My little daughter Ayesha was once seen in her school swallowing her friend Divya’s tiffin hurriedly with both her hands leaving her full packed tiffin aside. When I inquired, she said, “Mama, I have to do this to save her from our class teacher; otherwise she would have to stand in the class holding her ear. She had been punished for the same offence thrice before; so I thought I should help her, no matter if I have to stand for a day holding my ear.”
For many of us, life is warmest and most enduring friendship is forged in childhood. By providing a sense of belonging and peer support, friends are a bridge between family and outside world. The basic human values of sharing, caring and mutual understanding develop through childhood friendship, which is helpful later in both professional and personal life.
Nowadays, children are becoming more and more violent and hyper due to isolation from outside world, opine experts. They are hooked to television and mobile for hours, which have adverse effect on their health and brain. Their interaction with the outside world is cut off. There are classes for positive thinking, personality development and group discussion. Good friend circle can be a key element in developing this quality.
Some of us well remember playing hide and seek, taking turn in jumping rope, creating an imaginary world with our dolls building forts and dressing up like a bride.
This beautiful relation is by choice and not by birth. We make friends according to our preference. The beauty of this relation is that it cuts all barriers of age, sex, status, cast, creed and religion.
Kalpataru Dash, a senior citizen whose children are in the USA, stays alone in an apartment at Nayapalli in Bhubaneswar, after his wife passed away. A retired judge by profession, keeping his ego prestige and superiority complex at bay, he made friendship with the children of that apartment and feels more relaxed and happy; now that his boredom vanished when he sees the innocence of the children around him. He further advises to senior and retired persons not to glue to mere television programmes for hours and wait silently for death. life should be lived with dignity and each second should be lived happily by expanding social life and making more and more friends.
Friendship band and many expensive gifts are flooded in the market on the occasion of the Friendship Day. A lot of business is done in the name of friendship, which many think hampers the purity of the day.
Thanks to technology, the world has become a small place, Facebook and WhatsApp help unite many estranged friends or those staying wide apart. let us pray on this day for the wellbeing of our friends and restore friendship.