THE FRIDAY RITUAL

I have never been too good at writing in prose, have never been able to do much more than reviews and stuff. In fact, this might be the first time I am writing in this form. I just wanted to share some times that I will remember for the rest of my life.

It was about 3 years ago when I was working with my previous company. I had a lot of friends but very few who were REAL friends (and that STILL is the case.) So I ask you to imagine a friday night that was really dark and soaking wet, yet not very cold. In fact, it was hot and humid.

A couple of my friend and I were wondering how we were to spend this night. More precisely, where the hell were we going to get some booze. Since I was living alone then, I suggested we grab some booze and hang at my place watching DVDs on my 29" TV. The both of them immediately agreed and thus started what we called, and soon the entire company came to know, as "The Friday Ritual".

Now, make no mistake, this wasn't just a forum for us to get drunk and talk piss. We, and in specific, one friend and I, had arguements about work, love, family, marriage, social causes, global warming, cricket, sports, outer space, atheism, extra terrestrial life, computers, robotics, music, movies, culture, art and almost everything else under the sky. It came from the fact that neither one of us wanted to lose an arguement. It was a different matter that I was always the winner with my carefully structured method of persuasion using solid facts as support :-) . But my friend never graciously accepted defeat, in fact, he sulked in a corner nursing his drink, failing to find a verbose answer to my facts. And in the very few instances that I lost, I simply refused to accept it and continued to make half-assed attempts at continuing the arguement.

Check my friend's blog for an apt example: http://karthikinblogs.blogspot.com

This routine of ours continued for months together, so much so that we knew what kind of reply the other one would come up with enough before the other had thought of it. That kind of understanding between friends takes a lifetime to acheive, yet we were there within a couple of months.

Now you might think that this must have led to some kind of animosity between the two of us, but instead what it did was generate a gesture of friendship towards each other. Never until then did I have a friend who would not submit and never until then did he have a friend who could argue just for the pleasure of it. We were poles apart, yet closer than brothers.

Then, the cruelest of all maidens, time, played her hand. I had to move to greener pastures and so did he. We bid adieu and solemnly made a promise to each other that this would not be the end of our friendship or our "Friday rituals".

To this day, he and I continue to meet at least once a month and try to catch up. And we dont catch up because we want to talk about things that are really important. I want to catch up because with this person, I feel free. I have no inhibitions, no sense of fear or judgement. This person makes me feel at home. He is what people might call a "best friend", but actually, he is more than that to me. He is the one person who has the right to scold me, berate me, chide me... Something that no one else in the world has. And that's what a real friend is meant for. To push your chin up when times are bad and to clink your glass when the going is good...

Cheers to all people who have friends like this, I really hope you do.