Meaning of friendship

कोई गर जो मुझ से पूछे

क्या हासिल किया ज़िन्दगी में,

मैं कहूँगा कि ए दोस्त

आखिर कोई पूछने वाला तो मिला

I wrote the above lines some years ago. The inherent feeling of these lines may be sad, but there is some hope in them. When you have lost everything, you are totally down and you do not know which direction you are headed to; then if someone asks you how you have been, it feels like a new hope: “there is at least one person who cares for you”. It is this hope, which is the real achievement of life. When I wrote this, I did not realize I have addressed that person as a ‘dost’, a friend. Now when I rethink, a friend seems to be an obvious choice. Who else will ask you such a sincere question without any expectations?

Like any other relationship, friendship is also not sans any expectations. It happens to you with a purpose to fulfill your need to find a companion. You do not want to keep everything inside you. At the same time, you cannot share yourself with everyone. Therefore, you need friends with whom you can share the inside of you. And this sharing is mostly mutual and natural.

Friendship can have different meanings. It can be a relationship with the feelings of trust and understanding or it can be just the way you spend your time with someone and be occupied. That also is the case for romantic relationships. What makes friendship so special then? It is the qualities of purity and unconditionality attached with friendship, which make it special. Friendship means freedom, friendship means being natural. Being natural is the most natural way of friendship. You ought to accept a friend the way he or she is. That is the essence of friendship.

Over the time, you start filtering your friends on the sieve of trust and unconditionality. That is the reason, the number of your friends start diminishing over the time. After the filtering, the very few friends that remain are the real treasure you will have. This number, if you are being honest, will not be big, may be two percent of the friends you have on social networks or may be just one or two. These are the friends with whom you can be natural forever. You will wish to spend time with them, may be virtually if not possible bodily, without any reason. You can be yourself and let him or her remain the way he or she is. This kind of freedom is not there even in the romantic or parental relationships, which are laden with expectations, unless you maintain those relationships with a touch of friendship.

Consider yourself blessed if you have at least one such friend!