The Little Things in Life

Opposites don't usually attract unless there's something to bind them together. It could be shared interests or friends and I think that it'd be fair to say that it was a bit of both in our case. It could also be a quiet, unstated respect and I think it'd be fairest to say that it has been a combination of all three that has taken this fairly anonymous association (I really can't remember how or when or why we got to know each other) all the way to a memorable friendship.

I've always valued genuineness far above any other quality in making friends. What has often stopped me from making better friends has been a sort of familiarity with the kind of genuineness that I'm comfortable with, painting that particular quality with my colours, if you like. That has changed a lot in the last few years and I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that she has been my one-stop introduction to the idea that genuineness of the exuberant type can be just as basic to sincerity, appreciation and pretty much every other desirable trait you can hope to find in another person. On top of that, she'll be considerate, she'll give you time and she'll listen. It's as overwhelming as a sense of genuineness can ever be.

Almost furtively, we've also managed to construct this place - halfway between a bubble and a sacred space - where our conversations are parked in their appropriate places. We tend to talk about things that are bothersome, intense or emotional, if not some combination of the three and I've found this place - which is like nothing else I've ever been a part of - to be a beautiful way of splitting what is important from what is noise. We've built this space over time (and that, I just realised, sounds very cool) based on the idea that the solutions to our problems lie in the infinite wisdom of each other and that when she's listening to me or I'm listening to her, that is what receives one hundred percent attention and nothing else is relevant. We've blown off many, many seemingly important appointments and people just to get the chance to talk. She's proved to be well worth the investment.

It has also helped that because of the interests and friends that we've shared, there haven't been too many secrets. That wouldn't have counted for too much, though, had she not known when to ask you something, when to let you know that you're not being honest with her and, perhaps most importantly, when to leave you alone. I haven't held back on too much because I've always suspected that she'd probably know anyway. This has opened doors to talk about family, it has given license to get justifiably upset, it has created a canvas for us to share dreams and it has given a reason to trust. A few short years ago, I would've defined all of those things out of the scope of a 'friendship'. I think it's a mark of how far we've come that today, I can't imagine giving up any of those things with her.

All this has been tied to some pretty unforgettable places and experiences. Due to the nature of the last five years of my life, I can name a host of people with whom I've repeated the endless routine of work/group-activity/eat-out/party. But there aren't too many people with whom I've watched three movies and countless IPL matches in a calendar month, taken a cycle-rickshaw ride through Noida at 11.30 p.m. and walked around everywhere from acad block and the Supreme Court to IIT-Delhi and the streets of Dhaka.

Most remarkably, however, we've kept up an incredibly varied (and often intense) ongoing dialogue from practically the day we met, which has since grown to encompass everything from the rat-race and the future to the state of men's tennis and pop music. The fact that we've never agreed on a lot of this has never been an impediment - I can't recall a single instance of hurt feelings or intentional slighting in any of these conversations - because there's always been a guarantee that we'll honestly hear each other out one hundred percent with the greatest of respect. I haven't managed to achieve that with people I've known my whole life, so I find it quite extraordinary to have found it with her - someone I've known, at best, for a bit under three-and-a-half years.

And over these nearly three-and-a-half years, people have cast a lot of doubts over what this has been about. It's been every kind of doubt imaginable, asking questions of our integrity, genuineness, priorities, even morality. These doubts have been cast by all sorts of people, too - people who are jealous, people who should know better, people who don't bother reading what has been a fairly open book throughout and, perhaps most hurtfully, by people who are closer to us individually than either she or I are to each other.

For the longest time, this really, really upset me. I don't know why this was - I knew that my behaviour had been above reproach and she's been fiercely committed enough to dispel any questions of her genuineness. But as she intersperses crazy amounts of organisational work with an inquisitive line or two every couple of minutes on Skype over in the other window, I realise that none of those doubts matter. Because some friendships are impossible to be explain. I also realise now that when I created this label of 'Special People' on my blog all those years ago, I had in mind someone very much like her.