Friends who rose to the occasion

EVERY year, the arrival of the rains reminds me of a happening that left a lasting imprint on my psyche. It was not a Bollywood-style romantic scene that we remember for a long time after having enjoyed a great film. It was an awe-inspiring incident in the early 1980s that revealed what kind of friends we all should aspire to have.

One Sunday morning, when I visited a friend’s house in Chandigarh, I was told that he was busy taking care of his ailing friend from Shimla who was in the City Beautiful for treatment at the PGI.

He was suffering from an ailment which could not be diagnosed in Shimla, where he was posted as a government employee. He had come to Chandigarh with the hope of getting cured and regaining his health. However, the patient’s condition continued to deteriorate with every passing day. Unfortunately, doctors at the PGI, too, failed to diagnose his ailment despite a series of tests. He fought for his life for around 15 days, only to lose the battle at the end.

It was raining cats and dogs the day the patient breathed his last. His wife wanted his body to be brought to his friend’s house in Chandigarh, where she was staying, but without a post-mortem examination. It was not an easy task, but the friends of the deceased succeeded in somehow fulfilling her wish.

Nobody in our friends’ circle those days had a car, except for one who lived in Mohali. He was the only one we knew who had a landline phone too. He used all the resources he had to ensure that the funeral was conducted the way the widowed woman wanted.

The torrential rain was refusing to stop, making our task very challenging. The unending rain that day forced us all to remain confined to our common friend’s house for hours together. Everybody was weeping copiously over the loss of a dear friend. I had never seen such a scene in my life — friends shedding tears for the departed as if he were a family member.

One person who had somehow kept his tears under control was our friend from Mohali who owned a car. Instead of wasting time, he got busy making arrangements for a proper burial. The others present got the message that they, too, should focus on ensuring a decent funeral.

The widow was flabbergasted by what she saw after her husband’s death. She could not believe her eyes when she observed his friends behaving like brothers. It is not for nothing that celebrated Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan tells us through his poem on friends, ‘Main yaadon ka qissa kholoon to kuchh dost bahut yaad aatay hain…’