THE
ANONYMOUS FRIEND
It’s been one hour since the interview process had begun and
I’m the next person to be called in. The waiting room was filled with nervous
candidates breaking their already broken knuckles off their sweaty hands. There
were few who kept striding to and fro while the rest could feel their sweaty
feet oscillate between the legs of their chairs. I was all nervous and my throat started aching out of tension.
The wooden door that stood erect in front of me is the only
partition between me and my dream of becoming a social worker. I had been
dreaming of helping the helpless right from my childhood. Keeping aside all the
mockery and taunts hurled by the society I kept pursuing my education towards
social work and now I’m just one step away from becoming a full time social
worker under the government of India.
“Mr.Vinod”, the clerk came out and shouted. I stood
up and all eyes turned towards me. I was showed into the interview room and
with trembling steps I steadily walked into the room. There were two men and
one woman in the panel, all three of them old enough to make an interview a
tough one. After all the practiced formal greetings, I finally occupied a seat
that was staying vacant for me to occupy.
I was first asked to introduce myself and after a two minute
vigorous self-introduction, I was asked the most unexpected question. The panel
asked me to define a friend. I was dumb found on hearing the question. I have
been reading all the statistics related to social work and the human
development reports of the country, but I never gave it a thought to go through
a definition for a friend.
All I knew about a friend is that it is just a tagline that
is usually given to classmates and especially peers. While I was struggling
within myself to speak of a friend I was asked by the woman to leave aside the
definition and speak of one of my friends that I feel worth speaking about.
I have a huge number of friends in real life and
considerably a good number on the social media. But until that day I never knew
that I had no specific friend who occupies a place of worth in my life. I was
prompted to speak of the first person that comes to my mind as soon as I close
my eyes. I remembered the one I spoke to just before entering the room, but I
knew nothing about him not even his name.
I was then asked to write the names of the top ten friends
that come to my mind and was asked to speak about at least one person. I took
the pen and paper and started writing with all vigor, but much before I
completed five names the pen stopped. I knew nothing about these people but for
their names and the period during which they spent their time with me.
There was a list of my schoolmates, college-mates,
sports-friends, social media friends and many more circles of friends who seem
really close to my heart but now when the time has come to write about them I
knew worth sharing. It was a fact that I had great experiences with them and
that life would have been meaningless in their absence.
Every single person in
that list had a place in my heart but none of their details took a store in my
mind. I was then asked a rare question by the interviewer. He asked me to write
the list of the people that I am sure would leave everything and come to my
rescue in times of need. I knew that all my friends would be ready to be by my
side in times of distress, but deep inside my heart, I could not mention at
least one person who would leave everything just for me.
My heart and my hand kept arguing throughout the exercise
and finally I ended up giving a blank sheet. The panel then asked me why I’m so
interested in helping a community that I’m not sure would ever come to my
rescue in times of my gravest need. I was all stuck for a right answer. This
single answer would decide my future. It is all that is going to decide whether
I become a social worker or live the life of a social animal. I almost felt
lost and closed my eyes in frustration. I asked myself why I ever dreamed of
becoming a social worker. A failure in this interview would make me a failure
in the eyes of the society that had been often advising me to quit the path of
social work. I asked myself if this is the society that I always dreamed of
serving.
I searched in the depths of my past for the first trace of
social service that stained my mind. I kept digging further and further and
there I was standing on the centre of the road crying for my spilled cup of
ice-cream. I could hear voices shouting at me from the footpath. I turned
around to see the reason for the chaos and could see the speeding truck heading
towards me. The driver was honking at me and was trying his best to divert the
vehicle but in vain.
I closed my eyes in terror and the next time I opened them I
was in the hands of a huge man with my eyes staring close into his brave eyes.
A huge crowd surrounded us and appreciated the policeman for his courage. I was
fed some water and taken to my house. The man’s eyes kept staring at me with
their reassuring smile. I opened my eyes with all the confidence re-built by
that smile and started speaking with confidence.
With gratitude washing the air in my vocal cords, I told
them all about my friends and the true definition of friendship. “A friend is
the one who fills fragrance in your life even though he gets trampled under
your own feet”, I said in an emotional tone, ”and now it is time for me to play
the role of a true friend to the millions of people waiting out there for my
friendship”.
I could feel the hands of the doctor which first touched me
with their gentle care, I could smell the sweat of the farmer that spread over
the rice that I have been eating for years, I could hear the yell of the
soldier who just lost his life in a battle to save me from terrorism, I could
see the smile of the young hands that roasted the bricks that were carefully
embedded in the walls of the room that I was sitting in. All of them were
beaming at me from the corner of the room congratulating me for my success as
the interviewer handed me my call letter.
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