The ultimate closure of close-friendship

The story of two best friends in their younger days, becoming unfriendly in the later years with all the bumps, and jerks narrated in chronology.

Haa..haa.haaa.haaaa.. Hearing this loud laughter those inside the restaurant stared at the laughing person. He laughed uncontrollably. Next to him was his friend who looked, rather serious. In a minute or two, that person stopped laughing. The one who laughed bellyful was Madhu and the one who cracked a funny comment was Sadhu. 

These two were school friends, who lived in Chennai city. Madhu was elder than Sadhu by one year. But in terms of height, Sadhu was taller than Madhu. They became friends while playing petty outdoor games like Cricket (Played with a tennis ball), kabaddi, kite flying, *seven stones, **Ketty-pully, etc. 

 

While Madhu had many friends, for Sadhu,  Madhu was his only friend. Due to a strict discipline-enforcing father, Sadhu did not come out much for play. He visited Madhu’s house occasionally whereas Madhu used to patronize Sadhu more frequently. Sadhu lost his father when he was only 18 while studying for graduation. Madhu, due to his family’s economic conditions could not go to college. He took up employment at the age of 18 and enrolled himself for graduation thru distance education.

 

Quite often, Madhu used to visit his relatives and call on his friends. On such occasions, Madhu invariably took Sadhu with him. The strange thing was whenever Sadhu went with Madhu to his relatives' places, Sadhu would wait outside while Madhu went inside. There were times when Sadhu used to wait outside even for two hours, just standing and looking at the passersby. Madhu’s mother liked Sadhu for his discipline and sincerity. At times she used to prepare snacks and offer hot coffee to Madhu and Sadhu. The same thing happened at Sadhu's house. In spite of Sadhu’s family, being quite large, on request by Sadhu, his mother used to offer snacks and hot coffee to Madhu.

 

While pursuing distance education, Madhu was on the lookout for some employment to support his family. To earn some money, Madhu embarked on a visit to Coimbatore city, in Tamilnadu state, to his relative’s place. He stayed in his house and helped with his relative's office work. But he did not like either the atmosphere or the attitude of his relative, who used to extract more work but paid only a paltry amount. Madhu used to write letters to Sadhu, expressing his displeasure and unhappiness to work there. One fine morning he simply quit Coimbatore and returned to Chennai and started hunting for employment.

 

Under the above circumstances, a tenant Sreedhar with his wife was living in Sadhu’s house. He liked Sadhu for his broad-mindedness and good behavior coupled with his sense of humor. Once he asked Sadhu whether he could quit college and take up an assignment at his company. Sadhu was not interested to leave his graduation in the middle, even though his family badly needed money to sustain itself. But he always had a concern for Madhu and his family’s welfare. He took Sreedhar into confidence and requested him to offer the job to Madhu instead.  Sreedhar was reluctant and told, “Sadhu, the job I am referring to is purely meant for you and not for others”.  But later, on consistent pleading by Sadhu, Sreedhar yielded and arranged a clerical job for Madhu in his company, which was part of a big group of companies in Chennai. But the job needed Madhu to work both night and day shifts. Madhu took up the job and was glad to earn some good money and support his family.

As the days progressed, Sadhu completed his graduation and joined as an apprentice in a company in Chennai for a monthly stipend of Rs.300/-. In the meantime, Madhu completed graduation and enrolled himself for a diploma in HR. On getting his diploma, he started looking for a career in HR and soon got a job in HR at a hotel group in Chennai. 

 

The friendship of Sadhu and Madhu continued. They used to go to movies, beaches, parks, etc to spend some good times. Sadhu used to entertain Madhu with his slices of cracking wits and jokes.  In the meantime, Madhu acquired a PG diploma in HR specialization and got promoted in the same hotel group. In a couple of years, Madhu lost his father who was a retired employee of the Postal &Telegraph department.

 

As luck would have it, Sadhu and Madhu were separated by thousands of miles due to Sadhu getting employment in a government-owned company, located in Hardwar, a far away pilgrim town in Utter Pradesh, in North India. After Sadhu joined Hardwar, they had letter correspondences. It was a no-cellphone era, those days. Madhu felt Sadhu’s absence so badly that he traveled by train all the way from Chennai to Hardwar (about 1800 km) just to see Sadhu. He stayed with Sadhu for two days.

