Of Friend “SHIPS” !!

here's something published on the ocasion of Friendship Day in the Focus Global Reporter, August,2011 issue//best//mg


Of Friend “SHIPS” !!
Manisha Gupta

I still remember, as a school student long back, in the beautiful Nainital, when our Moral Science teacher asked us to collect writings on “friendship” for our scrap-book. I had found a lovely poem by some great man whose name I should be excused for not remembering over the years, but the first four lines are at the tip of my tongue.

“It never is a one-way traffic
To friendship that we treasure
There is give as well as take
Within the fullest measure”

Even then, though quite young to understand the deep meaning of friendship, I thought these lines summed up and described the phenomenon completely. These in fact give the essence and the entirety of the word friendship. The basic fact being that it can never be a one-way street for this relationship, so if it’s one-way, it simply doesn’t exist. As I think back over the years and visualize different people and their different friendships, I feel the truth encompassed in these lines even more fundamental.

That was then! Over the years I feel the dilution inherent in the environment has percolated to this relationship too. And after SRK’s mega hit “Kuchh Kuchh Hota Hai”, friendship now has taken a turn and is more about friendship “days” and friendship “bands”. The friend himself seems to have taken a backseat. The depth of the relationship is perhaps measured by the quality of the friendship band. In this era of quick changes in environment, climate or economy, friends too seem to be following suit.

The age-old concept of friends being likeminded people with similar interests, value- systems and morals has undergone a tremendous change. Now, even value-systems and morals in the so called “seat of cultural values” that was once India, everything is susceptible to malfunction, right from car to machinery to humans to wardrobes. So much so that I feel we’re undergoing a serious and severe ‘Indian values malfunction’ in every sense of the term. In contrast to earlier times, meaning and depth of friendship, automatic core feelings of giving, sharing, “being there” in times of need, genuine concern and even sacrifice existed, today it’s different. Then friends were probably made for life even though no ceremonial vows are taken to enter into this relation. There were no hidden agendas or motives to “be friends”. Friends were treated well and one wouldn’t ever trample on the dignity, self respect, feelings or emotions of friends.

But change, as they say, is inevitable. Friendship then was about “bOnds” but now it’s more about “bAnds”!! Moreover, now people make friends with a hidden agenda. They may not like a person nor be at the same wavelength or emotional level, but still make friends with that person because they want to use him, his position or his contacts. Nowadays friendships are made with selfish motives and hidden personal agendas in mind and so aren’t long lasting. In some cases they probably last as long as the Velcro or hook of the friendship band! In others they may last as long as the professional interests of both are intertwined and the mutual benefits satisfied. In yet others they may last still longer if both keep moving ahead in their interrelated career paths and each is in a position to keep showering personal favours on the other in the guise of professional work and at the cost of the organization. These days friends are selfish, self-centered people who pretend to be the nicest and the sweetest people on the surface of this earth when they need something from you and can be capable of just looking through you and walking past without so much as even the slightest sign of recognition or the blink of an eye.

Such is the status of friend “SHIPS” today. They are perhaps “ships” with a fate worse than that of the Titanic because they have no solid anchor in the form of genuine bonding. My dear friends just remember “bOnds” may last longer than a life time even without fevicol but “bAnds” of friendships may give in, inspite of fevicol, at the very first shower rain. So don’t let your friend “SHIP” sink anywhere else apart from your heart!!
ManishaGupta©2011