Amistad

Mumbai… fifth most populous city in the world, the commercial and entertainment capital of India. Mumbai's suburban rail systems carries a total of 6.3 million passengers every day, which is more than half of the Indian Railways daily carrying capacity. Mahdy, contribute a lot to it, he had the shade of average Indian men, he was leaning against the poll near the door when he heard the muffled laughter. He looked around and saw couple standing, newly married, they were secretly laughing about something. The guy was holding one of the hanging support but the girl was not holding on to any support. But she had her two fingers inside his jeans front pocket, that was all the support she needed. It was not obscene it was very cute and by looking at them one could sense that they loved each other. Mahdy was smiling to himself thinking “that is how she is going to be… happy!”
The scene brought back a lot of memories, Siya, she was the best friend he had. They did their schooling and college together, now working in different IT companies. Siya would update mahdy about everything, starting from the fight with mom to the new hair clip she got, Mahdy on the other hand would just listen. They used to travel together in train to college. Sometimes Mahdy would go past his station to drop her at home or at times Siya would get down at his station to chat a bit longer. They were recruited in different IT companies, they couldn’t meet as often as they used to but that didn’t change anything,they both were still in contact with each other thanks to the technologies available. It was one fine weekend, Mahdy woke from the nap and logged into his computer to check emails, he saw many offline messages from siya, he checked his phone, there were missed calls and messages from her. He noticed that she was online and pinged her:
Mahdy: “hey… everything ok?”
Siya: “hi…”
Mahdy: “why missed calls and messages ? everything ok?”
Siya: “I have lots of stories to tell… He proposed… and I accepted!!”
Mahdy instantly knew who she was referring to,“he” is Kaustubh, her office colleague, their senior in college, good guy, in fact very good guy. A perfect match for siya! Mahdy knew Kaustubh personally, He was happy, more that happy Mahdy was excited.
Mahdy: “Really?!! congrats! congrats!! treat!!”
Siya: “stupid fellow, always treat! ok ok I’ll give!”
Mahdy: “How did he propose??”
He remembered that the chat went on for entire evening,Siya gave him every detail of the proposal and what they spoke, Mahdy was very very happy for her.
From there on, when ever they spoke or chatted or messaged, the topic ultimately came to her relation with Kaustubh. Siya told Mahdy about the fights they have or about the plans they make or about Kaustubh’s future plan. Initially it was fine to listen to these stories but slowly Mahdy felt it was not OK. It was during one of their chat session:
Siya: he is stupid fellow…! I am angry!
Mahdy: now what happened?
Siya: “he said something stupid and pissed me off, I am not going to talk to him again…!”
Mahdy: “Now you sound stupid, you know that ultimately you will speak to him why this fuss “
Mahdy: “you are another stupid fellow!”
Mahdy: “Yeah I know…! “
Siya: “This time I am not going to talk to him for sure…! you know what he…..”
Mahdy: “Siya wait…!”
Siya: “what?”
Mahdy: “I am not totally comfortable hearing stories between you and Kaustubh. Happy stories may be yes I’ll listen, please don’t tell me about these fights…!”
Siya: “oh… okie!”
Mahdy: “thanks!”
Siya: “but why…?”
Mahdy: “just like that…!”
Mahdy knew that was not the answer, he was not exactly sure why he didn’t want to hear those stories, may be he just wants her to be happy and not hear the fighting part.
The train stopped at his station, Mahdy got down and started walking home, when he noticed a gorgeous girl crossing, his head turned in her direct automatically until she was out of sight. He had a sarcastic smile and thought to himself “look who acted like gentlemen by saying no I don’t want to hear your stories!”, but it was true, he may not be a gentlemen, he didn’t want to hear stories about her relation. Mahdy was not sure whether his life became busy or hers, but things started drifting apart slowly, the phone calls were obviously dedicated to Kaustubh, when not one phone messages were dedicated to him again, when online, chatting with him is important. Somehow Mahdy knew this would happen, he didn’t complain either! The chat session were becoming more outmoded:
Mahdy: hi…!
Siya: hey..
Mahdy: how r u?
Siya: im good, u?
Mahdy: same same
This had become a template, sometimes chat would continue beyond this point to few other topics! But during yesterday evening:
Mahdy: you know this has become a standard template, I could copy paste it next time we chat so that we don’t need to waste time “
Siya: “yes I know… very bad na…”
Siya: “ I know that I don’t handle time well, no time for friends… no time for other stuffs… but Kaustubh is not the fault, it is just me I don’t handle things well…!”
Mahdy didn’t like the sad tone in her: “hey cheer up! you will learn to handle things well… after all he is Mr. Important!”
Siya: “ “
Mahdy reached home, he was still thinking about the chat session yesterday, there are situation in life when everything and everyone is right but something is still missing and you cannot blame anyone for it, this was one of them, he couldn’t blame Siya for not dedicating time for him, she is trying her best but more importantly she was happy! Mahdy had witnessed many debates on Love versus Friendship:
Love is demanding but friendship is not.
But if you see it is friends who help their friends to succeed in love life, be it lending the bike or signing as witness! so does that mean friends know that only LOVE can make one really happy?
With so many thoughts running in his mind he logged into Facebook and the first status he saw was:

“It's said that great friends can go long periods of time without speaking and never question their friendship. They pick up like they just spoke yesterday, regardless of how long it has been or how far away they live; they don't hold grudges. They understand that life is busy..but you will ALWAYS love them. Re-post if you have at least one such friend and they will know who they are..”

After reading the status there was sudden clarity within him. He realized:

“Friendship is hoping that your friend experiences the best in life and Love is making sure that they had the best in life”

Mahdy did repost the status and he knew who would like the status.