Walked into Coffee Home at CP after a very, very long time. A thousand memories walked in along with me, but that is not what this piece is about. Sitting at the table alongside ours was a group of elderly gentlemen.Seemed like old pals catching up over coffee and snacks and that’s what set me thinking.

Watching them break into occasional laughter, pulling each others leg and then shift gears into a serious discussion on a story playing out on one of the news channels for some strange reason evoked a feeling of time travel. It was as though I was looking at my circle of friends through a telescopic lens through time.

Will we have the pleasure of meeting up like this when we are 70?? How many of us would still be in touch??

Friendship, unlike other relationships has a wine like quality and each passing year makes it special.

I have mentioned in one of my posts that friends are family you can choose.

They say that God could not be every where so he made mothers. Friends in my book are on similar lines…only difference,they are a joint venture between Angels and Demons.

Friends are trust worthy;you can trust them to lead an expose of your most embarrassing moments at the most in-opportune of moments. Equally so, you can count on them to bail you out of awkward situations (well at least they always try).

I remember this one time when a bunch of us wanted to go out partying late. We had to get this friend of ours out of his house (his dad was a terror codenamed Phantom!!). One of us volunteered to be the birthday boy. All was going as per plan till Phantom for some strange reason wanted to know what the date that day was. He looked up and asked our helpful birthday boy who went… “Umm..Ummm…Uncle 10th. No no no uncle… 11th uncle”.

Old jungle saying “Only a fool crosses the Phantom”.

Whether we were able to get our friend to party that night is anybody’s guess..

Coming back; friends like lovers often talk about growing old together and wonder how they would be when they are older. They dream of togetherness forever.Take the quintessential Jai-Veeru kind of friendhip of Sholay or the more contemporary Dil Chahta Hai.

Friends perhaps are individual pieces of a jigsaw. It is loads of fun putting them together, making mistakes as we go along- putting the wrong ones next to one other. You make, you break, you make again trying to re-create what once was was or what it ought to be, because it takes all pieces for the picture to be complete.

Trouble is, sometimes some pieces go missing.

So here’s to the existing pieces sticking together and living everyday like a Saturday night!