The Puraani Jeans Of Our Lives – Old Friends Are The Best

Being a teen is the probably the best phase of one’s life (the ever-changing hormones are not the only reason I say so and neither is your heart missing a beat when you see your crush nor are the late night chats with him/her) This is the age when you are surrounded with friends. In most cases, there is no worry or any burden (although ask any teen and they will behave as if the burden of their lives is the worst that can be but never mind, we adults know better). The day starts with messages from friends, making plans to meeting them, actually meeting them and the day ends with reliving good moments of the same day.

As real life starts off

But as age progresses and you leave the so-called burden of studies behind and move into the corporate world, your ambitions take flight. You realize there is so much you wish to achieve in life. Sometimes in the pursuit of achieving those goals, you may move to different cities or your friends may be the ones moving out and in some cases in spite of being in the same city, the interactions reduce. Sometimes they tend to be restricted to only phone calls or worse still, just Whatsapp messages.

Meeting new friends as you move ahead is a way of life. But isn’t there something always special about old friends; the ones you grew up with or the ones you studied in college with and who have stayed on with you in various stages of your life?  These are the people who have seen you making last-minute notes ( a testimony of how disorganized or irresponsible you were, even if you are the recipient of the Best Manager award now), going gaga over your crush, being worried about your first interview and so on and now they see you harping about your achievements.  While your new friends get to see the more matured you or a saner you, the old friends know better. Ask them and they sure will have that one memory up their sleeve, which can embarrass you to the core.  They are the old pair of jeans, the ones that you are absolutely comfortable with and reach out to, no matter the number of new pairs that you may have.

After them having witnessed a lot of embarrassing situations with you, it is easy and seems natural to have those sexual innuendo conversations with them. You don’t have to worry that they will be knocking at your door, seeking for an opportunity the moment your spouse is out of town. Sexual innuendo conversations with them turn into a kind of challenge just to decide who can cause more embarrassment and make the other person go red in the face. Then there are certain types of humour which one can have with only a certain set of friends because those friends are so used to that kind of behaviour that the absence of the same seems a bit abnormal. There is never a need to think before you speak when you are with these decades’ old friends because they have known you for so long that they will neither be offended by anything you say nor be judgmental about your views.   Not only this, sometimes even in spite of being among a group of friends, there may be that one secret joke, which only one or two friends understand and the rest of the group has no clue of it.  The word offence doesn’t exist in the dictionary of old friends. All kinds of gibberish are welcome and allowed.

Simple stress buster

It’s not that these little gossips or double meaning talks with either the friends of the same sex or opposite ones are oxygen for our lives. But for the moment that these conversations happen they make you forget the deadlines that have to be met the next day or even the clothes in the washing machine that are waiting to be put up for drying. They act as a stress buster for that moment.  To have that level of comfort and ease with a friend of a few months or few years is difficult but if there are people who have that, it definitely is commendable.

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Complaints no but chance to embarrass, yes.

It’s a busy world, where everyone has their set of commitments, troubles and priorities. Sometimes it is not possible to be in touch regularly. But do these old friends complain? Nah, they don’t take pleasure in complaining about your lack of time or lack of attempts to connect with them. Their sadistic pleasure lies in never letting you forget about those embarrassing things that you did in school or college days. More often than not, conversations with old buddies are like a walk down memory lane. I wonder how can a person who has been a friend only for the last few months or a friend from the office days have such pleasure ever. Isn’t that something that’s reserved only for the buddies from school and colleges?

The image is a still from the movie Veere Di Wedding

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