There can be no better remedy in sickness than a friend. Life can become an unbearable in the absence of friends.
Immersed in fond memories of my father who left us two years ago this day, few angelic words, addressed to me in those melancholy days, tease me out of thought. And I emerge invigorated and revitalised. With Friendship Day close by, I consider myself blessed with a couple of friends, who have been with me through thick & thin. I believe they do not know me less than I do myself. Almost broken at my father’s fast deteriorating health I was broken and often felt lonesome, with apprehensions about losing the hallowed presence of my darling father whose heart was set mainly on me in the fag-end of his life.
Soon the moment arrived when he had to be admitted in emergency, never to return!
Friends never let you alone
Those magical words of Satish Nautiyal were: “Never think that you are alone, because you are not!” This was preceded by a prescription: “Harish, you shall not take your father to hospital alone” implying an unstinted support on critical hour. It was first ever assertion about the symbiotic knot we both understood, but never spoke out in preceding 43 years of our intimate friendship. Incidentally, he was the one to accompany me at my father’s last visit to hospital. With him only my father shared last words.
Good times draw numerous fake friends and real enemies, they say. It is only in odd times that people show their true colours. A friend indeed has unqualified right to anyhow persuade or dissuade you when it is a must. I recall an incidence when situation drove me and Manmohan Bhatnagar, another friend, both at different workplaces to Kolkata in early nineties. Families of both were out of town and we stayed some days together. Notorious for not taking proper care of my exteriors, the very first morning we were about to leave for our office, he ordered, “You shall polish your shoes and shave daily”. I did not bother. Third day, when we were having bed tea in balcony, he showed me my shoes which he had just polished. “I did it, so you feel ashamed and do it yourself next time.” Pointing to the brush, eraser and shaving cream, he added, “After the tea, proceed to next item of agenda!”
One evening he told me that his close colleague Mr Sircar was no more on talking terms with him for since last few days as he had denied him a loan for investing in share market. “But you easily could”, I interrupted.
Mr Bhatnagar continued, “I told him loud and clear, if you need it for essential family needs, I shall offer you double that amount but sorry, not for buying shares. I shall in fact hold the hands that do so!”
Another scene at Shantikunj, Haridwar relates to his magnanimity. Mr Bhatnagar was lodged in a room at some distance from ours. Early next morning he appeared in our room, with some books just procured from the book stall and told that he had to cut short his visit and return to Delhi immediately. Glancing at books, I remarked that two of these books were really worth reading. He segregated and passed on these two to me, saying he has already read these two.
As Bhatnagar departed, I saw him from my window in second floor, entering the bookshop. He must be purchasing the same two books he left for me, I can bet.
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Published in Deccan Herald under Right in the Middle column on 5 August 2019. Link: https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/right-in-the-middle/magic-of-friends-752069.html
