To my friends…

I get this extreme sense of gratitude when I think of my bunch of friends.
Life parted few of them…but fortunately I have not lost them yet.
Few weeks back a friend called up from abroad. Last week another friend came down to my home town, especially to meet me and to catch up on the life passed by. In my college we fought once…but our friendship still rocks. Well, don’t confuse friends with colleagues, in my workplace, this new friend is cute & much younger than me…we drove long distance and after disappointment of sold out movie, recovered all with tons of ice creams. The friend on the nook of the street…we spent some of the best time together…I dressed her up in her wedding… She helped me shifting the house. Before I wondered how you can have a joke in English…till we laughed like crazy together.
Few week-ends gets over without my friend knocking the door or ringing my phone.

A relation beyond any cast, creed, region, language, looks, Age, gender, culture, lifestyle and social status….A relation where you don’t have to work on whom to like, how much and when.
This is a relation we choose on our own. We are not born with it and we are not confined in it. There is no commitment, but innocent willingness to be with him/her. They are always there whether you are in technical distress or emotional conflict or of any other non-practical reasons. Among friends, righteousness and trust are the rule. I don’t have too many but I have the few steadiest friends.

Of course there are technical theories of friendships which bring people close like Similarity: How much we have in common with them (‘birds of a feather’). Similar friends provide social validation for our beliefs, characteristics, etc. In practice, opposites seldom attract. Proximity: The leads us to like most people we see often. Reciprocity: We like people who like us and dislike those who dislike us. Beauty: Physical attraction counts, although how it is defined varies around the world. Competence: We like people who are competent (but they should not be too perfect).

There will also be stages of friendships… 1. We play safe with small talk and simple, harmless clichés like ‘Life’s like that’, following standards of social desirability and norms of appropriateness. 2. We now start to reveal ourselves, expressing personal attitudes about moderate topics such as government and education. 3. Now we start to talk about private and personal matters. 4. The relationship now reaches a plateau in which personal things are shared and each can predict the emotional reactions of the other person. And finally 5. When the relationship starts to break down and costs exceed benefits, then there is a withdrawal of disclosure which leads to termination of the relationship… :-)

May be I have found all my friends on the ground of similarity and I have reached no.5 in second paragraph too. Whatever, for everything there is some Chemistry!!

A big thanks to all my friends…

Close up:
"How, O how could I stay silent, how, O how could I keep quiet?My friend whom I love has turned to clay:Enkidu my friend whom I love has turned to clay.Am I not like him? Must I lie down too, never to rise again?"
Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet X, column V.