FRIENDSHIP DAY - IS ONE DAY ENOUGH?

Days of the year are slowly being marked for different purposes as the yesteryear mankind did in the form of festivities. Friendship day is another such day that is to be celebrated this month.

A casual reading of the newspapers pointed to the day and also paid tributes to some friendships. This only sent me into a nostalgic voyage. In the good old days of childhood, I remember my father relating a story of two friends who are trapped. One of them promises to return on release after paying a visit to his kin and keeps his word. This story is the human version of the popular fable of Punyakoti of Kannada lore. However, the essence of the story remains with me though the minute details have got buried in the course of gathering more information.

Another enchanting tale of friendship is one of Krishna and Sudama where neither caste nor creed, neither class or status plays a role. The two pals pass the test of friendship admirably unlike the other two of Drona and Drupada of Mahabharatha. Similarly, the unparalleled friendship of Duryodhana and Karna, though less celebrated deserves a study in itself.

Epics record many such inspiring tales but the true value of friendship is realised when one is able to pick threads from where one left in the earlier occasion irrespective of the passage of time. One such friendship I have witnessed is that of two classmates who cultivated a friendship in the formative years of childhood, nurtured it through their adolescence, preserved it through the adulthood despite crossing the golden jubilee of their own lives. In fact, their friendship would in itself be marking its golden jubilee though they belong to diverse streams of science intelligentsia and chartered accountancy leaving their footprints in two different continents. The undiluted friendship can be traced by the ecstasy of their meetings and the comfort zone they enjoy in each other's extended families too,

Another interesting friendship which I have witnessed blossoming over the years is between two lads who met each other for the first time when they were employed. The younger of the two was barely eighteen while the elder was older by at least a decade. Time passed and they drifted into different towns only to meet again. The resumption of the ties which was in an era devoid of telephones and mails provided a magical aura. The blessing was they soon included me into their uninhibited ties where the fine lines of communication and privacy was drawn in unspoken terms. The ease with which they absorbed me into their unique relationship merely on one another's understanding made me find a comfort zone for myself.

The reason I find such enduring relationships fascinating is possibly because of the factors that hinder such growth. My relationships with friends have been fluctuating from time to time. Most of my primary school pals are not traceable despite tools such as social networking. The high school pals had an occasion to reconnect and it was time to really walk down the memory aisle. The college era is more close to reality since these pals reconnect faster. The workmates are in touch and have not really been tested with long periods of disconnect. Despite this there is at least one person to whom I should pay tribute if I am blogging today.

A close friend of mine who is based in Australia was the one who initiated me to email and thereafter to the internet world. His persistence to stay in contact with me led to creation of email account and visits to cybercafes. Much later, another friend of mine posted an invite on Facebook. This soon led to the connectivity between school and college pals albeit electronically restored. This has led to the occasional sound bytes of these pals over the phone. I can only lay claim to the fact that today I connect with at least one friend from each phase of my life but if one were to ask me who my closest one was, I would remain puzzled.

Among my workmates too, I have had the pleasure of many of them choosing to grin and bear with me rather than miss me. A relationship beyond definition and barriers - friendship needs more than one day as a day of tribute, undoubtedly!!!!!!