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Friends are like angels, helping, guiding, guarding, encouraging in different ways. They help us tide through our trial and tribulations. Life is like a stream. When we start we have speed, rush, force and less depth. We are in a hurry like a small steep stream gushing from the mountains. Then, we gain momentum when we become strong, encompassing and enforcing like the deep and big river that flows through towards the seas, washing all that comes in its way. Next is when it is the time to meet the seas. It broadens and moves with grace and honour. Then the ultimate oneness with the sea, where our individual existence cannot be separated. Susmita looks back in gratitude, and thanks, friends, candidly, exclusively for Different Truths.
I have learned many definitions of the word, friend, at different times in my life. My first friend, as I remember with delight, was the vivid memory of ‘Ma’am’. Yes, a sweet nickname that I still remember dancing, eating, outing and sharing almost everything with when I was around 4-year-old when we were staying in Venezuela, South America.
The next stage of life brought me to Kolkata, India, into our then joint and slightly orthodox Bengali family but my father and mother were trying to be liberal with us. We shifted two schools within two years for accommodating girls, who knew basically English and Spanish but nothing about Indian languages. Then a more stable environment at St. Joseph & Mary’s School (our second one) gave friends in abundance. The friends I used to travel with, daily on the local trains, the ones I used to fight with in the class to show dominance, the friend I used to compete with to be the top student, the friend I used to share my tiffin with… different situations gave various definitions of friend to me.
Then I matured into college level and moved to Vashi, Maharashtra. My sense of friendship now was getting clearer. My two dear friends taught me confidence and self-worth and held my hand through adolescence and right through my arranged marriage.
Slowly, I turned my loyalty of friendship to my best friend, my husband. He started meaning everything because I shared everything with him – my mind, body and soul. He treated me with love, care, and protection. He is the friend I would follow from now on and if he stumbled I would show him the right way. It is a very strong bond that will last till the very end.
My other two besties, who were around all throughout but I never felt connected as friends, came to my realisation, when I became a mother myself. Yes, my mother and my elder sister. As my life took twists and turns, I added two more good friends, who would listen and follow me, my sons. Today, my elder son is a good friend, whom I know well but the younger knows me well.
My mother is my strength as a friend. She guided me through the storms of my life. My sister, an icon of strength, is a dear friend. At every stage of life, I am indebted to each of my friends, who are still there for me, through rain and shine.
Friends are like angels, helping, guiding, guarding, encouraging in different ways. Some relations cannot be called friends. They are beyond this word. I wouldn’t name them, but each one knows the part they have played in my life. My heartfelt gratitude to all of them.
Life is like a stream. When we start we have speed, rush, force and less depth. We are in a hurry like a small steep stream gushing from the mountains. Then, we gain momentum when we become strong, encompassing and enforcing like the deep and big river that flows through towards the seas, washing all that comes in its way. Next is when it is the time to meet the seas. It broadens and moves with grace and honour. Then the ultimate oneness with the sea, where our individual existence cannot be separated.
Today, I am grateful to all my friends for being my ‘friend’ and for teaching and showing me through the thick and the thin of my life.
©Susmita Bhattacharya
Photos from the internet.
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