Changing form of friendship, the most selfless engagement among humans in a complex, modern world

Priyadarshini Banerjee

NewsBits.in

Friendships change as friends do Friendships are precious. That they are a wonderful thing is a widely known fact. Friends meet everyday.

At schools and colleges, in the playground or tuition classes, on their way to work and back. They grow up together and spend considerable time with each other. They share meals and also the deepest thoughts most candidly, implicitly and explicitly influencing each other.

Learn better or worse and are there for each other through thick or thin. Isn’t that the template? The familiar characteristics and trope of ‘dosti’.

There are two sides to any friendship. The inner world of friends that’s warm, comfortable, and emotional. Where people become close because they get along seamlessly and if things get hard, they endure and work it out. Then there’s the outside perspective that evaluates and judges friendships. This outside perspective is cold, calculative, and practical.

Social status, hierarchies, and imaginary to real effects, benefits, and disadvantages are weighed upon here. The inner world always stands up to the outside perspective, protecting itself as well as the innocence and simplicity of friendships.

However, in a cruel twist, the outside perspective starts making more sense to the best of friends. Their friendships no longer remain an act of spontaneous affection and selfless togetherness. A price is set, a value is determined, and some to many things are asked in ‘return’. This exchange now makes the priceless friendship, valuable. That friends should be of some use - is the new realisation. It may not be always this materialistic.

It could also be the seemingly simple but terribly complex process of growing out of all the people, the closest friends. The jokes, the conversations, the common interests that once were engaging start feeling like a drag. The excitement of meeting old pals after a long time doesn’t last a night when a trip has been planned for the same. Nostalgia accompanies for a couple of hours when happy tales from once-upon-a-time are narrated to an enthusiastic crowd that’s familiar with all the beats and fun of these oft repeated stories and yet gives a tremendous reception as always.

There’s even an encore. But once the high of ‘those were the days’ settles, it’s even gloomier. Because now there is nothing much to talk about except what matters today which generally revolves around money, organised religion, regrets about getting married and procreation, and money. So, are there no everlasting friendships? Of course, there are. It is the lifelong friends who have kept the torch of what’s-best-in-humanity burning.

And an objective observation and reading of these friends-for-life would reveal how they evolve and learn - they constructively criticise and empathise, let each other be yet let go, and they’re always around and concurrently give a lot of space. In short, their friendships change with time. The core of integrity and love remains intact, but the shell adapts.

I remember Javed Akhtar once said it in one of his conversations of how at the core of every relationship is friendship. With parents and family, amongst colleagues, in romantic associations; from personal lives to professional collaborations, the friendships at their heart determine their sincerity, strength, and beauty.

Clearly, humanity undermines the importance of friendships all the time and that’s why parents and children are usually caught in the dissatisfactory play of unquestioned respect and subservience. As are colleagues and teammates, people romantically involved, family members, so on and so forth. People in close relationships are so busy establishing rules of authority and dominance, they forget to become friends.

Drawing ranks becomes far more essential than levelling the playing field. And when instead of following these unsaid rules, people genuinely bond with each other, not the insincere ‘good friends’, but allies who try to know each other and over time, develop solid ties, that’s when friendship wins. Those guards who not only stand at gates but keep an eye out for residents. House helps who help out more than asked or paid for.

Rickshaw pullers and bus staff who care for every single kid they pick up and drop for school. Parents and children are not stuck in a loop of reverence and obeisance but are truly connected. Friends who choose friends over petty disagreements and fights, and show the way when they know better on matters of principle and ethics. True, life is not black and white.

People are not so easy. Just because one wants to remain friends, doesn’t imply other reciprocates kindly. And there’s plenty of heartache, misunderstanding, and conflict involved. But friendship is perhaps the most selfless act of engagement humanity has been capable of. It does bring its fair share of troubles, but the most joy too.

[Priyadarshini Banerjee is a Mumbai-based writer]

Photo courtesy: Mr Nitai Mondal, Pexels.com