Buddy Time

 This is an excerpt of one of my older posts about one of my friends. An epiphany of sorts.We weren't in the best of terms.Like a comatose patient on life support, our friendship was running on WhatsApp and Facebook that time.

"A friend in deed,is a friend in need" is what I believed in. For me what makes an acquaintance from school or college special is the number of activities we both have excitedly been part of. For what is a friendship without enough anecdotes to share?

There are lot of them who would say things like we went to the same school,our college bus route was similar or we were neighbors when probed about the origin of their friendships. Most friendships are often flattery of acquaintanceship that reveled in locational-convenience.So in these cases it was more of coincidence conspiring to put them in a congenial radius than the spirit of comradeship.

But this guy and me were partners in crime since the twilight of our teenage. Our chemistry shot up northwards and our bonhomie was booming with every misadventure, with private and public properties being collateral(in a miniscular scale albeit). Like me he was an aficionado of movies. This habit nurtured the relation over the years; while softening the edges. As we grew up sanity grew along over our free spirit. Like urbanization eating into forest, this civil side was mowing into our wild side.The frequency of our meetings kept dwindling, with the distance between our residences remaining at a constant stone throw length.

There was a phase were he would wait for me to call, with little knowledge of the fact that I was checking my phone's display every hour.I wouldn't say he was entirely at fault for this phase of unrequited exchanges between us, given that my ego had grown up to constitute 30% of my BMI.

From a friendship which was once regulated by heart and instinct,it was withering away into indifference with brain and ego looming large. I could see the brotherhood turning commonplace with us meeting up on sunday morning cricket matches and birthday eve gatherings..
 It's not like there were no initiatives to end the tepidity from our sides, but somewhere it was beyond the starting trouble.From tangible presence in each other's scheme of things, we had turned into a comforting presence in the backdrop with vicarious acknowledgement of an erstwhile bond.

With every reality check life throws at us, we figure out who constitute our real circle. My break up happened,things were a little rough.I had a lot of 48 hour days to see through. I couldn't afford to be as high handed as before, with the humbling duress making me a little vulnerable, err aware. He was the first guy I called as soon as I called it off. That's when I knew his significance in my life. He was my shoulder when I was unstable, my shrink when I was getting woefully  nostalgic at a drop of a hat.That phase startled me out of my insulation of pretense and calculation.

That's when we had gone for this very popular movie. Midway into the movie I started getting my nostalgia bouts again. It was over-whelming to try watching the movie beyond that as I was suffocating from thoughts that had breached the parallel realm.I sprang out of the movie hall teary-eyed, to mitigate embarrassment.Within a matter of few moments he was there by my side ,ready to leave.

We couldn't leave the theater precincts as it was raining profusely.It felt like destiny had cherry picked the worst time of my life to hurl water darts at me.At that moment I was seeing hideous metaphors in things around me, a statement fate was making to me with dramatic props. We were at the theater's front end waiting for the rain to subside when I got started all over again. He was there patiently listening without an iota of indifference like for the first time . The prowess of the downpour was waning. So was my relentless need to cling on to a decayed relation.


I realised one thing then-"A friend in need, is a friend indeed".
For as much choice as you exercise in picking your company,the person that your friend turns out be in testing times is way beyond your whims.I was lucky to have him around at that phase. Always.