Nearly everyone I knew was planning a trip, movie, outing, lunch, dinner or just a get together with one’s group of friends for celebration of this friendship’s day. I was a little wonderstruck about this entire euphoria; I called a few of my friends and wished them, what I considered a needless formality, “Happy Friendship Day”.
Out of envious curiosity, I also enquired about their schedules. “We all will be going out” was a reply from first, “May be a lunch or dinner followed by a film” was what I heard from second, “Visiting a farmhouse at the outskirts of the city” was the answer from third. I felt a little uneasy about being absent from all these celebrations. A strong sense of being left aside and cast away crept into my mind right from afternoon and it just kept increasing as the day went on. The thought of getting onto a busy week ahead at work was of no help in alleviating the discomfort of perceived loneliness.
I visited a tea stall near my room twice, just to keep myself engaged, also did some grocery shopping for myself. Shopping felt good, but it soon faded away as I found that I had nothing to do for entire evening ahead. The next thing I took up was re-arranging my wardrobe; however this too did not last long. I realized that being alone was not particularly painful but being alone when almost all others you know are busy celebrating or partying is particularly painful to an anxious, six day working and young individual’s mind!!!
On this relieving realization, I came to know that all this while I was worrying about missing all my friends in various parts of country; I was also neglecting one particular friend of mine. In fact it was only this friend of mine who had truly been with me through all thick and thin. I took that classic collection of pages and started turning them over one after the other. The touch of the pages, sound made while scribbling a thought or two in margin, the smell of ink spread across making words and the thrilling interaction that reading provides to mind transformed me in a matter of seconds. I rediscovered a joy of finding an old friend at a really crunch time.
Schopenhauer was indeed right when he said, “I have never known any trouble that an hour’s reading cannot assuage.”
