Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot...

A door opens and closes on the fifth floor of a flat in South Bombay. A simple two-word SMS saying-‘See ya.’ A handshake at Hazrat Nizamuddin station on a hot summer morning. Sometimes you can tell. That exact moment when you lose a friend. It might have begun earlier. But there is always a point at which you know that however bad matters might have been before, now there is no going back.

It hurts. Whatever the reason may be, even if it is not your fault, even if the person in question is clearly responsible and you have reached the limit of how much you can take, you always remember better times. The laughter, the banter, the memories you shared and how they made up such an essential part of you. And when they go, that part goes with them and makes you suddenly feel incomplete. ‘Then why do things go so wrong?’-you ask, ‘How can people so special and so integral to your existence manage to drift so far apart from you?’ Those are difficult questions to answer…and painful ones. But, as with everything else in life, people change. Perceptions change…and so do realities. The sad part is that you never notice these changes initially. You cling on to an image that has ceased to be true. And then that image grows until it overshadows the reality or replaces it completely. Both of you wonder how the other is so different now and why they act in a manner that you would never expect of them. When problems arise, there is a chance for redemption. Yet too often you never take this chance-simply because it is too frightening to acknowledge that those problems actually exist. Yet again, sometimes you just do not want to go back. So when somebody asks you what is wrong, you reply that nothing is. And turn around and walk away. Into the sunset…


I have had awesome friends. All my life. And I do not deserve them. In fact, my friends (and family) have been the reason why I have been able to manage my life till date. Every time something has gone wrong, I have run to them for help and they have been magnificient. Whether it is getting hold of a textbook they have never heard of just because I needed it for a competitive examination or running about with me to every college in town the week before university examinations or just listening to my drivel on the phone for hours at a time even with an important exam looming the next day, they have gone through all this and more without a word of complaint. And with absolutely no resentment either at being taken so blatantly for granted by me.

This one is to all the friends I have lost. Thank you. I was fortunate to have had each and every one of you as a friend. And if I lost you, it was not your fault in any way whatsoever, but entirely due to my own shortcomings. The same ones with which you put up time after time. To someone who grew up with me through my seven happiest years in school. I still cannot believe that we have drifted apart…and I could never fathom why. To an old friend who I lost once…and regained-because our magic was such that after months of not talking to each other, a message was all it took to bring us together over coffee and then to promptly agree to leave the past behind. Hanging out so much with you over the last seven months was one of the best things that ever happened to me. And now that it has come to an end, I miss those months terribly. To someone whose imminent departure moved me to tears for the first time in twelve years. I am sorry that I have failed you thus. To others too numerous to name, but who ‘I have loved long since and lost awhile.’


Thankfully there are still people who patiently put up with my many failings. And I am still fortunate enough to meet wonderful people who become great friends. This is to all the friends I have. I am an ungrateful wretch, but for once, I do realise how lucky I am to have all of you in my life. Thank you. To someone who forsook all traces of ego to reach out to save a friend she had known barely a week. Who continues to go far beyond what anyone else would to affirm our friendship every time any hint of trouble appears or we seem to be drifting apart. You are my one island of sanity in a crazy world-a place where I can always get my bearings right. To quote you-‘because you care, because you worry, because you love, because you keep in touch, because you are you…and you help me be me.’ To someone who was friendly enough to scrap a person she had spoken to only on the phone once…and now keeps becoming more and more special everyday. To someone who has calmly ignored multitudes of jokes and aspersions which become less funny and more tasteless with each passing day to become my very own ‘bridge over troubled water’. To my roommate who has quietly been there throughout these four years of college, never refusing anything that I asked of him and never hesitating to voice opinions and truths that were unpalatable if he thought that I needed to hear them. To all my other friends and colleagues without whom my life would have been much less special and enjoyable.

‘Heart-smitten with emotion I sink down,
My heart recovering with covered eyes;
Wherever I had looked I had looked upon
My permanent or impermanent images…
And I am in despair that time may bring,
Approved patterns of women or of men
But not that selfsame excellence again…
You that would judge me, do not judge alone
This book or that, come to this hallowed place
Where my friends' portraits hang and look thereon;
My history in their lineaments trace;
Think where man's glory most begins and ends,
And say my glory was I had such friends.’

(W.B. Yeats-The Municipal Gallery Revisited)

Eloquent lines…and never did they hold as much meaning as they do when used to describe the remarkable men and women I have been fortunate enough to have had as friends.