The Friends Train

There was a group this morning on the local trains here in Mumbai celebrating the 50th birthday of one of their members for the 20th time. These 50-60-70 year olds were like young children sharing slices of cake and handful of chips across the seats and among those standing. The treat are extended even to lowly bystanders like me who gracefully declined on the pretext of a diet! But the laughter and conversations are hard to resist with the giggles getting through you even if you weren't quite what the joke was!

They say from an evolutionary standpoint we evolved from monkeys: a group of animals who without a clear language and clear reasoning still had a strong sense of bonding and friendship with its fellow monkeys. Friendships then were based on dominance and power and one with a bigger butt or stronger body still ruled the roost.

While we may have moved away from the big bum criteria, our need for friendship and the dynamics of a friends circle stood the test of time! From cradle to grave, we go through the effort of making Playgroup Friends whom we cannot even recall playing with in our later years to Kindergarten Friends, School Friends, Building /Colony Friends, College Friends and work friends. Even religion is not spared with Community Friends and Association Friends being part of this friendly crew! Then we have paradoxical groups like Family Friends which honestly speaking needs you to make up your mind: are they Family or Friends?! And then the oddest of them all called Train Friends. While I call them Train Friends they are Friends we make on our commute and could easily mean Bus Friends, Car Pool Friends or Frequent Flier Friends in you corner of the world. They are part of a large tribe of friends we have who are what I call 'Friends by Presence' (referred to hereafter as FbPs) that is they are your friends because you happened to be catching the train at the same time. And yet they are quite like the family you have: You can't choose them, your destiny (in this case your job) chooses it for you! You would perhaps have many such FbPs.

We still have an alpha male (or female in a gender neutral society) who just like a patriarch binds the group together and acts as the pseudo gatekeeper of who enters and leaves the group. We have the matriarch who nurtures the new entrants and calms the nerves in case of an uproar. We still have children in the group and elders within the gang. It's this bonding that drives them to make it on time (almost) every morning and leave the same time every evening. The same camaraderie that drives them to jump into a perfectly empty train and catch seats for their group. And yes the same passion bordering on frenzy that drives ever so often people to stab someone who sits in their seats and break the sanctity of the group.

Nationalism, Religious Zeal, Patriotism, and other associations are forms of FbPs we cherish in our lives. It's what drives us at times to barbarism but it is also what keeps us human. And for that, I think one should stick with their friends: even if they happen to catch the same fast train as you do!

Posted via Blogaway