29/11/2023
A Friend in Need is a Friend Indeed
In the journey of life, once you cross the age of 50, a lot starts changing, including one’s perspective of life. Being in medicine and seeing the frailty of human life does act as a catalyst in expediting this realisation and feelings of a mini renunciation that we must not take life so seriously. No one is here permanent after all, world is an illusion, and so on. Surely, in medicine we always see the greatest of all reduced to a pathetic state on mercy of catheters and drips, and this perhaps tends to make one more philosophical, or sometimes thick skinned.
There is an interesting phenomenon which I am sure everyone must have experienced. In the WhatsApp era, we have started reviving friendships with our long lost friends. This has become lot easier these days in the era of social media, and has certainly dissolved the distances between us. But has it really brought us closer?
The revival of ‘friendship’ is often seen to be a platform of comparisons, where individuals look back and take stock of how they have fared in life, mostly measured in terms of material success. Everyone is successful, because when success is measured as a summation of health, wealth, partner and fame, after putting all these factors in to the equation the average output will be more or less constant. For instance, a successful businessman may not be able to bend down and tie his shoelaces himself or retain his prowess for conjugal bliss without recourse to medications. A materially mediocre friend may have a promising child and very satisfied wife. It will be rare for someone to have none of the above, and we can put it down to the influence of Shani (Saturn). Even this can be perhaps remedied with ‘Nobograha Puja’ in Konark (a ritual to appease all planets), or wearing a Neelam stone (blue sapphire).
If we evaluate success of resurrect friends through the prism of material gain, there is surely a range where most of us are moderately successful and some are seemingly way above the rest. Likewise some maybe top level intellectuals, bureaucrats or politicians. This elite group tries to remain aloof and interacts less with others. Like them there are many more in the world, with an ascending order of success. Even sky is not the limit. WhatsApp has surely brought us closer in a technological group of revived friendship of yesteryears. And with that, it may have revived expectations as well, from the ‘friendship’ connections and networking.
It’s interesting to note that life’s a perfect mathematics. We can only cash in on what we have gained in life as a share of our personal fortunes and our own efforts. We are likely to achieve that only which we have strived for based on our toil, hard work or inheritance, and to an extent our own Karma. We cannot gain anything more beyond this remit. As far as networking is concerned, it will never work. If we try to enhance the shares of our personal fortunes through networking with friends, or friends of friends, this will not improve our assets even by an iota. It will simply be a futile exercise barring a few exceptions. The reasons are myriad. If help has to come, it will happen spontaneously without any need for special efforts. Exceptions can creep in anywhere but then they are exceptions only, and as rare as winning a lottery. I will touch on those later.
Those higher up in material success will never do any personal favour that could reduce their own assets or standing unless they’re able to extract out an equal favour in return. Equally, as a base human nature, they are least likely to be helpful since they would always want to retain their positions on the top, and jealousy factors are almost surely to set in. Surely those who are apparently much more successful were assured those riches since they were ahead of the game to begin with. So who can fleece them? They are already masterminds in this play of give and take type relationships.
Many of the most prominent resurrect friends in may not necessarily be the most helpful. But then, should there be an expectation? Is it justified to have an expectation? I think that the expectation may be inappropriate and one must leave it to individuals to make their voluntary decisions when it comes to financially support another classmate. We cannot thrust our own expectations on others. We cannot thrust socialism by force on anyone. Any charity that has to happen must happen voluntarily without force or coercion.
It’s often noted that those who are most helpful are actually those who are somewhere in the middle, or maybe even lower down in the ladder of material success. There is an interesting incident noted in the award winning book ‘City of Joy’ also called ‘Anandanagar’ where the author describes how the protagonist was helped during a major financial crisis. The author writes: ‘The more poor they were, the more likely they were to help. The most expensive contribution was made by the most poor friend!’
Therefore it’s difficult for expectations to be met, and in fact expectations must be avoided since they are the root cause of misery. One has to be extremely lucky to have good friends as Mahendra Singh Dhoni had. He had few friends who sold their shops and motor bikes to fund him during his struggle days. Dhoni has maintained his friendship with them loyally and dutifully, and with mutual respect. That’s unconditional friendship.
I did mention that there is a possibility of few exceptions in regard to true friendship. As for instance, one of my distant uncles was living in poverty despite that he was highly educated. One day, his school batch-mates got to know about his pitiable condition. They decided to pay him a visit. They were shocked to see his living conditions and being able to afford only a pyjama. He had a wife and 2 sons. The friends got together to help him. One of them was a top bureaucrat. He arranged for his friend to have a government license to run a particular business. And that business clicked. My distant uncle soon became a millionaire. Life was now good. Therefore, ‘true friendship’ does exist.
