Comments for Post #C27122

#C27122 42M, Chennai. You know, when I look back, my school days in Chennai feel like a whole different lifetime. I grew up in T. Nagar, the kind of place where you hear temple bells, auto horns, and the smell of filter coffee from some uncle’s house all mixed together. Every morning, I’d wear that same khaki uniform, polish my shoes till they shone like mirrors, and board the MTC bus from Panagal Park. School was St. Bede’s not that I was a star student or anything. I was the kind of boy who sat in the last bench, drew rangoli patterns on the last page of my notebook, and prayed that the English teacher wouldn’t call on me. But making friends? That happened without even trying. There was this one guy, Suresh, who shared his lunch with me on the very first day because I forgot my tiffin box. Another friend, Ramesh, used to cycle with me after school to buy sugarcane juice near the signal. We never planned to be friends. It just happened. That’s the thing about real friendship there’s no reason for it. You don’t become friends because someone is rich or smart. You become friends because you laugh at the same stupid jokes, get scolded together by the PT master, and stand under the same sun during morning assembly. And I’ve learned over the years not to carry any grudges. Even if someone teased me or made me angry back then, what’s the point of holding on? Life is too short. People change. That one boy who pulled my ear in class? Now he’s the first person to send me a birthday message at midnight. So yes, I’ve let go. No bitterness. No “but he did this twenty years ago.” Now we’re all grown up. Some are in the US, some in Dubai, some still in Chennai, working in IT companies or running small businesses. But the bond is still there. The other day, at 1:30 AM, my phone buzzed. It was Rajesh from our group. No text first. Just a call. I picked up, half asleep, and he said, “Dei, nothing. Just wanted to talk. You free?” And we spoke for an hour about old teachers, about how his father is not keeping well, about some random memory from class nine. No agenda. No favour. Just talk. That’s the beauty. Friends don’t need a reason to call. They just do. But here’s something I’ve learned the hard way. In our WhatsApp group, sometimes someone will write, “I’m not feeling good these days,” or “Work is killing me, I feel so low.” And many of us used to react with laughing emojis or make a joke like, “Dei, you’re always depressed only.” But one day, Suresh quietly left the group. When I called him, he broke down. He said, “You all think I’m joking. But I’m really struggling.” That hit me hard. So now, when a friend says something is wrong, I don’t take it lightly. I call them privately. I ask, “What happened, macha? Tell me properly.” Because you never know. Behind every “I’m fine” could be a person who is barely holding it together. We have to handle friendships carefully not like a meme page, but like a family. As life goes by, we get older. Some of us are married. Some have kids. Some have lost parents. And slowly, the children will grow up and leave. They’ll have their own lives. But who remains? The same school friends. The same people who saw you when you had no beard, no job, no worries. They’ll stay even when everyone else has left — when a marriage fails, when a business collapses, when health fails. No one asks, “How much do you earn?” or “What do you own?” because we all started from the same bench, same classroom, same stupid assembly line. There’s no money or net worth between us. We are equal. And one more thing respect their family. If your friend’s mother is sick, ask about her. If his sister is getting married, be happy genuinely. Don’t make certain things into a joke. Some topics are sacred. Some pain is invisible. We never know how sensitive a person truly is. The guy who laughs the loudest might be crying inside his bedroom. So we must handle everyone with care. That’s what growing up teaches you — if you’re lucky. Today, even though we are scattered across different parts of the world from Sydney to San Francisco, from Bangalore to Berlin ... staying connected keeps life alive. A voice note here, a stupid old photo there, a sudden call in the middle of the night just to say, “Dei, I was thinking about you.” That’s it. That’s everything. That’s what makes life feel real even when everything else feels like a blur.