Over the period of time, Madhu got used without the presence of Sadhu. Sadhu did feel Madhu’s absence but overcame it quickly. They met in Chennai whenever Sadhu used to visit on holiday. Somehow the charm of intimacy began withering between the two. Sadhu was sensitive and emotional while Madhu was diplomatic and practical. In a period of time, Madhu established his own HR recruitment consultancy. He used to boast of this whenever Sadhu visited Chennai. Madhu wanted Sadhu to come back to Chennai to settle. He arranged a couple of interviews for Sadhu in Chennai but nothing clicked due to Sadhu’s mediocre show at the interviews. Madhu arranged the travel reimbursement for Sadhu’s interview which Sadhu attended while on a personal holiday in Chennai. Madhu managed to manipulate and made the company to agree for reimbursing the travel expenditure of Sadhu equivalent to second class AC train fare for the distance of 1800 km. When Sadhu received a Demand Draft from the company, he was surprised. But he immediately sent it back to Madhu, stating that he attended the interview when he was camping in Chennai on holiday and did not incur any travel expenditure on account of the interview, except for the local bus fare. But the actual reason was Sadhu felt disappointed at not being selected by the Chennai company and to show his agitation over this, he reacted emotionally by refusing the Demand draft.

 

Since then, the friendship started taking a different route. Like, adding fuel to the existing fire, an uneasy episode involving Sadhu’s younger brother, Kannan took place. Kannan, a BA graduate,  very shy and less expressive,  could not get proper employment in Chennai. He went to one place Ranipet (about 160 km away from Chennai). There Kannan developed an ulcer and their mother wanted him back in Chennai.  Sadhu wanted to get a job for Kannan in Chennai and conveyed his intention to Madhu. Madhu, the HR consultant, assured him that he would get Kannan a placement.  Kannan went to Madhu and handed over his resume. But things did not happen as expected. Sadhu enquired Madhu about what was going on in that regard. Madhu, after prolonging with false assurance, once told Sadhu that since he was focusing on placement of executive positions, he was finding it difficult to fix a clerical job for Kannan. Sadhu felt disappointed with Madhu over his lackluster attitude and disappointing Kannan. Time lapsed, one year and then two years. Sadhu who used to visit Madhu on his every visit to Chennai stopped going to him and just spoke to him over the phone. That was the path-breaking in their close friendship. From his end, Madhu promised Sadhu he would meet him in person but failed to do so, citing official reasons. The inability of Madhu to fetch a job for Kannan and the duo’s withdrawal symptoms from real friendship in due course changed the texture of their friendship. It started declining rapidly in terms of liking, warmth, and the urge to see each other. Moreover, Madhu, whenever he spoke to Sadhu, used to self-boasting about his busy schedule, his big clients, and their faith in him to tap the right candidates for the final interviews. These frequent self-centric self-boasting talks irritated Sadhu.

 

Sadhu got married and Madhu did attend the marriage. It was more of a symbolic gesture. Madhu invited Sadhu with his wife to his house and gave dinner, giving electric clothes ironing device as a gift. Nothing significant happened later. Within a couple of years, Madhu got married. Sadhu, though was having hectic official works, at Hardwar, made it to his marriage. The green pasture for Sadhu during Madhu’s marriage was his personal meeting with Ms.M.S.Subbu Lakshmi, the legendary and world re-known classical singer from South India. He felt privileged of spending about five memorable minutes with her that added to his nostalgic library. The irony was that on return to his office after attending the marriage, he was taken to task by his superiors for not being present when the Annual Accounts closing statutory audit was on. The auditors raised certain queries which were best clarified by Sadhu than anyone else. Sadhu got a return gift of sorts for attending Madhu’s marriage.

After Madhu's marriage, the distance started widening between them, not to talk about the geographical distance. The telephonic talks between the two too were reduced to the barest.

This kind of truncated relationship was prolonged for another ten years. In the meantime, Sadhu fathered two sons while Madhu was the father of one son. Once or twice Madhu, during his business visits, dropped in Sadhu’s place in Hyderabad city, where Sadhu was officially posted for twenty-seven years. He retired from services at Hyderabad. 

Slowly, the inevitable started happening. Whenever Sadhu visited Chennai, he neglected Madhu. Madhu was unaware of Sadhu’s visits to Chennai. It was a pitiable breaking up of a once well-flourishing bond of friendship. After some years, in an almost no-contact environment, Sadhu, while camping in Chennai, came to know perchance about Madhu operated for bypass surgery. The next day he called on Madhu at his office to enquire about his health. By that time Madhu had acquired large wealth that included two independent houses in a busy area of Chennai. During his visit, Sadhu found out Mrs. Madhu was a miser. Sadhu felt the woman lacked a broad mind and a basic sense of hospitality. All he could see in her eyes were selfishness and longing for more money.

