A few years ago, I became good friends with a [now ex-]
colleague of mine. The gentleman was somewhat of a “charming rogue”, at least
as far as first impressions go. We were working in the same company & project—in
fact, I was a member of his team—& before long, we became good friends [I repeat
the phrase from my opening sentence, because this particular phrase holds a great deal of importance to me].
We were friends for almost two-&-a-half years, during
which we experienced, & shared, a lot of things. I considered him, &
still do, one of the best IDs I have ever met [but then, I’d say that I’m
probably among the bottom 3-4%]. He was not merely charming, but quite intelligent,
& could hold up his end of an intelligent conversation for long. He was
quick-witted & glib, if slightly of the Aunty Acid type.
Over the next couple of years, our interactions &
intimacy grew. He survived a bad separation from his girlfriend of 8 years;
lost his job [I remember trying to canvass for him & being snubbed by the
powers-that-be; in fact, I was his replacement!] while I survived nearly 3
years of that impossible place; sat me down at his 1-BHK pad in Mumbai for an
all-night talkathon, during which, over endlessly-flowing rum [which he drank]
& Coke [which I drank], he gave me tips on how to avoid a pretty-but-nagging,
clingy, & harboring-impossible-romantic-hopes-about-me colleague [“Her
motto is: First we make fraaands, then we make baaabiesss!” still cracks me up
when I think of that night & of him] as well as on how to appease my wife,
with whom I’d been having a series of fights…yes, he was a good friend to have.
And then, he went away.
It so happened that soon after the aforementioned break-up,
he acquired a “hot new piece of a$$” [his words, not mine] who had joined the
organization where we worked. The relationship grew at a rapid pace, & before
long, the girl, otherwise known to be fairly good at her job, started neglecting
her work [he'd already been doing it for quite sometime]. What got my goat was that she, for no apparent reason, was
always after him to end his friendship with me. However,
he did not pay heed to her.
He left Mumbai & went back to his old company in Pune, taking
his new girlfriend with him. Soon after this, my sister joined the
organization, & I asked him to “keep an eye on her, guide her in terms of
work—& life, as need be…generally, be her brother/friend/mentor.” He agreed.
Strangely, my sister & my friend’s fiancée bonded fairly
well, & she bonded with my friend too…until one day when they invited her
for dinner & didn’t serve anything to eat until about 1 at night, when my
friend’s fiancée cooked up some sandwiches that disagreed with my poor sister
so badly that she landed up at the hospital for a day.
That incident upset me, but it didn’t exactly send me to the
orbit. Shortly after this, however, another incident did.
I was having an email conversation with my sister & inadvertently
Cc-ed my friend. My sister, while replying, hit the ‘Reply-All’ button by
mistake, so her response went to him as well. Ideally, he should have kept
quiet [that would have given him an opportunity to have a laugh at the two
of us later, & no one would have minded], but he chose to respond with an unnecessarily sarcastic &
derogatory reply. What’s more, he Cc-ed his fiancée, & she in turn, having
read through the entire conversation, replied with an even uglier &
downright insulting comment directed at my family. Despite my first protest,
she persisted.
That made me go ballistic. I told my sister to step aside,
removed the churlish girl [my friend’s fiancée] from the list of recipients,
& flew at the guy. I mean, I just flew at him, with all the
guns that I could find lying around blazing away on full automatic. At first,
he tried to brave it out, but quickly realized that I was in no mood to relent.
I gave it to him right then there, over a series of emails, & by the end,
he was begging me to stop & crying for truce.
I told him: “Dude, we’ve been friends for so many years,
& discussed so many things. There have been numerous occasions when certain
things that you, or your girlfriend, told me could have been construed as
downright offensive. But did I take offense? No. that’s because I knew where
you coming from. So now, instead of trying to put up a brave front & cover
up a blatant mistake, the least you can do is take a step back, sit down for a
minute, & think why I am saying what I am saying!!!”
The guy stopped in his tracks. In halting tones, he asked
me: “So would you still be interested in attending my marriage, after all this?”
I replied: “Why not? What have you or I done to change that? We are still
friends, aren’t we? You only have to tell me the date and the venue, & I’ll
be there as promised.”
A couple of months after this, my friend called me up to
tell me that the marriage date had been fixed & that he would email me the
details soon. I told him that I would be waiting.
The invite never came. I came to know of the marriage date a
few days before it took place from another colleague, who gloated over the fact
that someone who I had claimed would name me as one of the first invitees had not
invited me, after all. I knew the real reason behind this snub, of course,
& stayed silent.
That was the day when we parted ways, that friend of mine
& me, never [yet] to get back. It is not that I miss him, it is just that I
remember the series of good moments we shared, & how one bad moment that
was not my fault in any way made him move away. Good riddance, you say? I don’t
know.
And I can foresee history repeating itself. This time, the
wounds are going to be deeper, so deep that no ointment is going to heal them; the
scars are going to be wider, so wide that no thread of time can stitch them together.
Because this time, it is not just a “good friend” or even a “very good friend” I
will lose, but someone who endorsed my claim when I said that we were “not
merely BFFs, but soulmates for all eternity without being lovers”.
On the previous occasion, I lost a friend because I stood up
for my rights; this time, I will lose another for reaching out to U for help,
Coco.
Yes, My Friend, I needed your help. I had voiced my concern
some time ago, if U remember. I had told U that for the first time in our
friendship, I am facing problems, & they concern U. I wish U had paid a
little more heed to my words than the usual lip service that I usually get. I wish
U had taken that all-important step back, sat down, & pondered over my
statement. I wish U had defended me, on stupid social networking sites, as
vociferously & as readily as U defend your other friends, some of whom
[rather ironically] U met through me. I wish U could spare for me a thousandth
of the time that U spend with others. I wish U had reached out, even once in a
while, placed your hand on my wrist, & told me: “Yes, I know that a lot of
things are not going right in your world, or as well as they should go, but
remember that I am Constant, as steady as the Pole Star, as unvarying as Life
itself, in your life. Do not worry about me, my Friend, for I will be there for
you even after we both stop breathing.” That is all I needed to hear. Not every
moment, not every day, but once in a while. That is all that was needed to heal
me, cure me of my fears & my insecurities. That is all.
That is all.
