A friend indeed !

It is not easy to write about a friend who made a difference in your life. You acknowledge the effects of the person every moment of your existence, but still know that you don't do justice to the effort. Such is the profound and overwhelming feeling you get while talking about the people who really touched your life. I had, and still have a friend like that, one who is inseparable even by the distances, one who like the sun, shines amidst the darkness of the past.There are a lot of people who influence the way you shape up.. right from your parents and teachers to your friends, and occasionally those who just barge into life and stay for a while, as if they were ordered by some divine force to give you an important lesson in life.

For me, it was this friend who came into my life like a swift breeze and made a quick exit like a devastating hurricane. Short acquaintances like these are things I categorize under 'miracles'. Of all the people I met throughout my life, from outright morons to entertaining clowns, this person was special... special in everything that constitutes personality. I am not biased just because she could understand and appreciate the crazy thoughts and ideas I put across, but because of what she really was. A gem of a person who believed in all the niceties in life, in the virtue of people and the greater goodness of mankind. She was happy about small things and always appreciated the beauty of life. She had an enviable way of smiling at the harshness of life and taking things forward even from the darkest of pitfalls.

I learned from her how to stand up and fight, even when you are pushed against the wall.. even when life tries to sideline you to one of those margin notes. It is not easy to smile at everyone when you have a volcano burning inside. She was able to do that and empathize with others' problems at the same time. For her, solving others' problems was an equally good exercise to be at peace with oneself. She never neglected her responsibilities even when she had to crawl through her misfortunes in life. I learned perseverance and patience from her or never did. The most admirable of her qualities was the constant attempt to keep the dreams closer to reality, a quality I miserably lacked in my uncontrolled flights of fantasy. I realized how much of a quack I really am!

She was one of the rare people who identified me as a human being. While the whole world thought that I am a deranged and disheveled animal, she somehow hoped that I am a human spirit caught in distress. That's the closest of all the diagnoses I ever heard, about myself. There used to be a time when I believed that 'Hard work pays off tomorrow while laziness pays off today'. She made me realize the need of doing things at the right time, even though this was done at the harshest possible way, the lesson remains one of the best I have ever learned in my life. For reasons more than one, I knew that she was someone sent to my life specifically to remind me of the things I cared less about. She was the rain my desert of a mind longed for, so long.

When I walked beside her, I was a better man and when I strayed too far from life, she pulled me back again. Life has its own strange ways of dealing with things and ultimately we went our separate ways. Am I mad about it?... not at all. I still thank goodness for the times I got to spend with her. When you look back at the past from the twilight of life, all that you see are things that really mattered to you. And I am sure she will be there in the frame if I get a chance to do that ever. I never thanked her for the things she gave me, I thought that's too much of irreverence to a job well done. And all I gave her in return was indifference and pain. Darkness is preferred by some, even in presence of the blazing sun! Don't know why I always find someone to bruise and leave behind.

If love is your soul recognizing its counterpart in somebody else, I was in love with her. I would be terribly wrong if I say it was all an infatuation and her charm just lured me into this false sense of satisfaction. When you know some things, yo know them for sure. How I wished she stayed a little longer, but every thing in this small world has a purpose of its own perhaps. All our paths are probably bound to the underlying purpose, and not ours to choose. After all, parallel lines never cross each other... will they? Before I even realized, she was gone, taken away from life. Should I blame myself for it or should I get away by blaming destiny, I am not quite sure. The ones you really care are gone too soon, while the annoying ones will hang around for ever.

It was but yesterday we met in a dream.
You have sung to me in my aloneness, and I of your longings have built a tower in the sky.
But now our sleep has fled and our dream is over, and it is no longer dawn.
The noontide is upon us and our half waking has turned to fuller day, and we must part.
If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together
And you shall sing to me a deeper song.
And if our hands should meet in another dream, we shall build another tower in the sky.

- Khalil Gibran on friendship ('The Prophet')