That fated gift of karma- a best friend

Friendship is never a constant. You discover something new every day. It’s really like life on a ship. One day you’re out in the sun, enjoying all its golden benefits, another day you stumble into a hidden crevice and get yourself all dirty, only to find a gold ring clinging to your shirt sleeve as you clamber out, the next day you want to throw up because you feel nauseated.

What I recently discovered helped me understand why even the biggest of criminals has a best friend. Why even Hitler had a best friend.


My best friend Nisha wrote in my slam book in 12th grade that, of all the people she knew and loved, she was proudest of me because, I was one of the few who thought with their head and not heart.

However, some nights back, on the phone, torn between deep exasperation, annoyance and helplessness, she asked me why I had become exactly the kind of girl we both hated and purposefully turned our noses up on. In all the fourteen odd years we have known each other, Nisha has hardly ever questioned my actions. She always believed that I knew what I was doing, even when I myself was in doubt. Even when I was in the US fighting with half the world to come back, Nisha sent me several mails asking me what the problem was, never once suggesting I go against my will.

And yet, some nights back, the girl vehemented strongly against my actions. She called me brainless, she called me cheap, she called me shameless, she called me dumb. She called me everything she hated most in a person.

My best friend is extremely snobbish when it comes to girls who are brainless, cheap, shameless and dumb. She hates them with a vengeance. In fact, she will staunchly refuse to partake of a conversation involving characters with the aforementioned traits. And yet Nisha continues to love me.

Nisha and I had great plans for the future. When in school we both wanted to be pilots. When that idea was shot down, we decided we would study in the same college. That didn’t happen. We decided we would do our Masters in the same university. Didn’t happen either. The day she left for Singapore, I cried like a baby, in front of several of my friends. And then I came back, and then she came back. A dubious commonality to have, other might have thought. But we knew we were tougher than all other girls put together, for taking that step. We prided ourselves on never compromising on our dignity. We took perverse pleasure in our bloated egos.

I respect Nisha immensely. So much that in the past I often hid things from her, so she wouldn’t judge me. But as I discovered a few nights back, this girl wasn’t going to give up on me. Ever. I could be the personification of everything she hated and she would still love me. After all, I was that fated gift of karma- a best friend.

In her desperation to get me out of a tricky situation, the girl who sleeps at 9 pm, stayed up till almost 12 to drive the drivel out of my head. Nisha is an impatient girl and I listened almost amused as she incredulously repeated the same things over and over, not quite believing I could be so daft.

Sometimes I am sad, because Nisha is no longer all mine. She belongs to the world now, with several other boys and girls clamouring for her company. But yet, deep within I know when it comes to something that really matters, really really matters, she will call me. She will call me first. She will call only me.

I am ashamed because sometimes I do things knowing it will hurt her. Because I hate it that she’s no longer all mine. I publicly declared I had no best friend. She retaliated in her own way, in a similar way. Another dubious commonality.

But deep, deep within, I know that she knows. That one day, when she too has pathetic things to say about herself, she will turn to me. She knows I will call her cheap, dumb, brainless, shameless. But she knows I will still love her. She could be a drug-pedaling mafia, with a history of murder and manslaughter for all I care and I’d still love her.

After all, she is that fated gift of karma. A best friend.