Unique Bond of Friendship

By Dr. Jyoti Patil

It’s really highly surprising to find such a close-knit, selfless and intimate bond of friendship in today’s highly practical world where everything is done in such a calculated manner to get the optimum benefit out of any connections or relations you intend to nurture. In such practical world today loyalties, integrities and almost all the relations whether named or unnamed are subject to rapid changes that too, not for the better but for the worse.

But if you find in such a filthy mire of sticky relations, a relationship which is pure, serene and lasting and moreover strong, selfless and without any expectations, your  first reaction will be an expression of surprise, a feeling of disbelief. 

It was really a soothing and pleasantly surprising experience for me that day when I decided to have an informal chat with a well-known senior citizen who happened to be a devout freedom fighter during the British Raj, as I intended to write an article on him. I took his appointment to talk to him in detail about his personal and public life. Apart from all the details since his childhood reminiscences, he emotionally traced and traversed everything which he felt important in his life. But he unintentionally skipped one very important thing which seemed to him not worth mentioning as that is a part of his daily life even today. Luckily his lovable daughter-in-law who happened to be his ardent fan came to serve me some eatables. She pointed out that special feature of his life that is his routine every Sunday since 40 years. 

It was that unique friendship which this extremely polite and generous old man is still nurturing. It is a group of some 18 to 20 members. They started meeting every Sunday to continue their old relationship since the days of partition. They passed through every phase of good and bad times during these years but their friendship group remained unscathed and unbroken. This was a unique way of spending their Sundays by holding a get-together to commemorate their bygone days when they were forced to leave all their movable and immovable property behind to migrate to partitioned India. It was an absolutely painful, horrible and traumatic experience for them to see massacre of Muslims by Hindus and Hindus by Muslims in a fit of mob frenzy. The situation was so tense that they could not think of anything else except saving their lives but even in that situation they helped each other. When they landed safely in India, they started settling down with each others help. 

They did not forget their days of uncertainties and turmoil. To keep their bond of friendship intact they decided to meet on regular basis come what may. They decided to meet on every Sunday at the residence of one of the members of this unique group with alphabetical order of their names. It is a get together followed by a dinner party in which everything is prepared at home, from an appetizer to the sweets served at the end.  The unique feature of this meeting is that the male members (specially sons and grandsons) of the member who is arranging the meeting that Sunday will arrange and serve in the party. Female members are relieved from serving. And it used to be a big occasion when a member’s turn comes to hold this unique get together. 

Now only 16 members are left as other members have joined the heavenly abode to continue their ethereal friendship in paradise. The remaining members never fail to congregate at the pre-decided venue and on the stipulated date to continue their unique bond of friendship until they are here. It is true that true friend ship is a plant of slow growth and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation. 

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(Article for Middle Space, Published on 3rd Nov.2008)