Role distance plays

Continued from "Distance, thou art strange."

Where distance has played such magical medium on one hand, it has on the other played the trickster who slowly, silently, flungs us in the labyrinth of daily routine and such priorities where we don't find a way to interact with each other except once in a blue moon. These have been friends from my childhood and school life, who have seen through life with me. We have learnt together, played together, grown up together, shared our dreams, confided our secrets, been partners in mischief, spoken hours at length about everything and nothing! With whom I understood the meaning of friendship, who have now moved to various destinations with their life, but are still as dear to me.

Taranum Fathima, Arshiya Nausheen, Trupti Jain, Mahalakshmi Satish Balaji, Kavita, Charanya, Kusuma, Seema, and so many playmates of my childhood...
I can't blame them, I hold myself responsible most of the time. I have been the one to drop my end of the thread, to give in to the delicacy of the situation and not pursued them enough.

I still recall the after school minutes I spent with Arshiya on the steps of our school waiting for our parents to pick us up and sharing all the knowledge we had in the world. I was so hurt when in the first year she chose someone else as her best friend! But she proved herself to be a true gem and kept me as close as ever.

Charanya was the first to separate choosing another high school, but for years till she moved to another city we met often, exchanged letters and stayed up to date with each other.

Trupti was the next to go away with her family shifting to Pune, but the distance was yet to not settle between us. We sincerely wrote letters to each other every two months, and what letters they were! Each of a dozen+ pages, complete with the latest minutest development to the last detail, livened up with jokes, quotes, designs, drawings and picture postcards!

Anybody else who saw it wondered how we could write and read such novel-sized letters to each other and what on earth could we have written in such close knit handwriting, but only we knew how short the letters seemed to us. Yet now, we have each other's phone number and email id but have no time except for an occassional Hi.

Taranum has been another gem and probably the one amongst us who goes out of the way and to lengths to maintain a steady interaction and never forgotten a friend. Maha and kavita have tried their best to remain in touch since distance set in, but we all have a void in our lives which only we can fill.

My note to them is: "You remember, whenever I was asked who my best friend is, I always replied as- All my friends are best in their own ways.

I wasn't wrong and I can still proudly say so. Thank you for enriching my life and sorry for all the forfeiture on my part."