What is love — Part 2
Originally published at http://jondoe297svj.wordpress.com on October 7, 2013.
Friendship
‘Har ek friend zaroori hota hai’ (But is really everyone we need our “friend”?) — This idiosyncrasy of today’s generation hits me so hard, that I sometimes feel if we really know the difference between what a friend is, and what an acquaintance is.
Friendship is love. That love is one of the most celebrated facets of our life. We experience it daily, get used to it and take it for granted so much so, that we only realize its value once we don’t have it, or once we can’t have it back . With the advent of virtual social networks, we are always connected. Whatsapp, Facebook, Google opens avenues for us which enables us to stay in touch with people we normally wouldn’t even be able to interact with, on a one-on-one basis. But I strongly believe that ‘Friendship’, at its deepest crux, will always hold the same meaning; that it always has adorned, for centuries since and centuries hence. But definitions change and I cannot write a reference material for friendship here, so I will write about the 6 kinds of friendship that I have experienced as yet in my life (All are numbered one because they all come to mind, and aren’t in any specific order)-
- Friends with whom you have something in common, a role model, a TV series fandom, a common experience, or similar interests
This is the kind of ‘no demands, no expectations’ kind of friendship. Where you have one string (or a multiple few) that keep you loosely strung together. It definitely doesn’t imply that the friendship is not deep though. You get each other’s references related to those common topics, and you can go on hours talking about it.
But when brought together, you might not be able to take the friendship to the next level, or if you’re lucky (or unlucky, considering how it turns out at the end), you might hit it off brilliantly and become closer friends, finding more things about each other, and broadening your friendship.
- Friends with whom you share intense friendships for a short burst of time
I think we all have had that one friend in life that we thought we’d always share the same equation of friendship with. And what has happened today? What changed? Why did it change?
Sometimes, the reason behind why something happened is not as important as the fact that it happened. The sooner we accept the reality, the sooner we can cherish what we had, instead of trying to recreate it. I don’t know why it happens. But these are the friendships, when we are in them, we share a deep understanding, comprehensive knowledge of the other person’s life, his/her core beliefs, his/her aspirations, and we get so involved in the friendship, that we believe this is what true friendship is like.
Partially, it is true, though. This is what true friendship is like, only if it is a permanent condition with unwavering intensity. But that is just an abstract thought. Life always throws us twists and turns, where we have to choose, forks occur where people have to separate. Although, that, in no way, lessens the import of the moments we spend together, of the secrets we share, the unfulfilled promises of being a similar part of each other’s life forever, the illusionary future at which we stare.
So, if you have such a friend right now, give everything you possibly can to the relationship. Because at the end of it, when the intensity decreases, and ebb it will, inevitably, your friendship remains a warm glow, but not the fire it is supposed to be, ideally. You don’t want to wonder at the end of it, if things would have been different had you been different. Yesterday brought the beginning, tomorrow brings the end, and somewhere in the middle we became the best of friends.
- Friends with whom you start out great, but things fizzle out
Ever had a friend who you thought belonged in the above category, but instead of the friendship ageing gracefully, although rapidly, things went haywire in the end?
Welcome to friendships which have great moments, but due to some fatal crisis or setback, or a simple conflict of opinion, things are never the same as they were earlier. The defining reasons are some stubborn and staunch beliefs from either party, an inbred difference in the way we process things, or just plain, old misunderstanding. Whatever be the reason, once the glass shatters, no matter how much you try to put it back, things are never the same again. We never really reconcile fully and completely with them, (even if we think we do), we only lock away our hurt and scars, and pretend (sometimes, successfully!) that if we make enough sacrifices the broken relationship can be mended.
Sometimes it hurts, because people leave you as you’re no longer as important to them, as they were to you. They prioritize and figure out that you’re no longer a complication which they want in your life, and they simply cut you off, without any anaesthetics, and it is up to you to heal until the throbbing heart ache is not sanity-threatening, but something you can live with.
But it is still a case of love, although a case of love gone awry, which then is your personal choice, whether you want to bring it back to the right course and set it in the direction it was sailing earlier.
- Traditional Friendships
Difficult to exactly describe in words, these are the friends who bring a smile to our face, and make daily life charming in their own unique ways.
We all have these friends, and without them, simply put, life is a lonely, lonely journey.
Examples include -
That one friend who, the moment you see him/her, gives you a hug because he knows you need one, and you are too shy to ask for one.
That one friend who, the moment you see him/her, a smile comes on your face automatically, because you know, no matter what happens, this friend will be there for you, and at the end of a bad day, you can always unload on him/her.
That one friend who, the moment you see him/her, you know you are not alone in this world because he has the same exact set of beliefs that you have, and should ever some people tell you that you’re weird, you have someone who’s equally weird and has got your back.
That one friend who, the moment you see him/her, makes you laugh by sharing a funny anecdote, or a slapstick joke mocking himself/herself in the punch line, showing you how important it is to smile, be it at one’s own expense.
That one friend who, the moment you see him/her, calls you a nickname that only you and he/she shares, and makes you realize that all it takes, is one person to make your day.
That one friend who, the moment you see him/her, you can talk any sort of rubbish, and that rubbish will be discussed, dissected and understood.
