A unique relationship
By: K S S Pillai
Friendship has been recognized as such a noble relationship in our lives that Friendship Day is being celebrated by the United Nations and several countries.
Man is called a ‘social animal’ who lives in society with others like him. Though he has a mixture of qualities that endear and antagonize him to others, different religions say it is not good for him to be alone.
A friend is considered someone who loves you despite your negative qualities. One can always count on his friends just like they count on you. Being a friend is about what we give, not what we get.
Dictionaries define a friend as one attached to another by affection or esteem. A friend is said to lift our spirits during difficult times, making us laugh and providing us with comfort. The relationship is said to transcend the social station, caste and creed.
A true friend stands by you in sickness, misfortune, during famine and when threatened by enemies. He gives us solace in sorrow and freedom from fear and provides us with a vessel of love and confidence. Different types of social media are always full of posts about various types of friendship.
There are several stories of friendship in our religious books. The legendary friendship between King Sri Krishna and his poor Brahmin classmate is a case in point. Not caring about his royal status, he washes his friend’s feet and partakes the parched rice from his friend, who is reluctant to show his poor gift to his friend. Another story tells us of the friendship between Duryodhana and Karna, who abandoned his Pandava brothers for the sake of his friend.
The only field that always states that there are no permanent friends or foes seems to be that of politics in a democracy. The wily political parties have no qualms about changing their associates depending on the chances of getting to the power corridors.
The elderly, especially those shunned by their family members for different reasons, seem to value friendship greatly. Those who have neighbours as their past colleagues with similar problems consider themselves lucky. They can spend time in each other’s company, though most must be suffering from many age-related ailments like difficulty in hearing, dementia that makes them repeat the same stories, physical problems, and some even not leaving the guest’s house after a decent interval.
Some have issues with foods and drinks as their doctors have ordered them not to consume them. Though their eating habit is closely monitored by other family members, they sometimes manage to put their hands on the banned items clandestinely.
I have a friend close by who is always at loggerheads with his old wife though they have spent a lifetime together. Both of them wait for their unwary neighbours to spend some time gossiping, and it is not easy to get free of them for a while.
Whether suffering from dementia or not, they repeat oft-repeated stories of their personal lives, which you have heard several times. It is difficult to talk with some of them as they mostly do not wear their hearing aids. Speaking with them over the telephone is another problem for the same reason. To the horror of the other family members, they sometimes take their two-wheelers to the busy road nearby without wearing hearing aids.
I often remember my friendship with a primary school classmate belonging to a poor family. Once he cut his pencil, a rare gift from his parents, into two and gave one part to me so that I could escape the corporal punishment from the teacher.
(The author is a retired professor of English. A regular contributor to ‘The Kashmir Vision’, his articles and short stories have appeared in various national and international publications)
