Last week my phone rang I heard a distinct voice at the other end, it was Anil. Words and vowels were clipped and sentences well punctuated (even on the phone) and at times loaded with raw British humor – the queen style, huh? You could be from the Queen’s land, but fitting in the landscape of Chennai is not that easy! And that too after spending 8 years in UK.
While moving within India is a big hassle, moving from overseas after a long gap can be overwhelming and stressful. What can make such a big move feel less anxious when you have a gang of friends readily available to plug and play? The ariel view from the aircraft would have shown him a city with a million more vehicles, multitude of flyovers, epidemic of apartments and IT Parks, and interestingly very less billboards, but the view failed to show him his friends and their busy life.
My friend, a doctor by profession, still unpacking his boxes and busy interviewing with city hospitals and caught up in the math and economics that every professional would engage to maximize profit and happiness in life, expected his friends to be ready and available.
He didn’t realize that making friends is a part of the relocation allowance. More than looking for a job, school admission and house in a decent locality it was important for him to re-establish contacts, socialize with lost friends and family. Now his family, including his 5 year old son needed friends to make the move comfortable.….phew…sounds like an extended summer in Chennai.
Some things in life are never plug and play! And it struck me that there is an opportunity for a new business model beyond Facebook and Orkut – broker service to help you find new friends in a new city.
With an air of congeniality, friendship, and warmth Anil rummaged through his closet and tied carton boxes and stored safely in the attic for the telephone book. What was he dusting – was it the box of memories or friendships hidden in them or both? With luxury of time in his hands he went through the telephone book to renew ties from his college days and re-weave his social net in Chennai.
8 years is a long time to for people to outgrow memories and build new friendships and sail ahead in life. But is that same for all friendships and at both ends? But what about friendships where you have been his shoulder when it came to finding love in life, and being emotional sponge and duck-back umbrella for rainy days. Anil called up his closest friend and noticed a excitement on the other end, but it was short and customary.
Anil was always persuasive and he never gave up easily when it came to friendship. Seeing his friend’s behavior he decided to visit his friend and bulldoze him into their life. Anil’s clock stopped the moment he left the country 8 years ago and worked for a few days whenever he made a visit home, but for the others the clock continued to run without a break. Two kids, a beautiful wife, bouquet of professional personal commitments, his friends life was overflowing.
Anil was clinging to the past and halcyon days and he failed to realize that he was bargaining for a footboard ride. He needed them much more than they needed him and was ready to do anything to get back into their life.
Anil felt he needed to thaw the old friendship. He made multiple visits to his friends house, but the response from the other end was lukewarm. This was the guy who shared his desk with him in school and now he was not ready to come and visit him. Culture shock in Chennai? Yes, Anil realized it was 220V back home and not 110 V.
This was the same guy who called him in UK a month ago and welcomed him home and promised to do the same things again in life. But now he was acting weird and at times indifferent. Anil was afraid, anxious and as result the anesthetist lost his sleep over for next few nights and he made one final trip to his friend’s place to validate if this friendship was a one-way street. And if possible he wanted to confront his friend on such a behavior and more than that he wanted to understand if his friend was going through bad times. He wanted to carve a small space, bargain some time, and bring back the same bonding in the friendship. The covalent bond had polarized and turned ionic over the years.
He ended up confronting his friend on the lost intimacy of their friendship. But the reply was short and bitter, “what do you want me to do?” Flabbergasted, he patiently swallowed the surprise, defensive behavior and vaporized saline from his marooned cavity. He called me last weekend and narrated the story….I could sense all the emotion in his voice, and there was silence and it is was not the clichéd chocking, but his hopes were still flying high and not in half mast, “I will always have a seat reserved for him”.
Not all of us end up travelling together in life, and we don’t get to decide who leaves when and who will re-join our journey of life, but can’t we accommodate those who wait outside our steps in search of old friendship, like old wine. Life is always in search of greener and newer pastures.
When a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don't stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven't hoed,
And shout from where I am, What is it?
No, not as there is a time to talk.
I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
Blade-end up and five feet tall,
And plod: I go up to the stone wall
For a friendly visit.
- Robert Frost
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