That one friend who, the moment you see him/her, there is no need to talk, because everything you ever need to say, you’ve already said, and the silence is enjoyable.
There are innumerable such instances, and you might have more unique to your life, and my intention is to keep this article moderately short (or moderately long. Works both ways.) So I hope you get the general idea.
- Friendships with Strangers
As dubious as it may sound, although the world is full of bad people, there are a few good people sprinkled here and there. They may not be good people in their own life through and through, but their role in your life only highlights some of their best characteristics.
Someone who works in the parking of a huge multinational corporation can steal your heart with his simplicity and genius talent. His job was to send us home after a hard day at work, and his was a case of eidetic memory (photographic memory). He must have had some mental technique of mapping a face to an address and efficiently sorting the cabs with the time and distance constraint in mind.
At the end of my internship there, I offered him a Cadbury Silk and said, “Thank you for sending me home safe and sound each day. This is my last cab ride this summer.”
With a firm handshake, and a kind of emotional insensitivity, yet heartfelt sentiment, that I have been unable to produce in my life yet, he said, “Don’t say last ride, sir. Every day you came here late and tired, looking like having given everything to work. It’s my pleasure to send you home to refresh and come back the next day. This place needs people like us. Rest assured, aapan pudhchya warshi parat bhetu.” (‘we’ll meet again next year’ in Marathi, because he knew I was from Maharashtra, and so was he.)
There was also this one beggar who used to sit at a road crossing on the Outer Ring Road. I, not wanting to take a cab since the distance wasn’t too long, but instead walked home for a month, until I had to shift to a location where the walking distance was just too much.
The first time I saw that beggar, I was eating a KitKat since I had skipped lunch, and the look she gave me was of pure hunger. I felt very guilty, as I had everything and I was cribbing about how none of my friends back from my hometown contacted me, and how I must be the most unlucky person alive. I have never seen anyone look so impoverished as she was looking that day, a small girl of maybe 10, who should have been sleeping in a shelter, safe and sound, that late in the night. I don’t know what came over me, but I gave her all currency I had in my wallet that night.
This continued for the next four weeks or so, although I used to only give her 10 rupees each day. On one day, I told her in Hindi, don’t know whether she understood, that I won’t be coming this way from Monday. The sweet, innocent girl that she is, on my last day, i.e. the next day, she bought a KitKat for me. It must’ve been a great sacrifice on her part, and I was so happy that I simply teared up, and walked ahead without saying goodbye. Where’s the good in goodbye?
P.S. : That KitKat I ate? Sweetest thing ever. Enough said.
- A friendship that could have been more
There is a thin line between friendship and love. And sometimes, the more you think about it, love is friendship and something more. That something more, we’ll see in the next and final part of this long and boring triseries.
I don’t know how many of you have seen ‘How I Met Your Mother’, but there is an amazing analogy of what I am going to say now, that fits exactly with what I will try to describe succinctly next.
For a quick update, you can refer to this section of Wikipedia.
Your hope is that you find a love which is as awesome as Lily and Marshall. But sometimes, you find yourself as Ted instead; or if you’re lucky enough, as Barney.
This kind of friendship is the one that remains when the other person doesn’t feel something more, or when you lose that something more.
Everyone has their own Robin, the person that you loved very much, but you cannot be with. And whoever you’ll meet, whatever you’ll do, nothing will be like it would be with Robin.
Sometimes, you have to break away because you know you are not good enough.
Sometimes, you don’t get close enough because she knows you are not good enough.
Sometimes, you see things are not meant to be and you only want her to be happy.
Sometimes, things are not meant to be and that’s why she is happy.
Sometimes, you meet and talk to other people in a way which make her jealous.
Sometimes, she meets and talks to some people which makes you understand why she felt that way.
She is everything you want. The conversations you have, the total abandonment with which you talk to her, nothing held back, you envision a life together, you think nothing can go wrong, until something does… Or something right just doesn’t happen, and you stay what you are.
Just friends.
What follows is grief.
And the thing about grief is, [Source: Grey’s Anatomy]
“Grief may be a thing we all have in common, but it looks different on everyone.
It isn’t just death we have to grieve. It’s life. It’s loss. It’s change.
And when we wonder why it has to suck so much sometimes, has to hurt so bad. The thing we gotta try to remember is that it can turn on a dime.
That’s how you stay alive. When it hurts so much you can’t breathe, that’s how you survive.
By remembering that one day, somehow, impossibly, you won’t feel this way. It won’t hurt this much.
Grief comes in its own time for everyone, in its own way.
So the best we can do, the best anyone can do, is try for honesty.
The really crappy thing, the very worst part of grief is that you can’t control it.
The best we can do is try to let ourselves feel it when it comes.
And let it go when we can.
The very worst part is that the minute you think you’re past it, it starts all over again.
And always, every time, it takes your breath away.
There are five stages of grief. They look different on all of us, but there are always five.
-Denial.
-Anger.
-Bargaining.
-Depression.
-Acceptance.”
__
Next up, Part 3 — Love.
Previously, Part 1 — Family.
Bookmark: http://bit.ly/svjblog
Follow for regular updates.
Facebook page: SVJ’s Blog
Originally published at http://jondoe297svj.wordpress.com on October 7, 2013.
