It is impossible to imagine life without friends, for without them, life would be meaningless. Friends play a major role in our lives. Everyone would perhaps agree with me that good friends make our lives richer. Our family may have the biggest influence on our lives but perhaps there can't be a better teacher in life than friendship. Among all other things, it is our friends who teach us how to build relationships with other people. I consider myself really lucky to be blessed with some really good friends, who have always stood by me, both during my good times as well as during my bad times. No matter how old we get, but close friends remain dear to us all through our life, they are people we can always count on. In one way or the other, our closest friends would have surely had some positive influence on our lives. I feel lucky to have got one such friend in Pramod. We have been friends since our school days. He is one such friend who truly cares for me. He has always stayed with me through thick and thin and even when he isn't physically present, he has always extended his moral support whenever I have needed him. I have lost count of the number of times when he has steadied me just as I was about to stumble. I remember how demoralized I had become when I couldn't clear the Medical entrance examination. I had sort of locked myself up in a cocoon and had lost all zeal for life. It was he who motivated me and helped me rise up again. I can never thank him enough. Thus even a few minutes spent with him gives me a lifetime of wonderful memories.
But unfortunately as we get older, we get so bogged down by various responsibilities and duties and life gets so busier that we no longer find time to even meet our old friends as we once used to do. Sometimes we get so entangled with our familial responsibilities that we fail to even make calls to our friends as often. Thus gradually the number of calls and meetings start diminishing and before we know, we get somewhat distanced away from our friends. However this isn't exactly inevitable, rather it can be prevented.
When we are in the company of an old friend, even a mundane activity seems so exciting and every meeting becomes a memorable one. I had one such recent experience when I had gone to my native place for a few days. Ever since we moved to different cities for professional reasons some seven years back, I hadn't met Pramod, though we used to catch up on each other on social networks and through occasional phone calls. But this time, to our luck, both of us were in our native city at the same time. Pramod too had come on a vacation to meet his family. Thus when we got to know about each other's presence in the city, we didn't need any invitation to meet each other at the earliest.
It is said that there are two types of friends in life - the kind that makes us feel like it has changed over time, and the second kind being the one which makes us feel like nothing has changed even after so many years of remaining away from each other. Pramod belongs to the second category. Even though we were meeting each other after seven long years, but time couldn't affect our friendship. We had decided to visit our old meeting point - our college canteen, where we used to spend our leisure time laughing, gossiping and chatting inconsequential matters that had no relevance. Though a whole lot had changed about the place over the years but when we sat down across the farthest corner table to have the regular Raghu chai, the old memories started flashing before our eyes, the things we did back then, how we used to have so much of fun, how we used to sometimes bunk the lectures and instead would go for movies and when we used to get caught, how we used to cover for each other before our teachers and parents, how we used to comfort each other on being chided by our parents for not scoring enough marks in exams and how we used to sometimes cycle all the way to Dhauli to sit on the banks of river Daya, just to watch the sun set. That is exactly what we again did that day. Though we couldn't find cycles (moreover, given our age, we wouldn't have probably managed to reach Dhauli by cycles), but we rode on our bikes to the Daya river and spent a good long minutes on the river bank watching the sunset and clicking photos. While returning back, we also stopped by Raghu bhaina's dahi bara alu dum shop and ate to our heart's content as we used to do during our younger days. Any day spent with Pramod is special for me but this day had something extra-special in it, in that for a few moments, we let go of all inhibitions and felt like we had once again become little kids. I wish the day hadn't ended at all. Sadly we couldn't spend another day together as he had his return flight to catch to go back to the United States. But I am sure time will bless with more such together moments in the future as well and our friendship shall remain as strong as ever. That day we created some truly golden memories to last a lifetime!
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(This has been written for "Being Together" for Housing.com. Visit their website www.housing.com to know more about them)
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