The Friendship Business

Hello people! Yet another long stretch of no blog entry, I admit. But I am not grumbling about not having sufficient time or thought to scribble about (or perhaps I am). 

So here we are on the first Sunday of August, better known as- International Friendship Day. The day was proposed in Paraguay in 1958 and since then has been creating a great amount of delirium all over. The spirit of the day is refreshing and manages to drown us in the pool of nostalgia and sentimentality. What I recall when I hear 'Friendship Day' is the Fridays and Saturdays prior to the D- day back in primary section when all our minds had to concentrate on were the belts in our bags and on our lower arms. Studies and everything associated with it were absolutely secondary then. I have memories of the well- planned outings meant for purchasing the bands for our so- called friends who would probably be denied oxygen in case we fail to tie a belt around their wrists. Girly chains, fancy belts, decorative stripes, masculine bands and what not! We hardly ever bothered about what would happen to that useless trash before decomposition. I also get reminded of the physical agony we gladly chose to undergo, courtesy: more than a dozen bands clung to the wrists extending towards the elbow.

The joy we experienced in flaunting was magical. The pride we took in moving around with them- immense. And the pleasure we derived out of all that in entirety was simply irreplaceable. 

Be that as it may, now that we are a little more competent, I retrospect upon all those events and pity those who still believe and follow the tradition religiously. The whole idea doesn't please me. On the contrary, a friend would avoid inflicting pain (which he/she is precisely doing by means of that band) in any possible fashion. A friend would genuinely lend a ear when you need to share something. A friend would be a part of your ecstasy and even be the reason of it. A friend would usher you through darkness to the best of his abilities and hope for nothing in return. A great friendship can take years to build up and a single day is just not enough to prove our friendly feelings to anyone. 

Why don't we pause for a while and give this a thought? Over the decades, has our sensibility been so lazy as to not even allow us to think rationally? To all those crazy fellows wasting the time of their lives exchanging belts and cutting cakes and flooding their Facebook/ Twitter/ Instagram profiles with countless snaps, i honestly think you should 'grow up' in real sense.

 Having a few quality friends, with unsaid promises that they will be there for you no matter what, is going to add more substance to your life than congregating "likes" of total strangers and gaining their adoration.