Friendship, by definition, is nothing actually. It’s just a sense of togetherness or a feeling of companionship. In the four years at MANIT, I’ve had numerous experiences (by myself or by seeing others) that there’s no criterion of friendship. And if there’s no criterion, it’s weird to define it. Two of them can be as distinct as nothing in common, different tastes, different lifestyles, ethics, ambitions, culture. What really binds them is out of my scope of understanding, and probably for this reason, I call friendship as an attribute of life, something that every living creature possesses, like that of a maternal love.
Just browsing over my friends’ list at orkut, were these weird thoughts browsing in my mind. With every profile, I could remember some old memories attached with that person, how had our friendship been, and what it is today. Some are with me right now, but many are not. Some were added to me long before, and some are recent. Some good friends, some acquaintances, and some even ‘haven’t met’ types. There were those whom I’ve added and wanted to be in touch always, but probably couldn’t, may be due to the changing phases that come in every friendship. This is something that actually shouldn’t happen as we’ve always read and said-“distance doesn’t matter in friendship”, but we don’t believe, infact can’t believe, because somewhere deep inside everyone knows that distances do make us apart. What is left is formality.
Then, there were friends whom I used to talk a lot online, but could see them pass by without saying even a ‘hi’. That was a kind of hypocrisy, or escapism. But none can be blamed. Then there were some, who I always wanted to be friends but didn’t have any guts to even speak to, and the best I could do to make myself happy is that send them a friend’s request and wait for their move. Some had been removed deliberately because of the indifference or from the irritation of not being in touch due to their low presence orkut. To some, I wanted to write a testimonial to express how good and important they are to me, and hope the same in future.
These aren’t just the feelings that one has regarding ‘orkut friends’, but it applies even in our lives. Orkut is a way we can recognize and distinguish those feelings with different people we meet, we come across and those who fill the empty spaces in our lives, share our happiness and sorrows, and make a good friendship.
With this blog, I don’t want to appreciate orkut (still can’t deny its role), but just want to express that friendship isn’t about being good friends, it’s in a broader sense, a relation with each and every person that plays an important role in the drama called ‘life’.
