I was in 6th standard, when I was sitting lonely in mine and my sisters’ study-cum-bedroom, sad of losing my then best friend.
“She has picked up another best friend since last week,” I told my sister.
I don’t exactly remember what she said, but at the end of her monologue, sitting next to me, both her palms on each of my shoulder, she sang a song, “Dil pe mat le yaar”.
Two decades later, as life has gone on to play its unexpected playlist, I have often concluded that this is a cycle of life. Some friends walk along, some don’t. I am sure there might be some old friends of mine that think the same about me too.
But going down the doldrums of anxiety and apprehension is not going to help you. Rather, l have come to these two ubiquitous conclusions each time something like this happens:
1. You must learn to be happy alone.
2. Because when you are happy alone, you do not make others feel lonely the way you were made to feel little and lonely.
It’s a subtle rite of passage where you have to walk through the path of fire, so that you become your warmth while making sure you protect everyone else from that heat.
