Bonding & Cementing A Friendship

Don’t forget to smell the roses while there’s still some summer

Bonding over shopping, a game, a walk, a French lesson, just about anything cements a relationship with that special connection which a forced social introduction can never do. 

We all know it all. But something about metros gets us inhibited. It’s not the sophiscate urbane thing to bond without a social interaction, beyond barriers and ‘classes’.

I may not be able to recognise an lbw if it is served to me on a platter or be able to converse too educatedly on the nature of the 'pitch' or other finer technicalities of seaming but I absolutely love cricket-matches. Not only for the fantastic sport, but that the matches present a bonhomous panorama of people bonding across such divisive barriers.

I never saw it more clearly than at the recent world-cup win! For one heart stopping minute the entire country unified in one gargantuan celebratory party. One massive wave of bonding like no other. Total strangers hugged each other in euphoric bonhomie. Everyone rushed to the streets, from the urchin to Abhishek Bachan to Sonia Gandhi. 

Joy pervaded the air one breathed. Love, brotherhood and the very milk of human kindness flowed. One palpable positive wave. Sigh! I saw such a positive picture of hope that bonding even with total strangers I realized is possible.  Ephemeral though it was, it was so indicative that we can transcend all in shared joy...

I had renovation in progress at an interior site at the time. The carpenters were indulged with a half day to take in the telecast. Tea was served around. The equation between master and employee dissolved, all of us watched together routing for our country against our adversary. The positive visual that shows you that hearts are not ice capsules.

That’s it then. At just one point in shared joy, even with strangers at a stadium, sometimes endures with happy results after. Take the change in the equation with my interior labour? Suddenly madam was human and the workers became cheering human beings from employees and work needs were addressed with co-operation.  This is why common threads that connect us in relationships are so imperetive.  India’s joint euphoria, on the streets, at clubs, at hotels at winning the world cup was just an extreme example.  And not just the World cup. Every IPL contest display unbridled expression of kinship.

Uppermost is the joy of sharing a moment. Be it joy, pain or a common interest. The point is that loneliness need not be an option. It comes out of not having a relationship of sharing due to the perceived lack of inclination or time constraints or priorities of other kinds.

But in all cases the outcome of lonliness is not always happy. It need not be that way. Remember Scrooge in Dickens’s ' A Christmas Carol'? The turnaround lies with us within, as I realized with my workers. Cliché though it is, to have a friend we have to BE a friend. We wait for him/her to make the first move and wonder at the lonely world around us. It is a task, but with little beginnings.  A smile, a 'good morning' & you've made a jogging partner. Hear him out when you ask 'how are you?'  Respond.  There's a bond!!

 Ignore the calls on you cell when a friend is opening his heart out to you, look interested.

And don’t forget to smell the roses while there’s still some summer. 

Give time and nurture the relationships you enjoy, make trees out of those metaphoric saplings.

Relationships of any and every kind are amongst the best investments you will have in your portfolio.

Nisha JamVwal

Nisha JamVwal nishajamvwal@gmail.com

Tweet Nisha @nishjamvwal

Published in Deccan Chronicle & Asian Age

All comments in box below