Friends Like That
Jaya had once been my best friend. She and I had known each other since we were little kids. We’d played at each other’s houses, we knew each other’s families, and we spent more time with each other than with anyone else.
Jaya and her family had moved to London from Lancashire while she was in early primary school. She had perhaps been apprehensive about joining a new school and making new friends. I reached out to her on her first day, and we became the closest of friends two little girls could be.
But this was before puberty and before I became Deputy Head Girl of our school, when Jaimini then turned on me and encircled herself with her new clique, to which I was denied entry. I wasn’t cool enough for them.
As I’d written already here, Jaya and her new gang would skip past me in a line, each of them getting a juicy slap in on my head on the way. They acted as if everyone else was beneath them, except the cute boys, of course. Unfortunately, they stayed this way throughout high school.
For reasons still unbeknownst to me, when at 17, just after high school, I was getting married, I afforded an invitation to them, thinking, hoping, they would attend. Jaya and I had been so close once; even the other girls and I had been together in the same classes since we were four or five years old. So, I put everything awful they did to me aside and invited them. It felt only natural that they should come. I didn’t overthink it.
Not only did they not RSVP or show up, but I found out that they also used my wedding reception as an excuse to dupe their parents and shoot off on a weekend rager.
They were all sixteen and seventeen years old, so a girl group weekend away without adult supervision would have been met with a hard no had they asked their parents. But, for their classmate’s wedding, how could anyone refuse?
My dad was told by the owner of the local corner shop where he bought his cigarettes that the girls used the photocopier machine there and doctored my invitation (this was the era before Photoshop, people), changing the location of the venue from where it really was, which was just a 20-minute drive away in Hertfordshire, to a place North of the country and said it was a weekend-long function, when it was just one evening. They packed their bags, and off they went. I didn’t hear from or see them for years after that.
Jaya and I bumped into each other again at a pub in NW London around seven years later. I asked her if she was okay as she didn’t look too good, and it ended with a glass of wine being thrown in my face and both of us on the floor of the pub, hair-pulling and slapping, the lot. I’m not a fighter, and I didn’t grow up with a bunch of feisty sisters as she did, so I basically got the crap kicked out of me. But that’s a story for another time.
So, there are friends like that.
And then there is…
A Friend Like This
Someone who did RSVP and who was there at my wedding, someone who’s been there at every juncture of my life whenever I’ve reached out to her, right since grazing my knees in our nursery school playground, to finding myself alone in the world again after leaving my husband, to having me over for lunch at her home the other week.
This is the friend whose wedding I didn’t attend because I was too busy finding myself in India. She never once complained about it. This is the friend whose children’s births and birthdays I have missed. Yet, she never fails to smile when we speak.
This is Sharmila, or as I call her, Milli.
Many a time, from primary school into my twenties, I would selfishly descend upon her home and talk about myself and my struggles at home. Milli would listen patiently (and cook me yummy Gujarati food). Milli is also the only friend my ex-husband allowed me to spend time with.
I was so focused on my own strife and troubles, I think I rarely asked her how she was doing, and if I did, I don’t think I listened as well as I should have.
I would disappear out of her life when it suited me. I’d be lost with new friends, a new life, or just lost in myself, but whenever I emerged, she was always there; no trace of judgment.
Milli’s had her fair share of struggles, but to date, she never seems to flounder or wallow in self-pity. I remain in awe of her finishing university and building business after business, tapping into her creativity and passions and putting them to good use. And she has the most beautiful family; her home, filled wall-to-wall with family photos, is a homage to how much she dotes on them.
Milli is the kind of person everyone wants to be friends with, and everyone can be friends with. The kind of person who has several friendships that span a lifetime. Because she doesn’t take them for granted. Because she is genuine, jovial, and loyal. There is no judgment, and there is never an air of superiority about her.
If there were a sainthood given for friendship, Milli deserves it.
Do you have that one friend who’s known you since before you could tie your shoelaces, who accepts you just as you are? The kind of friend who expects nothing, whom you may not see for years, or months may pass before even a hello email is exchanged. You don’t even talk on the phone, and yet, whenever you reach out to them, they’re there at the drop of a hat. And when you do see each other, it’s as if no time has passed; you pick up right where you left off. They jolt your memory and remind you of the funniest times, remind you that no matter how tough life can be, you were an innocent child once, and you laughed so much with them. The kind of friend who restores your faith in humanity.
If you do, you are very blessed.
If you don’t, perhaps it’s time to become one. I am learning this now.
If you have even an ounce of a friend like this, please tell them today how grateful you are.
Milli, Sharmilaben, I don’t say it often enough. I love you. I appreciate you. Thank you for being the best chuddy buddy anyone could have asked for 🧡