The Friends List

The Friends List

         How many friends you have on facebook? A simple question from my daughter hit me. Six hundred and seventy three and growing was my reply. She shrugged, was blunt in saying it should by now have crossed one thousand since you have been in the teaching field for more than 19 years. True, but I know there is no effort from my side. I just accept the request and rarely send. Most are my students, so I prefer to wait for them to want me on the list rather than encroaching upon their space. I am content and happy about my list that interestingly does not have some of my closest friends for they are not on facebook and those who joined, are not active. Almost all are my students, they are my friends as well, and I am very much happy about it.

        My social networking ventures started with Orkut which I reluctantly joined. It was Vikas Jha who insisted that I should be there. My feeling was, it’s a space where students would be expressing freely, and my presence would either restrict their free space or make me uncomfortable. But he persisted, finally I was on Orkut, he posted first scrap. Soon many more joined. Then facebook came and Orkut became obsolete. My activity was limited to accepting friend requests, replying messages, rarely I updated my status but friends’ list swell with addition almost every day. The most pleasant part being I could connect with students who passed out more than six-seven years back and was totally cut off with them.

        I just find it hard not to compare with my college days. Then there were no cell phones, no emails, no social networking. Now it is really easy to connect to friend, update about status, send message not just to one but to many more at a time. The invention of new English, new words like ‘u’, ‘gr8’…. , less rules, it has become easy to communicate. The thrust is on what we want to convey, not on minute details. With fewer options we spent hours discussing, chatting whenever we met. After passing out the lethargy in writing letter killed many a relations. All classmates of engineering, college went in chosen directions, different, diverse and in this world with me at Chandrapur, almost little chance of crossing along, many friends remained only in memories.

  On the other side I kept myself with a small group in engineering. We enjoyed everything, ‘watching birds old and new’, gossip, discussion on all kinds of topics. Latest movies, political discussion which used to be fierce given our different but strong opinions and ideological inclinations, emotional sharing on heartbreak, ECG of others, optimistic glances on the ‘Latest….. and the …… oldest’, all this was part of friendship. There also were clash of egos, misunderstanding leading to cracks in friends. Some fortunately got sealed others remained without patch up. After passing out with not many easier options many failed to survive. In future if some are destined to cross surely a spark will be there to ignite but then that will be the test of relations. Whether it succeeds in igniting the passion will ultimately depend upon the unseen, dormant warmth left in between when all these years passed by.

      Nevertheless those survived the test of time matured a great deal and some new relations were built and are now part of enriched relational sphere. The social networking sites helped to get connected to students who are my friends on my facebook account. The big list is always a matter of pride and a kind of satisfaction but some very close relations sustained without these sites. It is now easy to make friends. You can easily get in regular touch, exchange mails, share emotions, update status, all help in building relations. Lucky…. we all.

        The friends list was on my mind. I was reading a story in the times of India (11/01/2012) of a girl from Nagpur. She failed in exams couple of times; she had an altercation with parents, a scene not very much new to her. That day it was little more  fierce. She immediately shared it with her close friend. She went her home. Stayed there, decided to come back home but her friend wanted her to stay at her home but she left. On her way she got a call from friend that her (friend’s) mother wanted to talk to her. She went back. She was consoled by mother and given a proposal to go to a place in other state with her for couple of days. She agreed and went. Her nightmare started, she was abused and an attempt was made to push her in flesh trade but the relentless efforts from her brother rescued her. In all these dirty designs her friend was an accomplice. She did not divulge any information to her brother rather kept culprits in loop about his efforts. A shocking story of a girl leaving home, that went horribly wrong. Her so called close friend betrayed her. How terribly she misread her intentions? How difficult it really is to read people? She confided with friend about her problems but the friend thrown her to wolves. How can she make friend like this? 

         My mind forced me  to revisit the idea of a friend. Who is a friend? Any difference between an acquaintance and a friend? Knowing.. dose it mean having a friendship? How will one define friendship? It simply cannot be defined. This disturbing story apart it is a wonderful relation that defies everything age, gender, caste, religion… the only condition, we must feel it, understand it, realize what it meant to be a friend. The more we feel, deeper we think, better we understand, the difficult we find to have a friend and become one, a true well wisher, with no open demands, no hidden interests, just pure sense of well being and selflessness. How to find such true friend? No one can, these are the relations that evolve over the time, mature through sharing, help and understanding. The most interesting thing about this undefined relation is if it exists between any two blood relations or family relations or professional relations or simply any two relations then those relations blossom. Father being a great friend of children…. And so on.

       The friendship is always based on mutual trust, a belief that he/she can understand me. A student of mine who is in regular touch with me, once  called, in the following discussion he referred to another student working in IT sector. Both are in regular contact, the common platform being love for debate. He just remarked that it has been days since they had any discussion. He did call the friend but did not get reply, not then and afterwards as well. He then directly questioned the intentions. He was hurt that there was no response from the friend and that he suspected that being intentional. He was doubtful of the friendship that was more than four years old, with all good, funny and wonderful experiences.

       I told him that this was the test of your friendship. If you have any doubt that the friend is acting like this with bad intent then you were never friends. You must have strong belief that the friend could not find time to talk to you or might have missed it inadvertently. As a friend you must have that much of faith. In friendship it is not important how many times you meet, how much you talk but a strong feel of bonding in spite of not meeting and talking. That belongingness, faith and mutual trust are basic elements of friendship. You suspect the intentions and allow misunderstanding to encroach, the friendship will decline leading to unfortunate demise. Just a call not returned can create rift then that is not friendship. Have faith, don’t fall prey to misunderstanding and kill the friendship. The test of time is this. If it survives situations like this then it will mature else it will get a decent burial for which you then will not be responsible. A small, unintentional response can induce distrust and we find friends parting ways.

      The problem is simple we are not ready to understand what this relationship expects. We don’t allow it to mature, we burden it with loads of expectations but actually it is never about expecting, it is always about believing, having faith. We expect, then suspect, conclude and finally pay the price by losing a friend. Becoming a friend and having one is not an easy task but then this also puts to question whether the social networking sites are trivializing this wonderful relation. We just go on adding friends, request for friendships, share status and what not. We make friends without any idea of possibility of the relations maturing to higher level. Is it that we are not really interested in serious friendship? Are these relations inherently casual with no possibility of blossoming?

       It definitely is a wrong way of looking at a great opportunity thrown by these sites. The difficulty is not with social networking but with our way of understanding friendship. We fail to understand the boundary conditions within which it must be allowed to mature. We fail to quell the slightest of provocations that come out of misunderstanding. I feel fortunate that some of my students are very good friends of mine. I am glad that we collectively maintained the limits of student- teacher relationship and succeeded in maturing the friendship. I must admit with great pleasure that facebook has thrown many possibilities of some relations developing in to friendship. The social networking sites provide us a chance to remain in contact, share, exchange but without learning to become a friend and have one, it is just an acquaintance not friendship.

If only we value and mature as a friend the friends list is of significance else har ek friend jaroori hota hai is just a hollow advertisement.