However, destiny balances out the equation in a different way. This uncle now developed an air of arrogance around him beyond proportions. A tragedy befell his family. No one would wish this outcome for anyone whatever the circumstances maybe. He lost his grown up son in a car accident! Life was never the same for him, and he lived the rest of his life a broken man. Surely if time could be reversed my uncle would prefer to go back to the older days and live a life of poverty wearing a pyjama but with his other son by his side.
In these equations of life, one thing is therefore certain. One should not regret nor hold grudges against one’s share of fortunes. And perhaps one should not rely on too much networking. One should put in personal endeavour to make improvement in one’s own life. And when success knocks at your door, one should never feel proud nor become arrogant.
There maybe those who are materially very successful, and have a knack of expressing their gratitude towards the Almighty for their fortunes. This is fine insofar as gratitude is concerned, but when they overdo it, it becomes obvious that this isn’t a derivation of spiritual bent of mind, but more of a designer style of gratitude which belongs to an upper crust of society as a right rather than true humility. But God has no choice because these chosen individuals have gained their fortunes through their own Karma, most likely due to their previous birth deeds, and it’s now their turn to bask in glory- either with or without reciprocal true gratitude. However, for the vast majority of the middle class, they cannot take their luck for granted as they are thriving on limited luck reserves. They need to be careful in handling their success with true humility and gratitude. They cannot afford to be arrogant. In fact no one can afford to be arrogant.
I too had my share of help from friends. But none of them were in the category of being considered to be among my closest circle of good friends with whom I spent most of my good time. During my financial struggle medical school days, I needed funding to be able to afford the fee for PLAB and USMLE exams. I did not seek financial help from anyone as I knew it would be futile. Many of the friends I now hob k**b with were existing in those days too, but I was not in contact with anyone. No one even knew that I existed. Based on my writing and literary skills and modest academic accomplishments during MBBS, I was sponsored by NRIs from UK and USA. USMLE was costly and required a trip to Bangkok. The money was there now. But life takes a test. Nothing comes easy.
Before I could give USMLE, my father became unwell. He required a cardiac procedure and the nearest place with reliable expertise for coronary re-vascularisation was Hyderabad. We did not have the money. I diverted the NRI money donated to me for USMLE to fund my father’s treatment. But there was still a deficit. Whilst my father was admitted and unwell, I received no help from anyone. Neither from my current WhatsApp warrior friends nor from my resurrected ‘best friends’ of those times.
However, help came from few friends I had never even approached! I am also not aware how they leant about my plight. These were few good friends who never made a lot of noise. They came to me, each one on their own separately, and stuffed wads of money into my hands. I was taken aback at this unexpected help, and that too from unexpected quarters. Those are true friends who remain silent behind the scenes. And to reiterate, none of them were the one’s with whom I interacted the most with. Based on their financial help, I was able to airlift my father to Hyderabad and afford the cardiac procedure.
I re-approached my NRI donors for further funding towards USMLE and gave them my explanation. All except for 1 declined to help further as they thought that I had been fraudulent. I do not blame them. Prabhu Jagannath was kind and I received further help and took USMLE-1. Perhaps I am one rare person whose primary objective of going to Bangkok was educational. Most others go there for a different type of education. But surely they use differently sourced moneys for such leisurely activities.
Life changed, and I was able to improve my situation somewhat in due course. I immigrated to West. Technology advanced. WhatsApp was invented. And so were WhatsApp friends.
One cannot and should not also forcibly thrust friendship ethos upon each other. And neither should one keep any expectations from anyone. That will preserve dignity and honour. It will be unrealistic to expect everyone to become friends and go out of the way to help each other. That will be impractical.
To summarise, in the era of resurrect friendships there is a risk that we may tend to network and associate with those who are far above us in material success. It does not work an iota! I can certainly guarantee that. Most of the new friendship revivals happen where it’s a cautious and measured approach where the mind calculates subconsciously to decide who will be best suited for a friendship revival. Such associations are usually friendships of convenience. Will there be a prospect of an equal reciprocation? Will the lesser privileged one not take advantage and seek favours, or become jealous? Such equations are potentially working behind the scene and the responses are measured to an uncanny mathematical accuracy.
Friendship favours can only work with a true friend and such acts will happen spontaneously without any effort or ask. If one wishes to forcefully squeeze out favour from a WhatsApp resurrect friends, this will not work.
The day one’s status changes, the edifice of such resurrect friendship is sure to dismantle and collapse.
Some people do stand as exceptions, but they are a handful only, and individuals with a golden heart. True friendships does exist, but in a totally different frame…
Dr Rajinder Pal Singh
