First Sunday of August is celebrated as Friendship’s day every year. You don’t need a date or a festival to celebrate friendship because friendship is such a poignant relationship that every day feels like a celebration when you are amongst your friends. Friendship is timeless and free. The vibrancy of this bond is hard to put into words. Confining it within the walls of dates, festivals and rules steals the innocent charm from its magic. Doesn’t it?

However, in this 21st century, fast-paced and hectic world, sometimes we forget to say that – “I love you”/ “I miss you”/ “ I am glad that you are there” to friends when you need to say it. Once that moment passes, it is gone and then you wait for another such moment to come. If you are lucky then that moment may come to you in a matter of hours or maybe months but what if it never comes?

Hence, we have Friendship’s day. To give us the opportunity to forgive and forget, to laugh and enjoy with people who have touched your lives in some way or the other.

I have one such friend who I want to reach out to.

It all started within the four walls of a classroom in Ramniranjan Podar School which happened to be over-populated with boys. The girls flocked together to show their effective strength in the class. Among these girls was that sweet little nymph who sat next to me not knowing that one day we would be two inseparable souls. It’s odd when I think about it in hindsight because it was her broken friendship with another girl that gave birth to a new bond. In those moments of despair we held on. Eventually, that gloom was just an excuse for us crazy gals to be with each other. From then on, the laughter riot was unstoppable.

Hand in hand we did our mischief. Giggling and chatting away during Physics lectures, singing stupid jokes, whacking each other behinds till they were burning red, gossiping about our crushes and others, being bullied together and standing up for each other, breaking beakers and test tubes during Practicals, tickling the daylights out of each other and oh those long phone conversations…! Our class teacher was so fed up that she made us sit at separate ends of the long bench and still somehow we managed a way to sneak in that giggle and stole glances at each other. “Prachieeeeee.. keep the phone down, will you?!”, my mom used to yell. There is all this and much more. Just thinking about these moments makes my hands go cold. I never knew that I could miss a person so much.

Life moves on and each one of us has our roads to travel. Her road took her to Noida and eventually her family moved out of the city. She may have moved out of the city but never managed to move out of my heart. There is this tiny space in my heart that is reserved for her. We learned to live without each other. From talking almost every alternate hour to talking once in months, it wasn’t easy. Not for her, not for me. It’s not that I don’t miss her. In fact, I miss her so much that it hurts to even say that. She is happy and that’s all I need to know.

Sometimes, the wind echoes the sound of her voice – “Pingu!” but then maybe, it’s just a figment of my imagination. Those memories are safely locked in the closet of my heart. Sitting by the window, I just close my eyes and it all comes back to life. Her giggle resounds.

She’ll always be that little girl, my baccha and today on Friendship’s Day, I just want to say.

I LOVE YOU.

Happy Friendship’s Day, Kachaloo.

Khhursi par baithe..

Chuppi hum nibhayein..

Kuch na kaho tum..

Hum bhi hain khamoshi mein gum.

Tum paas na ho ke bhi..

Ho humare saath..

Aisa ajab hain humari dosti ka ehsaas.

Muskurahaton mein chhupe the woh labz..

Jo hum kabhi na keh sakein..

Darr lagta hai yeh sochke –

Kya ho gaya hain humein..

Bin tumhare ab hum lagte hain kuch adhure..

Haath thamein rakhna, oh yaar..

Zindagi bhar nibhayengein hum

Woh dosti wala pyaar.