It’s Friday, 1st Aug. I start getting “Happy Friendship Day/Week” E-mails from my friends all over the world. I turn over to DJ, ‘Hey! What is this friendship day/week all about? And more importantly, when is it?’ Surprised by my weak G.K., she pities me and says, ‘It’s about friends and it happens in the First week of Aug. starting the first Sunday, poor boy … you got to know all this …’.
Then I hear someone from some corner, ‘What dude! You’re enquiring a lot about friendship and stuff….. Hey man! kya baat hai ??? koi hai kya … special friend?’. And suddenly, I find everyone is pulling my leg. ‘Kaon hai?’, ‘are ! Who are they talking about ?’.
Then the other one says, … Kab se chal raha hai? ,
‘What? …Am I a time keeper of all the great historic events that ever happened to mankind? How do answer, kab se kya chal raha hai?’….
And as if all this was not enough, one to my right says,
‘Yaar, Humein bataya bhi nahi ...’, Wow !
Well..weak G.K. can have so many repercussions life ! huff…..
Going back to my den, I was thinking about this word friendship. ‘How many meanings can it have?’.Hmm… let’s try … friendship may be linked to, affinity or attachment to someone, some kind of bonding, may be some sort of domestic partnership, infatuation in some cases and might be a romantic relationship, in others… the list can be never ending’. Even so, how many interpretations of those words would exist?
Thinking about all this wordy and worldly things, I slowly sink into the past. My old friends, the mischievous things that we did, ranging from the little to small to the BIG! We were always together… well… we can say … “Partners in crime!” and immensely proud of our ‘Shaitani Joint-Ventures’.
Enjoying the thought of the innumerable Joint-Ventures and collaborations that I have made over my lifetime, a fade picture evolves over my mind… ‘What is it like?’.
It’s about dusk time, I see myself well dressed and in P.T. shoes (the ones made with cloth, generally worn in schools on a Friday). And that’s not all; I have a soft rubber ball in my other hand. All set to play!
But, a question still remains open. ‘With whom am I going to play?’
I shuffle with the ball, throwing it and then running after it all alone to find that I have thrown it rather too hard to follow it up. One chap picks it up and comes to me, “It” is like me …. Some what same age … well… I cannot recall anything specific about that person as of now, but the only thing I remember about”It”, is a smile and without even saying a single word there was a mutual conscientious on playing together.
No other thoughts came to our mind as to who we were, what religion do we belong, what is our back ground.This reminds me something our constitution/human rights says: ‘All people are equal, and there should be no disparity between them on the basis of caste, creed, color, sex, age, political status …. And so on …’ (this definition is too long to remember!).
We played, we ran, we giggled and we ran and we giggled …It’s really tough to run and giggle at the same time.It gives you a feeling as if you are choking out of breath. But, it seemed to be fun!I don’t really know if I can do it any longer now….. run and giggle at the same time with my friends… I am already chocked with running too hard now-a-days.
Dusk gave way to the night, it was time to go …I walk briskly with the soft rubber ball in my other hand and my neck turned completely backwards to say goodbye to my unknown, unnamed friend.
Happy FriendShip Day !
