projects; annual days; PTAs; hobby classes; swimming competitions etc. as we worked tirelessly for happiness in our little ones’ eyes. If they were happy, so were we.
As children grew older, their friends changed and so did these “parent” friends. In this journey of parenting, I found few friends for life. Even if our kids grew apart, our friendship matured with time. However, at this stage when kids are now young adults, we don’t meet their friend’s parents. Complexity of age and generations!
As my daughters have grown up, I have found two honest friends at home, who do not shy away from criticizing me like a true friend does but at the same time they stand by me when I need their support.
Besides all of these friends, I have my relative friend, doctor friend, neighbour friend, artist friend, dress designer friend, hairdresser friend and so many other friends whom I meet very often in my daily life. With many of them my relationship is professional but very friendly!
I give credit to every friend of mine for making this world beautiful, for bearing my undue demands at odd hours, for sharing their joys and supporting me in my difficult times. I can’t imagine life without them. Afterall, har ek friend zaroori hota hai!