Sucheta Dasgupta | To Thine Own Friends And Frenemies Be True

Some friends have your back. Some inspire you. Some hear you when you speak even if you are already close, already familiar.

It is important to have this third category of friends as they keep you grounded, help you think, get a handle on reality, see things as they are. They bring you the gift of clarity. That is why you feel so comforted after those conversations.

Their role assumes significance in the latter decades of your life. By then, you have survived and have an idea of who you are, know your likes and dislikes.

I like people to think for themselves. Speak their mind. Even if they are about to disagree with me. Even if, potentially, what they say may put me in a spot because I may not have a clear or ready answer.

At that point, I become the boring friend.

Liable to be misjudged/laughed at.

Though there is no compulsion, pressure, on the part of said friend to do either.

And so they don’t. Because they are my friend. I don’t really have to perform in front of them.

But do you know what’s interesting about being a woman? Like the best of surprises, life will bring you these friends as you grow older.

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Life will also let many of your friendships run their course. It is wishful thinking to believe that friendships are forever. Most last only for a season.

Some friendships may even be just for a few months. Especially those between editors and writers. Women and women. Even when both parties know whose ego it was that got in the way. People are not always equally idealistic even if they like each other.

Hubris is the common malady of ancient cultures. Albeit not the primary one. That would be competition in the world’s worst populated nation today. Competition drives a wedge between the unlikeliest groups of people. Parents and teachers. Doctors and patients. Auto drivers and passengers. Journalists and IT workers. Not to speak of colleagues, acquaintances, strangers. People from different communities speaking different languages, following different religions, having competing histories and traditions.

Instead of exchanging notes about current events that are impacting their work and respective workplaces, sharing tips and ideas, solving problems by putting their heads together, small talk between neighbours is loaded with value judgements when they meet each other in elevators. Even if it is with zero benefit of information. But how ever would they have owned it? Their questions never deviate from a set script. Neither do the answers.

Even though there is no pressure on anyone to stick to either.

It’s another one of those interesting things about being a woman; that expectation. Yet because of this reason, the simplest communication between people becomes one-sided. Friendships are stillborn.

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Sometimes, it is fun to rant. Not that I’m known to indulge myself, not really. Even this here is a structured mood piece, not a fulmination.

Yet if only for the sake of humour, let me list out some smart answers to those passive-aggressive how-are-you’s that I’ve switched to dispensing for a while now, after having spent an overly long time doing due diligence to the process of figuring out the askers. These are:

1. Can’t complain (or could be worse; but this old classic could still leave the asker sneering/smiling their smug smile simply because it is less than enthusiastic and so lends itself nicely to speculation)

2. Shokuner obhishaape ki goru mawre? (This is another classic, a truism meaning, did you think my cattle would die just to please them vultures? No doubt it is more openly hostile than its slightly ambiguous alternative, if wishes were horses; only make sure to wait for the enquirer’s reaction.)

3. Just so/see for yourself (the casual chic of responses)

4. What got in yer eye, friend, a cucumber? (a street version of the above)

5. Getting along with your blessings (this one is for the frenemy and is both snarky and diplomatic compared to a more direct “never better”)

Why that single retort in Bengali? Well, because, for one, it is an epigram (which you can customise if you like), and two, evolution. Lately, I have been measuring out tone in my everyday communications. The heart is no longer on the sleeve, not even for close ones.

All of this takes me back, however, to an answer I’d given a former work colleague back in 2008 when I first came to do journalism in Delhi. From the outset, it was pretty clear I was Bengali and I didn’t make any effort to disguise it (why would I? I had no reason to be self-conscious). But apparently, it had been expected of me, because my co-workers kept engaging me in yet another of those ubiquitous-yet-redundant inquiries; it was, as you can guess, the notorious, where are you from, rather than, are you Bengali, to confirm which had really been their secret desire. To it, I remember I’d once said, fish, medicine and roses. Not that I used to be much of a fish eater back then, maachh being an acquired taste of the mature palate and I was yet to hit forty, but my dad was a doctor, the house was full of medicine strips, we had the most beautiful rose garden in town and there was always fish for lunch and dinner.

I remember the fellow stop in his tracks, look at me goggle-eyed, decide I am mad (well, that was an easy one!) and proceed to repeat the question.

Comebacks are cool. Serve them out and rule.

Though there is no real pressure in life to do either.