“You’re the worst best friend in the world!”
Right after uttering these words, Hemali Shah pressed ‘disconnect’ on her cell phone. On the other end, her childhood bestie, Tina, indulged in a chuckle. This was a daily affair. Today, it was related to Tina’s blunt dismissal of the decision Hemali had made a few moments ago — that of ‘twinning’ with her for a friend’s upcoming birthday.
Truth be told, Tina would rather be the showstopper. Hemali knew that, only too well.
Hemali and Tina did everything together. From holding each other’s shopping bags while trying on outfits in shopping malls to b*tching about “the others” in the larger clique they belonged to.
Both were in their last year of college, both single. Each of them ’bae’ to the other, sans the smooching and the cuddling, of course. Then, one night, Hemali did the unthinkable. At least, it seemed that way to Tina.
“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Tina blurted excitedly, once again over a telephone conversation.
It seemed more of an assertion than a request. Like one of the many Swarovski artefacts in the Shahs’ expansive living room, Tina was furniture in her bestie’s home. A place she would frequent, simply to ‘chill’.
“Not tomorrow. I have a late night, and will probably sleep until four in the afternoon.”
“4pm works for me. I’ll see you then?”
“No! Don’t disturb me!”
A good friendship is like good wine. It gets better over time
Silence on the other end of the line. Unbeknownst to Hemali, it was a silence that would last a lifetime.
I have had friends that have mysteriously vanished from my life, not unlike Tina did from Hemali’s. In a strange way, much like Hemali that day, they did not wish to be disturbed. Tina stopped taking Hemali’s calls and even blocked her on WhatsApp. Things got to the point where a distraught Hemali walked into the Gaylord restaurant in Churchgate one afternoon, where Tina was lunching with her Ma. The mother-daughter duo would be there every Friday afternoon. If anyone knew that, it was Hemali.
“Don’t create a scene, Hemali. I don’t wish to be disturbed.” Tina said this while looking down, amidst her bestie’s inconsolable sobbing. Her mother looked on, helpless.
Hemali was unable to understand why shutting her friend out of her bedroom for a single afternoon had led to Tina shutting her out of her life. A wailing Hemali walked out of the restaurant that day, and into the sweltering Mumbai heat. The irony was not lost on her. It was she who had been the worst best friend in the world.
A good friendship is like good wine. It gets better over time. There does come a point in time, though, when you start taking your best friend for granted. After all, they are the central ‘city’ on the map of your ‘connections’
A good friendship is like good wine. It gets better over time. There does come a point in time, though, when you start taking your best friend for granted. After all, they are the central ‘city’ on the map of your ‘connections’. Whether it is a gondola ride or a chartered jet, you find the means to reach them. Whether they like it or not. Moments later, Tina stood on the Nariman Point promenade, looking at the waves crashing below. For a while, it seemed like she might jump over at any moment. Instead, gradually, she felt like she was enveloped in a blanket of serenity. She became free, like the vultures in the sky overhead.
I have had childhood besties who have each played an integral role in my formative years. I also have friends I did not know a little over two years ago. All of them are special to me, in their own ways. Apart from the friends who cut me out of their lives, there are those I have cut off myself.
If you do not respect people’s boundaries, you might just find yourself “off that map” one day.
Tina went on to foster more special friendships, but there was never another Hemali. Years later, Hemali had just stepped out of a cafe with her teenage daughter, Maya, when someone gently tapped her child on the shoulder. Maya spun around, to find a woman smiling at her.
“Is that your mum?” the mystery lady asked Maya, gesticulating towards Hemali, who was walking a few metres ahead. Her daughter, visibly mystified, nodded. She deliberated for a few seconds, before calling out, “Ma!”
Hemali turned around, gesturing with her hands as if to ask: “What?”
Maya turned around yet again, only to see that the stranger had gotten into an autorickshaw. Moments later, it was speeding away.
‘No…She never left’
Hemali and Tina never met each other again, but that did not reduce the value of what they had once shared Pixabay
In Sergio Leone’s classic, Once upon a Time in America (1984), the character of David Aaronson or Noodles, played by Robert De Niro, agrees to a reunion of sorts at the behest of his once-best friend, Max (James Woods). A friend who had betrayed his trust and was responsible for Noodles spending several years in the hazy murkiness of a Chinatown opium den. There is a pause in the conversation, where vignettes of poignant memories flash through Noodles’s mind. He knows that no amount of separation or bitterness can ever change what he and Max once shared.
Tina had not believed her luck when she chanced upon Hemali in that cafe. When her erstwhile bestie asked for the cheque, so did she. She just knew that was Hemali’s daughter. That sixth sense was one of the perks of childhood friendship. That day, it was Tina’s turn to cry. She thought: “If only I’d made up with Hemali back then, I might have been godmother to that child today.”
She had wanted to pass on a message to Hemali’s daughter: “Tell your mum that Tina loves her.”
But something had stopped her.
“Why did you call me?” Hemali asked Maya, moments after the rickshaw vanished from sight.
“The strangest thing happened, Ma. There was this woman, who asked if you were my mum. Then, she just got into a rickshaw and left.”
“No,” Hemali said smilingly, ‘‘She never left…”
After that day, neither Hemali nor Tina tried reaching out to each other. Like true love (and unlike romantic love), love in friendships needs no validation. There was a reason Tina had held back from saying “I love you”. She knew that Hemali had known it all along.
Rohit Trilokekar is a novelist from Mumbai who flirts with the idea of what it means to love. His heart’s compass swerves ever so often towards Kolkata, the city he believes has the most discerning literary audience.
