Friends can be many and of many categories and mindsets. Beginning as toddlers to school, college, and workspaces. Some friendships last a lifetime but many change routes and never meet again. It’s rightly said, a friend comes into your life to teach you something, you learn or unlearn stuff and not every friendship bond thrives along this journey. It’s a great feeling to have at least one person in this whole wide world who never judges you, irrespective of your social, financial, or emotional standing. Lucky are the few who have this thread that connects.
I, personally never really had too many friends while growing up. Probably I thought I was being judged by my looks, my academic graph, sports participation, or my ability to be street smart. I never scored well in either of these areas. Nevertheless, once I got financially independent, I sat on the driver’s seat of this graph and let it move where I wished – upward, sideways, or just positively. That helped me as an individual and also in the friendship department. Made many good friends at work, outside the work sphere, social networks and I learned to connect. Thank god for that – today I can say I certainly have a handful of good friends who will be with me to the finish line.
Another friend who walked into my life by accident and has been with me to this day – Poetry. I wish and pray that we hold hands till I am asked to sign off and call it the end of the journey. A companion with me wherever I go, with me in my heart and mind and happy to pour out at the click of a button – a mouse in today’s world. A very average student, I never imagined I would indulge in writing poems as a hobby. However, I strongly believe fate has its ways and someone up there maps our life, adds milestones and ensures we find our destination after maybe getting lost a bit but hitting the right road eventually.
I must confess that along this journey my family and friends played a big part. Today, as I write this piece, my first book of poems with the same name has been published and is on the shelf. I share with the entire world my work – technology has indeed shrunk the world and words and verses from my laptop have reached every person who shows an inclination to read. I would love for them to critique my work so that we, me and my friend poems chisel our bond to make it stronger and reach a stage where nothing can break us up and our love for each other stays forever.
Life’s journey I guess narrows down the “life highway”. The streets are not as brightly lit, the roads not as broad and those walking alongside very few. It’s during this passage that one needs every dose of positivity, optimism, good physical and mental health, and good shadows in and around who help you stand when you fall or stumble along these narrow lanes.
Besides having a companion by way of a hobby to keep you busy helps a great deal. Most of us keep the hobby in a trunk and lock it since life’s other responsibilities take priority. When one is done with work-life, that trunk, probably unopened, slowly self opens its lid, and stuff from within crawls out. If we hold them, nurture them, and feed them well it blooms into a passion and helps us fall in love all over again. An affair that takes you an extra mile, brings about a smile and helps you see the beauty in mundane everyday routines. My friend poetry does just that we stick our neck out to see what next can be strung together to make a necklace of verses, we give it a name and a story emerges from thin air.
Ever grateful for this mapped life granted to me with many kind hearts who are my family, friends, and wider circle who are my very own.
whisperingverses - Girija Menon 