Was he really a friend?

"Do you have any real friends? Or had? People who are with you not because you have a good job. Just pure friends." I was a tad surprised as a recent query from a colleague came out of the blue.
"Never." I was equally surprised I could reply extempore to a brain-wracking question that demanded the most careful consideration.
"I thought so," she sounded nonplussed.
"How?"
"Just observation. You are always on guard even with me."
I said something that made no sense.
"Remember, now you have a friend you can be honest with and share," she said, closing the conversation.
Three months later, yesterday, I was forced to revisit the straight talk by a tragedy back home as Sasi, a co-traveller in the journey of life until a deluge of events took us in different directions, literally walked out on his life.
"Do I have real friends?"
The last time I talked about a friend was when my father passed away. "I lost my best friend," I wrote to my uncle in Colombo. My use of the word 'friend' has since been a casual reference to any acquaintance or a colleague. A friend in real sense never occurred to me. The question that I asked myself, while waling in the privacy of my bedroom, was, "Was Sasi a friend?"
There are people, old and recent, on a list of names that matter who pump daily doses of jokes, memes, spiritual teachings, philosophies etc. There is a slew of alumni groups  more than I could handle --- that share any damn thing other than love and compassion. Then there's this pantheon of people that calls to point a finger but never offers a solution. Some never call, nor write but send a word through someone else, "Tell him, I'm always there for him."
There are others who are just a concept. They are unseen friends, yet we long to read their messages. We don't ask them why they haven't replied. We don't ask them what they're up to. We wait for them indefinitely. One tiny 'Hello' from them is like manna, fallen from heaven. They mostly reply in emojis yet we protect the relationship like a treasure. We don't say anything that would hurt them. As if we can't afford to lose them.
"Amina, go away," I said once.
"No, I will not."
"Amina, you attempted only one-word questions in your school days?" She knew what I meant, so sent a smiley. It's a never-ending let-me-make-you-wait game. They are in your life to make you smile, not share.
I'm not sure how genuine are queries such as "Is everything OK?" or "Are you fine?". Because friends naturally know what's happening in each other's life; no need to ask. Because friendship is a continuously evolving process that ultimately rips down boundaries and I become we. I am not game unless that oneness happens.
It's almost there in the case of Sasi. Both our fathers had died when we were young. His father died of shock behind the wheel of the taxi he drove when politicians tried to set fire to his vehicle for defying a shutdown call. We both had a number of sisters to give in marriage. We were students together, lovers together, jobless together, tuition teachers together, Mumbai bachelors together, and expats together. We had the privilege to pass orders to each other. "Come to town; same coffee shop; dress neatly." We went to see a guy who proposed to his sister, fixed the rishta and came back.
No one asked when we went out together. We were partners in all the predictable teenage crimes, but made the best of our quotidian days. We slept with a dagger under our pillow. And somewhere in the continuum between dreams and reality, we boarded two different buses, crossing each other's path once in a few years. He flew my Grade 4 son to Oman on a holiday. His car was mine whenever I visited India. When he was cash-rich and time-poor, I cooled my heels in his car as he attended Lions Club meetings for hours. He never said sorry. I never fretted too. I had no secrets that he didn't know. I didn't bother to dig into his life while he reared two wonderful boys as a single parent.
Not only did he dream, he romanticised them, too. He had dreams about every studious child he knew - my children, his boys, his nephews and nieces. He built what I called a little Shangri-La that overlooked swathes of paddy fields. It was there we met the last time. He told me to put the camera down and talk like my old self. I was fearful of snakes and other creepers in the dark and quiet of the night. But he talked endlessly about the verdant grandeur and how every bedroom of his dream home would open to infinite sheets of water. I told him I dreaded watching the sunset from his paradise because there's a sepulchral touch to it. "Don't you worry, we'll make the sun switch the sides," he joked. The images of that evening I carried home was inky blue. Like an agonising dream, when I look through a diaphanous curtain of tears.
He loved his daily constitutional but yesterday's was a trek to the frontier of no return. I would miss the sight of his diminutive figure emerging from the lush green paddy fields. My children would miss the chilli mussels he used to buy us from the lone tea shop in the midst of vast emptiness. My son would miss the comfort and courage that his presence offered. I would miss his wicked smile at every step he climbed.
Was Sasi a friend? He was a friend to my family, my sisters, my nephews and nieces, but was he my friend?
No, he wasn't. He was a sibling.
suresh@khaleejtimes.com