After the above visit, Sadhu never met Madhu in his life. Madhu went on to become a consultant of reckoning in the HR circles in Chennai. He managed entry into the small screen, answering questions on various issues, especially employment related. Madhu, once in a while, used to SMS Sadhu to watch his shows on TV. But Sadhu never watched even a single TV show of Madhu’s. Whenever Sadhu visited Chennai, his siblings and friends used to tell him something or the other about Madhu that he was one of the popular HR consultants, he was being featured in TV shows, etc. Sadhu did not mind all that. But deep inside, he felt disappointed with both Madhu and his spouse.

 

While their friendship became static, time was very dynamic. Years after years rolled on. One day Madhu called Sadhu over the phone and told him he was performing his son’s marriage in Hyderabad and that Sadhu should make it to the marriage. He also promised to visit Sadhu and invite him personally. Later he did visit Hyderabad but did not visit Sadhu. He phoned up Sadhu and informed due hectic schedule, he could not find time to visit Sadhu. That was the last excuse Sadhu wanted to hear from Madhu forever. In the due course, Madhu sent his son’s invitation over WhatsApp and that was it. He also requested Sadhu to attend a religious ceremony on his 60^th birthday in a pilgrim town in Tamil Nadu, scheduled after two weeks after his son’s marriage.

 

The marriage venue in Hyderabad was about 30 km from Sadhu’s place but the distance was not the reason why Sadhu did not attend the marriage. Madhu too did not speak to Sadhu after the marriage. The ceremony of Madhu's 60^th birthday also happened without any concern for Sadhu. Sadhu texted him, just formal greetings.

After about six months, one evening, Sadhu received a phone call from one of his ex-office colleagues from Chennai asking Sadhu whether he was aware of the demise of Madhu, the day before. For a moment Sadhu felt shocked. Later his colleague sent the newspaper cutting of the obituary column with Madhu’s photo. Sadhu phoned up his own siblings in Chennai and got the confirmation that Madhu was no more. The irony was that Sadhu did not even save Madhu’s phone number. He searched the net for Madhu's HR consultancy and ascertained the office’s phone number. On the third day of Madhu’s death, Sadhu called on his office to obtain the telephone number of Madhu’s spouse. To his surprise, Madhu’s spouse answered the phone. She informed Sadhu, "your best friend Madhu is no more. He died in a freak road accident. He was hospitalized in Appolo corporate hospital in Chennai with huge blood clotting in his head. Even after the best efforts of the doctors, Madhu failed to respond to the treatments and passed away. He often used to mention you, referring to you as his best friend".

   

Sadhu’s mind brought back the flash-back of those intimate and joyful days of yesteryears when their association was more than just friends. They were soulful friends once upon a time. Sadhu attached so much significance to Madhu that he kept his other close friend, Hari, waiting for him many times. Sadhu knew that their friendship died the day when he did not even call Madhu over the phone during one of his earlier visits to Chennai. On hearing of the demise of his ex-best friend, Sadhu felt that his death was just symbolic of their already dead friendship. Nevertheless, he prayed for Madhu’s soul to rest in peace. The times of enjoying with him in gay abundance compelled Sadhu to shed a few tears.

Now Sadhu is living a life of contentment and happiness, after superannuating from his services. He never had a best and worst friend like Madhu. With the passing away of Madhu, Sadhu called it a day for friendships. Except for his own inner soul, Sadhu doesn’t have any close friends in this world. Even these days, Sadhu at times longs and craves for a soulful dear friend of his choice but knows deep in his heart that close friendship was never his cup of tea or would be so for the rest of his life. 

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Glossary:

 

*where seven small stones of similar size used to be stacked one over the other and one had to hit them from a distance to dislodge the stack and then manage to re-construct the dislodged stones to their original position

 

**The score was calculated as the no of lengths measured with the wooden stick of one-foot size that was used to lift and hit another small wooden plank of around 5 inches, with sharp edges, the more the length the small plank was hit, the more the score. This was played by an individual with certain conditions and without the active participation of others. The one who scores maximum used to be the winner)