Friendship!

Hello everybody.....a day's break and I'm back into the attack!

Well, what's friendship?? Who's a friend?? We've seen loads and loads of email forwards about who's a friend and the A-Z of friendship and the difference between a friend and a true friend and a best friend and so on and so forth! But I doubt whether any of us really stop to think what a friend means to us, what difference do they make in our life and how they affect us mentally, emotionally and socially!

As far as my understanding goes, a friend is a person who has a measurble impact on our life, someone whom we care for, someone whom we want to see happy - Always! A friend is that individual with whom we can just shed our inhibitions and be ourselves. As the adage goes, "A friend is one who reaches for the hand and touches the heart!" Yes, truly, a friend is one who makes a place for himself in our heart.

Let me go a step further and highlight the qualities of a friend. In my opinion, they are not the conventional ones that people have been quoting over the years. With time and the changes that have come into effect in the world, society and our gullible minds, the concept of friendship has to undergo a change...which unfortunately, it has not - there are many misconceptions about friendship and these are what I'm out to highlight and clear through my post!

Misconception Number 1:
A friend is someone who stands by us in times of need.........WRONG......a friend is someone who stands by us at all times.....He is the person who is with us in times of joy to see that the happiness doesn't go to our head and he's by our side in times of distress to lend a helping hand. He's the one who multiplies our joys and divides our sorrows.

Misconception Number 2:
A friend is someone whom you meet often, either lives close-by or studies/works with you.....WRONG again...grossly wrong! A friend can be miles away and still be as close to you as he would be if he were sitting right beside you! Distance is hardly a matter of concern between friends. Sometimes, it does feel like distance matters, but between friends, if they know that each one cares for the other and is always able to lend an ear to one another, distance can easily be bridged! I should know.....a lot of my real good pals are miles and miles away from me - Shravan, Shruti, Aarti akka, Shweta, Manisha, Sami, Shriram, Vips are you all reading this??!!!! So, in today's e-world, our friend is always just a click of a button away! Distance in no way diminishes the feeling of friendship - it SHOULDN'T!!! Because after all - Distance makes the heart grow fonder!

Misconception Number 3:
A friend is someone who shares the same interests as you......how misinformed can people be!!!!!!! If your friend is a carbon copy of yourself - or let' s move with the times - a xerox copy of yourself (!!!!), then where's the scope for a mental rebuttal of ideas?? And if there's no clash of ideas, no war of opinions and no arguments, then what's the good of that friendship?? I'm not saying that there should be fights, but a friend should be the person who can make you look at that side of a problem or situation or whatever which you would have otherwise overlooked! A friend is someone who can counter your views on a topic and make you see a whole new spectrum of ideas flowing out of you.....He's the one who can make you see light where all you see is darkness!!!!!!!!!!

Misconception Number 4:
A friend with whom you can talk to forever! Well.....this is surely not entirely wrong....but there is another side to it. A friend is someone with whom silence is as comfortable as babble!!!!! A friend is that person with whom you can spend an entire evening without saying a word and walk away feeling it was the best evening you've ever had!!! That's because a friend is someone who understands your silence as much as he understands your words.

Misconception Number 5:
Well, everyone expects that their friend should understand them to the 'T'......I don't agree. This is inspite of the fact that I mentioned in the previous para that a friend should understand our silence....What I mean is that a friend cannot be expected to understand us completely because, at the end of the day, he is a different individual in a different skin. The understanding that a friend should have is the ability to empathise, to be able to see things from your point of view. To understand silence doesn't mean to understand what you want to say....it means to understand that you want to be quiet and to acknowledge it.....A friend cannot be expected to be the proverbial "antaryaami" and know your mind and thoughts and feelings!

Misconception Number 6:
"My friend doesn't care for me the way I do for them".........Well, that's too much to ask for......If a person doesn't care for you the way you want, it doesn't mean that he doesn't care for you with all he has. As mentioned earlier, it is wise to acknowledge the fact that you are the best of friends, but that doesn't make you one person. You are still two different people. It is quite probable that one is more expressive than the other, that one shows that he cares and the other doesn't......that in no way means that the care is not there. It is up to you to identify it.....and even if you can't identify it, you should know its there!

Now with the airs cleared, I can say who is a friend!!! Ahem ahem!

A friend is one with whom we can be ourselves with absolutely no inhibitions. A friend is one we can trust with all our heart, a person who is honest to the point of bluntness and with whom we can be the same! A person who doesn't take everything to heart and with whom we can just have unadulterated fun! A person who we believe in and a person who can relate to us and vice versa. A person who can stand by us at all times. That is a friend!

I believe in the age-old saying, "Books and friends must be few and good!" Don't know about books but friends - they must surely be few and good......That is not to say that we mustn't be friendly. There's a vast difference between being friendly with people and being friends with them. It is important to know whom we are friendly with and who are our friends. Being friendly is about having an amicable relation with people, keeping in touch and helping each other out. Beingfriends is about just being there for one another, being each other's secret-keeper, being the companion in times of sorrow and the pal in times of joy - Always!!

So....there's what I feel about friendship and friends!! I assert that these are just my views but I feel that somewhere, everyone will be in a position to relate to them!
My post on friendship would be sadly incomplete if I don't thank my stars here for having a lovely bunch of friends who care for me and who I feel completely at ease with!!!!

Thanks a tonne to all my friends!!!!!!!!! Out there in Dubai as well as here in Aamchi Mumbai.

For now.....this is it....an overdose already I guess.....so, Tally-ho!