I can’t say Ms. L is my oldest friend ever, but she belongs to the league of the few people who matter the most to me. I don’t know how I should portray Ms.L - she is a part of me, someone who is always there for me and who stands by me, who makes me realize my wrongs and helps me to translate them into rights, who knows how to cheer me up when I’m down, who provides me with tissues when my tears come like the “summer tempest”, who I take for granted at all times and most importantly who loves me unconditionally.
Well this can be classified as a clichéd representation of the term friendship; for some it might sound schmaltzy or even idyllic. Why not? As a matter or fact, it does sound kind of gushy (so feel free to sigh/yawn or give the oh-god-not-again look). I am going to be persistent.
Ms. L and I go a long way back but the surprising friendship we found between us is only some 7 odd years old. Nothing nonconforming but somewhat unforeseen. We didn’t even realize when we’d become so close to each other. It never mattered. Was it just the being-together for so long that made us such good friends? I don’t know and I don’t want to know because it doesn’t matter - I’m glad I found my soul mate in Ms. L. I second what someone has rightly said “Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” I never thought I’d go for live ghazal performances or meditation classes but I did participate in these activities with Ms. L and let me admit it wasn’t that bad. It makes me wonder how with a certain someone we not only find our feet in such states of affairs but also enjoy them!
I don’t believe age plays any significant role when it comes to amity – friendship or love. Take Ms. L for instance, she belongs to a different generation altogether but we get on like a house on fire. It is not essential for friends to have the same predilections, respecting each other’s preferences is more important. Ms.L’s and my picking is way different when we discuss clothes, cars, colors, drinks or even men; but we both cry at poignant moments – in real as well as reel life, we both enjoy similar books/movies and can’t resist ourselves from exchanging opinions about them later, we enjoy hip-hop as well as Hindustani and we can spend hours talking about anything under the sun.
For the past 7 years my mother has been one of my dearest and nearest friends। It is uncanny how we have graduated from being mother-daughter to soul mates. She has seen me in my worst and my best moments, been there for me through thick and thin not (only) as my mother but (also) as my best bud. Today when we both are thousands of miles apart, I miss her so much – I miss going to Barista and Vaishali with her, I miss listening to Ghulam Ali and Farida Khanum in the middle of the night with her, I miss going out for long drives with her, I miss arguing with her, I miss her – awfully!
A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words – Rachel Naomi Remen
