Fwd: FW: FRIENDSHIP . . . .

What is friendship?

Someone sent me a semi glurge email talking about how you lose friends by not keeping in touch with them. The UNoriginality and chain nature of that email can be gauged by how quickly I could find a dozen links to the text within the email, just so I can tell you what it was without actually forwarding the email itself.

Anyway, it got me thinking...

I count a few friends whom I will do most anything for. And who've probably done more for me than I have ever done or can do. Not Jai-Veeru level friendship, but ordinary human beings level certainly.

So let's pick one of them.

He and I hardly ever talk. Or even email. No farcebook updates (I'm not even sure he has an account, and I certainly don't) No SMSs (I'm not even sure what his cell phone number is). We don't meet often (he lives in Florida, I in India). Or anything.

But not a month goes by without me thinking of him in some context, and I'm sure it's the same for him. He'll email me when he has something to say, and I'll email him when I have something to say. Otherwise... dead silence.

Notice I said *month* :-) I really don't think of him every single day or week. Not that there's anything wrong with that of course :)

I haven't checked my google account, but vague memory, dulled by 3 rounds of Bailey's Irish Cream, tells me it's been at least 6 months since we last communicated. And in the past it has been as much as 1 year or more at times. And we've only met once in the last 7 years or so.

But when we do email again, we're liable to phrase the email as if we're continuing a conversation that was discontinued just a few minutes ago. Or start a new one without *any* preamble ("hey, how you doing... been a long time... how's the family? Good -- yeah my kids are [blah blah]...", and eventually, get to the nub: "say listen I was wondering, you know that [...] you once mentioned? Well I was talking to a friend...")

So is this friendship? You tell me...

Because according to that email, this guy and I are no longer friends :-)

PS: to all my friends, you know who you are: I love you all. And yes, at least part of that is the Baileys talking, but Baileys can only change the words. Not the thought.