I am trying, to make friendships survive, through texts that read “how are you” and “how was your day”, through Kitkats that lie in my pocket, through cricket memes, through random questions, because after survival there is beauty. Because maybe someday, I will strike someone’s mind on a random Friday, just like that.
Because friendships don’t need a reason to survive, they just need someone to keep in touch, on random Fridays.
I am not sure who I am trying to do this for, for an emotion, for my friends or for myself but some people are worth the effort of carrying Kitkats in your pocket everyday.
There is a board in my room that has pictures of all my friends with me and text in the centre that reads, “Tere jaisa yaar kahan.” (There is no friend like you.), they are people I share the fondest of memories with, and I am certain that in the next few years, they would become the same; a memory.
A memory, certainly, but not a memory that is kept locked away in some corner of your heart rather a memory that you are glad to be reminded of; a memory that makes you smile; a memory you are happy to have lived through.
Everyone will forget most of their childhood friends one day and also lose contact with them. It will not be a surprise for me if a friend of mine forgets me, our memories are very subjective and what we choose to remember is entirely different from what someone else remembers. Everyone will forget everything but I know someone will remember that they had a friend who asked them if they are doing well on a random Friday and they gave an honest answer to that friend.
And eventually, I think, all of us, even in small parts, no matter what our lives turn out to be, want the same thing. Remembrance. To be remembered on a random Friday, to receive a message from a friend unexpectedly, to cross someone’s memory just like that. To exist in someone else’s mind, just like that
There would be times when you would feel like you have lost a friend, or why you are putting in the effort to keep in touch but then someday a friend would call just because they were missing you, a friend would send a long message saying how much you mean to them and it would make it worth it.
I have realised that the degree of closeness in a friendship can change out of nowhere, it can change when you are making plans to meet that never happen or when a video call is in waiting for four months. But some friendships remain the same, despite, despite everything.
The survival of a friendship, I think, is not a very continuous process, you don’t talk to each other for days but feel a sense of familiarity when you meet again and everything seems like it was; just like that.
I am trying to keep in touch, so that I don’t forget my friends, just like that. I do it without any reason but maybe with some hope that they don’t forget me, just like that.
You know why friendships are beautiful, because they don’t really end, and how can something that is endless be anything but beautiful.
We are in a constant state of waiting. There is a meet up with a friend that will definitely happen once both of us are free, but we are trying to find ways to stay in touch through messages that say, “Let’s meet”, every month.
The truth is I miss my friends, not only when I am away from them, but when I am with them too. I miss them because I realise these are the last moments when we will meet this way. I talk to my friends and realise that we can never speak the way we once spoke to each other, again.
I have made it quite far in the ocean I am swimming in, that of friendship. But water is difficult to hold onto, so I will not let go too soon but I will also not hold on too long.
Soon enough, we will meet and talk like we used to but also soon enough, all of us will move across cities and continents, we will drift apart and contact each other only to wish each other “Happy Birthday” but we will also find our way back to each other because that is what friends do, just like that, on a random Friday.
P.S. – This post is dedicated to all my friends but especially to two friends: one, who was promised a blog dedication and conversations with whom help me have better thoughts and to another, someone I learn a lot from, everyday.
The Thinking Twins 