‘Please keep in touch, mail me once you get there and whenever you’ve time’, I battered the keys and hit send.

‘Sure, miss you already. Switching off phone now, bye’, was the last text he sent me before his 20 hour flight. My best friend at school was off to study Grade 8 in the ‘US of A’ and Whatsapp and Facebook were mere mirages in our future then.

But what’s magical in this is, when I met him 7 years later, we spent a few hours that stretched into days catching each other up on what had changed in our lives; our equation hadn’t changed though. He was the same Arjun I knew at school, now all beefed up from the gym, and we still were the same ‘laugh and joke at silly things’ bunch. Miles apart, years later, friendship passed the test. Rather, it always does… doesn’t it?

We’ve made friends at every phase in life. In school, in college, at work, our neighbors, during a journey, even a few at the dog park. Back in the days, we had pen pals; strangers as friends that shared our interests and love for writing. But when was the last time we made a real friend on Facebook? Did ‘must-be-able-to-hold-an-interesting-conversation’ ever come up on a Tinder match?