Let me set the scene
It’s been on my mind for a while that I start writing a blog. I write a diary frequently but was not sure what the theme of my blog will be. I had thought of a few blog names. On 31st Dec we had an end of year party. It’s a ritual for us friends. We meet up at someone’s house to bid farewell to the year that’s going and welcome the new year that’s coming. We have been doing this for almost 25 years now.
To keep us entertained till midnight we decided to play a game where we all were to write our resolutions and others were to guess them. One of my goals for 2026 I shared was to write a blog. One of the friends even joked that Ekta you can use today as the opportunity to start with your blog and that’s when I thought why not – a perfect date and a great topic to start blogging with. It took a few days to setup the site and get the domain name etc. but here I am with my first post!
So today’s post is about friendship and what it means to me in general and what are my latest 2026 thoughts about friendship. I am sure a lot of you will relate to this topic. If you have any other new angles to add please share those by commenting on this post. I look forward to hearing from you.
School Friendships
I am someone who has always had a good number of friends. The earliest part of life when I can think of any friends’ memories is when I was in Class 5. We used to live in Bhatinda Punjab as my father was posted there. We used to live in a BSNL colony where families from multiple parts of India lived. They had similar financial and societal backgrounds as ours as our fathers worked in the same organization in similar positions. As we were recently transferred here my dad had admitted me to a local school and Punjabi was one of the mainstream languages in this school. I have clear memories of going to this house where couple of these kids will have a ‘parantha’ as breakfast in the morning and they had a specific style of drinking tea. They would have tea in a steel cup and will hold it with their thumb at the top.
From these Punjabi kids who were my school buddies as well as my friends after school, I learnt a lot about Punjabi culture and the language. I don’t think I knew any Punjabi before we went to Bhatinda and that city is the one I can credit for me being a master of Punjabi in just one year! When I left from there I could speak, read and write Punjabi fluently. Today also I can understand Punjabi well and read some of it. For writing I will have to revise and practice a bit more 🙂 In the later years of life I had many Punjabi friends and I chose a Punjabi husband, may be its all threaded back to that one year of Bhatinda life somewhere!
The next clear memories of me having friends that were part and parcel of my life in those years are of Gurgaon school. After Bhatinda my father was posted in Chandigarh for a while and then we moved to Gurgaon. I was in that school from Class 6 to 12 meaning many of the friendships I started there lasted for a long time. We used to share lunch tiffin and the movie stories during lunch break. Only a couple of us were from families that took their kids to cinema hall for Bollywood movies. One of our friends was one of those lucky ones (she would know if she reads this). That time Salman Khan was everyone’s crush. The film stories were told in so much detail that after almost 35 years I still remember some of the scenes which were told as part of that story telling. A lot of the credit goes to the story teller and some to the listener!
I have tons of other memories from those times. We used to participate in almost every school event and the lengths of preparation we used to go through – be it a Hindi Poem recital, Mahabharata stage show or a debate. School teaches you formal academic skills but these friendships shape your personality, are your support in difficult times and are your whole world at that age.
Friendships in College
Post school I moved to Delhi for my Computer studies. This was an all girls college and I decided to stay in hostel to avoid the daily commute to Gurgaon. General perception is girls don’t make the best of the friends (may be its an outdated thought) but from what I have experienced in life this statement doesn’t hold much truth. In college we were this closed knit group of 6 girls who must be the most competitive but at the same time super supportive and a lot of fun! We were all super ambitious and super studious. It was tough at times but I must be like them hence I stuck around. We spent 3 years in the college and I am sure we went through the full cycle of most stressful situations in these years. You would think college times are fun times but more of my memories of college are of preparing for a test, or a viva or completing a project. I think that journey made me more resilient and till today I don’t shy away from hard work and instead of getting demotivated by competition it drives me and pushes me to do my best.
This all didn’t mean we had no fun. Apart from the other fun things (which my friends who will for sure read this post and can later fill me in or comment on this post) one that I can never forget is skipping the class on all those days when an SRK movie came out. These were the times when you cant miss watching a Shahrukh movie first day first show! These were 1992/93 times when the entire Indian female population had one common heartthrob SRK and for most of us he continues to remain that boy who sold us the romantic tales.
