Every Friendship Day, my heart wanders back to friends whose addresses I still remember, even though they haven’t lived there for years. I belong to that endangered species whose friendships flourished without mobile phones, Wi-Fi, emojis, or location sharing. We simply met. Friends arrived unannounced, often with an appetite and never with an apology. No one asked, “Are you free?” Friendship presumed freedom.
Laughter echoed through the house. Conversations were interrupted not by ringtones but by someone’s mother announcing that the pakoras were getting cold or asking one of us to help her with some work. The request belonged to everyone in the room, not just the child of the house. We spent entire afternoons doing absolutely nothing, and somehow they remain among the busiest days of my memory. No photographs were taken to prove that we had met. No captions were written. No hashtags documented our happiness.
We did fight.There were days, sometimes weeks, of dramatic silence. Then one of us appeared at the other’s doorstep, and neither of us could remember what the quarrel had been about. Friendships were stitched together with time, shared secrets, borrowed books that were never returned, and the comforting certainty that someone knew every version of you.
Growing older, however, has taught me something equally precious. Nostalgia should never become so comfortable that it leaves no room for new affection. I refuse to become the curator of my own museum, dusting old memories every day while forgetting that new masterpieces are still waiting to be discovered.
Some of my most cherished friendships were not inherited from childhood. They arrived quietly through books, literary festivals, history walks, museums, and long conversations over cups of tea that inevitably grew cold because no one noticed the time. I have been fortunate to meet authors whose stories are as generous as their hearts, historians who make centuries disappear in the course of a conversation, and poets who speak of another poet’s work with as much delight as they do of their own. A discussion about an old monument can wander effortlessly into forgotten empires, recipes from royal kitchens, the love stories of kings and queens, or an obscure couplet that suddenly explains the present. A phone call intended to last five minutes somehow stretches into an hour, and neither of us minds.
Childhood friendships were born over shared notes, borrowed pens, whispered complaints about teachers, and the collective panic before examinations. Friendships at sixty were born differently. They were formed through shared human values. They grew through shared passions, for books, heritage, birds, art, music, travel, and the simple joy of learning something new. It is reassuring to discover that curiosity has its own way of introducing people.
The friendships closest to my heart today are wonderfully low-maintenance. They demand no compulsory greetings, no forwarded messages, and no explanations for delayed replies. We may not speak for weeks, only to continue the conversation as though it had merely paused for a longer cup of tea. Friendships effortlessly sustained through mutual respect. It is a privilege to discover, even at sixty, that life still has room for people who enlarge your world, sharpen your mind, challenge your opinions, and quietly find a permanent place in your heart.
My oldest friends carry an archaeological record of my life. They remember the hairstyles I would rather forget, the ambitions that changed every fortnight, and the embarrassing stories I hoped had disappeared with time.
The old friends remind me of who I was. The new friends remind me that life, thankfully, is still generous enough to surprise me.
Photos and text by Prerna Jain.
