“What is REAL?” asked the rabbit one day. “Real isn’t how you are made, it’s a thing that happens to you. It takes a long time. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off and you get loose in the joints. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly….except to the people who don’t understand.”
Have you read the story of the Velveteen Rabbit? The ‘Real’ here is the friendship between the boy and his toy rabbit whom he loves without measure and condition.
How does this translate in the real world in the best way possible? Should every relationship be measured, mapped and labelled? Should we be ‘friends’ with our parents, spouses, children…? Does this work because one partner is the dominant one, the ‘doer’, the other the follower?
Honestly my favourite friend is my book, my show, my movie that I am watching at present, my Mr Right Now!
This may sound perfectly superficial but it is honest. We have phases with our friends. Getting to know them, spending time with them. Love, hurt, all wrapped up in a decade of on again off again days.
Sometimes and only sometimes we get really lucky or really submissive and our friends turn into our….wait for it…Guru’s! A way-giver, a wisdom beyond and in sync with your thoughts, ways and values. Someone who you have known your entire life takes on ‘the role’. He or She will be there for you if you turn to them for, clarity of thought and advice on how to navigate through life’s storms, sharing happier moments together, giving and taking if lucky, equally. If you have had this in your life, you have had a chance to experience ‘REAL’ friendship.
During our last years in school, Anil and I had this crazy bond and friendship. If he started reading a book, I was reading the same book at the same time. We discussed every character and every turn and plot at length. If he liked a song, he taped it for me and sent it to me so that by the time we met next we were humming the words together. Our bowl of fruit was never sweet enough till we had not shared its contents to the last. When I was sick he was at my door with a board game that he would love to play and win at but kept me company for hours on end. He fell in love with ‘Olga’ in the Michael Jackson song ‘Beat It’ and would call me over to watch it together at least a thousand times. “Come watch me play tennis”, and I would be sitting for hours in the sun watching with delight as he would annihilate his opponents, then we would walk home and share a box of Bon-Bon ice-cream pops. My loves, his girlfriends, who I should talk to and what career paths I should opt for, our dreams and his ‘Kumbhkaran’ sleep requirements. We knew it all.
One day he was gone. Just like a strong gust of wind that sends a shiver through your spine for that one quick moment, leaving behind a lifetime of memories.
So I ask about human relationships, some we cannot choose and some we do. Finding that sweet spot with someone creates that bond which falls into the ‘forever’ column in your google sheet called life.
I want to come home at the end of a day to people, love and friends. Can I depend on human relationships with the people around me to complete that part of my life or is it wrong to find solace in my fictional friend, in my latest book or show on Netflix?
My best friend, my Mr Right, who I often don’t agree with, or my Mr Right Now, who I love unconditionally, just like the rabbit in the Boy’s story?
Written By Shashi Mahesh
Keeping it Real
Week 2, Jan 2021
