Ice Cubes

A few days back, a dream crossed my mind. I saw myself walking through a dark chamber completely void of light. It was silent, I could hear nothing except the sound of my hollow footsteps. It was scorching hot in that chamber, I could feel sweat running down my forehead. The heat began to intensify and consequently my strength began to slack. And suddenly, my mind entered into a state of oblivion and the curtain of life fell. I felt weak,depleted. I went down on my haunches, I had completely given up.  I did not have the strength to walk further, my legs were paining , they were completely motionless like dead weights. But suddenly, out of nowhere, I felt my hands touching something wet and chilly. And suddenly, I realized that  a few pieces of ice were scattered in that chamber. They gave me relief. They gave me the strength to walk further. I took a handful of ice, gripped it tightly in my hand and started walking. I was up on my feet and felt rejuvenated. And after that I could walk steadily,the pain began to reduce and I reached my destination with ease. I felt happy and contented. Then, I looked at my hand and saw that those pieces of ice had melted. My hand was empty. Tiny droplets of water could be seen on my hand and suddenly the dream broke.

I’ve experienced similar situations in real life as well. This is what everyone of us experiences at some point in his/her life. We keep on running after things and 90 out of 100 times, we end up getting nothing and consequently, we end up losing everything we possessed. With all the doors closing, we feel helpless, depleted and of course, shaken to the core. I’ve gone through numerous situations like these in my entire life but fortunately, I had friends, not many in number but who remained true to me. Walking with them made me forget my past, a past which was covered with fog. Friends prevented my fall. They gave me immense courage and I started seeking pleasure in their company.

But suddenly, I realized that those friends were just like the pieces of ice, which provided me with transient relief and just when I thought I had them in my grip and would never let them go, they melted away and I was left empty handed.

Well, when I had a closer look at friendship, I realized that friendship has no survival value. But, it is one of those things which adds value to a person’s survival. Friends broke the shackles of monotony and made me find pleasure in the smallest of things. The best thing about a friend is that he or she will never try to change you, friends love you the way you are and that is certainly the best thing about a friend.

Friendship is neither bound by rituals nor confined by cultures which makes  it one of the strongest bonds in the entire universe. Trust, love, respect are all pillars of friendships. The invisible ties of friendship are like air because they  cannot be seen and remain unnoticed but their absence causes the cycle of life to stop.

Like any other relationship in the world, friendship too has its limitations. At times friends give you unbearable pain and you feel like running away. But the truth is: ” everyone whom you come across in your life is bound to hurt you in some way or the other so you need to find the ones worth suffering for” and friends are certainly the ones worth suffering for.

I may have committed a million sins, I may have told a million lies but, somewhere in those lies hides a truth which says that I never betrayed a friend for I always knew what losing a friend really means. And to be honest, I feel privileged to have a friend  and I promise that I’ll always be there for my friends whatever the situation may be

because:

” It gives me strength to have a friend like you to fight for because I can no longer fight for myself. But for a friend , I can  even kill”