Sunday mornings. I love them. No office. Grey clouds had curtained the fulgent Delhi sun. A light breeze caressed the week’s laundry on the balcony. The rustle of the newspapers littering the floor was almost a lullaby. The mobile phone buzzed, cutting short my plans for a long slumber. ‘Happy Friendship Day!’ the SMS read. Soon to be followed by more buzzing and more SMSes clogged my inbox. Some humourous, others satirical. I hadn’t been watching much of the idiot box for the last few days, so was ignorant of which ‘day’ was up next.

Time and distance alter many a relationship. There was a time in my early youth when I had friends galore, but today I feel that most of the people I know now are mere acquaintances. Where have all my buddies gone? Some lost me and I lost the rest of them. Bygone are the days when we exchanged long handwritten letters always belatedly delivered by the postal department. The e-era was supposed to make the barriers of time and distance wane. But modern technology, which was supposed to make our lives easier and leave us with more free time is in fact eating into whatever spare we had.

Professionalism is eroding our personal traits. Leaving us very lonely in the process. Work hour pressures do not let colleagues to evolve into friends. A few do, but that’s only a few. Perhaps it is also because we have become more selective in making friends. The subconscious might have realised that the affinity between a small closed group is stronger than in a large asymmetric one. Perhaps over the years we have redefined the term, excluding more elements from the set.

Whatever may be the reasons but I didn’t reply to any of the SMSes. Does remembering your friends on a day popularised by the greeting card industry (atleast in India) make you a good friend? I didn’t even remember the day.

Old Friends

– Simon and Garfunkel

Old friends, old friends,
Sat on their parkbench like bookends
A newspaper blown through the grass
Falls on the round toes
of the high shoes of the old friends

Old friends, winter companions, the old men
Lost in their overcoats, waiting for the sun
The sounds of the city sifting through trees
Settles like dust on the shoulders of the old friends

Can you imagine us years from today,
Sharing a parkbench quietly
How terribly strange to be seventy

Old friends, memory brushes the same years,
Silently sharing the same fears

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8 Comments

Where Have My Friends Gone?

  1. quite touchy post. it made me start thinking bout those good old days again. well, we have to accept that. realizing it is a part of growing up. but i dnt agree with ur idea of friendship day. offcourse “remembering your friends on a day popularised by the greeting card industry (atleast in India)” doesn’t make you a good friend but it gives us an occation to remember our long lost friends. dnt u think it’s good?????

  2. soumyadipc,I really like this post. It reminds us of just how important it is to appreciate the fun and enrichment that friends can provide and to try to set-aside time to make new ones, if need be…You should reassess the inconsistency between the title of your blog and the “thought” that you put into your posts. 🙂-etw

  3. BEAUTIFUL!!!i’m going to copy this one and send it out to some of the people i hold dear:)with due credits,though:)

  4. When much younger I was totally into these days.I think the popularity was fast rising when I was in junior college.Years down the line now..I know its really about small things in life..no sending those cards replying to those sms’s don’t really mean anyhting..Damn you had to lose sleep..

  5. Friendship Day… just another day for the businesses to make excessive profits, using emotions such as friendship to their advantage. and, of course, the general public falling for it…

    sigh…

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