Facebook suggested to my young friend Aneesh that he publishes the first anniversary of our friendship on Facebook. He promptly obliged. Reading that another old friend GSM and I exchanged the following comments.
GSM: How many real friends do you have?
Me: Facebook says 673 GSM! Most of them have come back into my life after the advent of cellphones, Facebook and WhatsApp besides the great work done by our ex colleague A Ramaswamy. In this particular case, Aneesh’s father Suresh and I were classmates in Ahmedabad as well as neighbours in Bombay. I however met Aneesh personally only last month when he had come to Pune with his father. It was a great meeting I can assure you.
I need to explain somethings to my readers. GSM is the same friend about whom I had written in my blog post Small Things Matter.
The ex colleague that I mention in my response to him is a remarkable man who has been the inspiration for organising group get togethers for retired and ex colleagues of a company in which GSM, he and I worked many years ago. He keeps informing about all of us to each other by mail and also tries to attend meetings of ex colleagues in Bengaluru, Chennai and Mumbai.
Even I was taken aback to see the number 673 in Facebook. I rechecked and it is indeed true. I can’t however say that I am a very close friend to all of them but, quite a lot of them and I have shared many intersting times together in the past. Some are members of my extended family, some my classmates/alumni, ex colleagues from my working life, children of all these people, friends of friends and so on.
For all the disadvantages that modern digital life has brought us, it has also brought people together.
And to finish this post off in style, let me express my hope that one day my friend Shackman and I will get together and sing this duet!
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