Friendship - Loss or Gain?

Recently TOI published an article based on a research that was conducted with school kids and they found that children in the age group of 10 – 14 years value friendship a lot and that they considered losing a friend as a greatest loss. I thought - Wow! Is this something that nobody knew and Was it really necessary to conduct a research to prove this point?

Well,as soon as I read that article – I went into flashback mode and tried to recall an incident that happened when I was 12 years old. I considered VR to be my best friend. We studied in the same class and both of us were bright kids (I say that because we used be among the first 5 in our classes). The friendship started when we were 10 years old and became strong by the time we were 12 years. We ate, played and sometimes went home together.Our friendship was pretty strong till mid term exams.

I still remember that day. It was PT Class and while we were playing some games I happened to pass the ball to some other girl and didn’t give preference to VR. I didn’t think of the consequences while playing, but could clearly make out that my best friend was not too happy. In the evening after the classes, when I went to her enthusiastically to speak, she turned her face away and stopped talking to me.

It was the most hurting moment for me. I still remember how much I cried and said sorry many times, and cursed myself for not passing the ball to her. I had never felt so bad and had never cried so much in my entire life. I was totally shattered and everyone in the class came to know of this. Many of them tried to sort out things between us, but it was all in vain. She was very adamant and thought of punishing me by breaking off our friendship. My head and heart were thinking in two different directions and I didn’t know how to patch-up. So that was the end of our friendship. I considered that to be a great loss.

After class 7 we joined the same school for class 8 onwards and studied in the same school for 5 years. There were some instances where we had come face to face, but this time it was my chance to turn away. After all how could I forgive someone who had hurt me so much!

I don’t know whether it was such a big thing, that I had to write it in my blog, but somehow this incident is permanently stored in my brain. It’s been a long time now and now I feel how much immaturely we behaved.

Now, I have been blessed with some very good friends – I can rely on them for everything and I can speak about anything with them, without bothering about the consequences. I am very happy I have a few but really trustworthy friends!!