This post is about my friends.
The reason for me writing this post is one of my very best friends. This particular friend told me a few days back that she would read my blogs / articles in an expectation that if I have written anything about her / our friends group. I was like “naan avlo ellam worth illai di” and “innuma nammala indha ulagam nambudhu”. I actually was thrilled hearing it. Then I got an idea to write this article about my friends.
My earliest first ever memory about a friend is: In pre-KG, the teacher asked us all the kids to stand in a horizontal line. My (then a few days old) friend was two kids away from me. So I just went and stood beside her and in turn got a cuff on my head from the teacher 😐. The teacher must have made us stand in a height order (so I was the first one in the queue 😂) and I had no idea about it. The girl I went and stood beside is still my close friend. Our friendship grew with us strongly.
Cousins are our first friends. That way, I have a very special friend. We used to write letters to each other in our childhood and we cannot wait for the aaholidays to meet. Whenever we meet, we used to have a gala time. We cherish those memories whenever we speak now.
I think 80s kids are the last generation who lost their friends contacts, as those were land line days. I too had lost my college besties contacts for a few years. But thanks to FB, through a common friend, I found my college besties one by one. We are four of us and from then we are in constant touch with each other. Our audio calls last for a minimum 45 mins and our next group video call is still pending.
My ex-colleagues, we are a group of four. We try to meet at least once in a year. Though we get only a few hours when we meet, we never miss a second without talking & laughing. Last summer we had some meeting plans, but corona overrode everything. I wish at least next year, our plan succeeds.
The beauty of friendships is that we can resume it at any time, no matter how many years we lost the contact. I realised it, when one of my friends (a close ex-colleague), visited me after years as she had come to Coimbatore for personal reasons. I sometimes ping or some of my friends ping me, after a very long period, on some fine day. And we used to start chatting from where we left years before. Such days are very precious. 😇
Some good friendships start with neighbors. I too have a few neighbors especially in Chennai & also here and my daughter’s friend’s mothers as friends. These friendships will not break, even if any of us shift from the place, because they become family friends. I have few very best friends who were / are my neighbors. These friends are my daily dose of energy as I am very much in touch, everyday or every other day.
Best conversations with years old friendships will have these “appollam naama”, “hey, do you remember?”, “oh is it? I totally forgot”, “those were the best days” and a lot of smiles & laughs. And whatsapp chats are the best with friends. They rarely happen, but when it starts, it is never a short chat, it goes on for longer hours.
I am an introvert in general but an extrovert among friends. When I look back, I have had friends in every stage of my life. As I have just rounded my thirties, I have quite a few friendships that are a few decades older.
Friends! They understand, they encourage, they appreciate, they advice and more than anything else they listen. They laugh with you and at you as well 😂. We discuss anything and everything under the sun, from family, life, entertainment, enlightenment, silly stuffs and of course, gossips.
East or West.
Women - Women friendships are best.