Friends at Workplace
After studies when you start working most of the people you meet are from your work place (including the husband in my case). I made some good friends in every place I have worked so far but some friendships have remained much stronger than the others. I am in touch with many of my India work friends and friends I made in UK after when I moved here in 2001. My overall mantra is keep personal life separate to professional but when I am looking back and counting my work friends I cant deny that you do make friends at workplace.
By the time you are working you are quite mature and you know who are your kind of people. Who do you want to connect with. Who brings you most joy. I think my most friendships are based on my curiosity of learning from people, what do they know that I don’t know, what’s their thinking pattern. I have absorbed a lot in my life journey through all these special people. If we keep our ears open and mouth shut we can learn a lot from mostly everyone around us.
Thanks to the WhatsApp world where we can still be in touch with mostly all of them through the WhatsApp groups and our generation’s social media platform Facebook (some of us are trying the slow migration to Insta as FB communities seem to be dying).
Friends in a married life
When you marry and have a spouse in life then there is one other source of friends and that is the friends of your partner and their spouses. The group of friends we socialize with now mostly is that group of friends. We all know each other for 10 to 20 to 25 years in some cases. It’s almost half the lifetime for many of us, meaning these friendships are as strong and as old as our families. We have been lucky that we found each other and we all are equally invested in making these friendships work.
Friendship is the Ultimate Bio Hack
Friends have always inspired me and have made me stronger. One other reason I am drawn to write about this topic is related to the inspiration drawn from Simon Sinek’s podcast that has been on my morning playlist for most of 2025 – A Bit of Optimism. Simon talks about many aspects of life and brings over guests from multiple facets of life on this podcast but he mentions almost in every episode about the power of friendship. We talk about all other relationships – Husband/Wife, Kids, Lover but friendship is never discussed as frequently and in the same way as these other relationships.
Most of the times friendships are taken for granted. You will not cancel a work meeting for a friend but you can cancel meeting with a friend for a work meeting. That tells us something. There is a whole industry dedicated to tell you how to be a good leader, how to be a good parent, how to eat better but there exists almost nothing that tells us how to be better friends. I find so much power in his this line – Friendship is the ultimate bio hack. We don’t need longevity pills we need more meaningful friendships.
Friendship works best in Plural
For me friendship always has carried the same value as family and at times even more. My take on friendship is that friends are those esteemed humans who we choose. We usually don’t have a choice when its about being part of a family but friends definitely we tend to choose and decide to carry on being friends with.
Some say usually there is a core set of 5 or 6 people who are your best friends. My take is the number may vary but you have a friend or a set of friends you know are your go to in a certain situation or for a certain advice. At times your oldest friend who understands you without even saying a word might not be the best person to advise when you want to discuss career . Like Sharukh says in the movie ‘Dear Zindagi’ when Kaira (Alia Bhatt) asks Dr Jehangir (SRK) – tell me something, is there such thing as a perfect relationship like just one special rishta to which he replies – Kaira mujhe lagata hai why that one special rishta. Jindagi mein kayee special rishte hote hain. Alag alag aihsason ke liye alag alag rishte like special musical rishta with someone jo hamara musical taste share karata ho or that special coffee rishta perfect to have coffee with but not anything else and special gossip rishta jiske saath perfect ghus phus ghus phus, or the special intellectual rishta for all that perfect kitabon vali discussion. There are so many different special rishtas, so many Kaira, aur ye romantic vala rishta inmein se sirf ek hai. Sab rishton ke aishaas kee jimmevaari ye bhoj is ek rishte pe dalana – a bit unfair you know.
And same applies to friendships – to put the responsibility of realizing all the relationships on one or a few friendships – a bit unfair you know!
So go make more friends if you still don’t have people with whom you can go watch theatre or talk about your life dreams or just randomly foolishly laugh at something and if you already have these legends then cherish them, hold them close and let them know they matter!