On Friendship

If you become friendly only when you need something from people and after getting it you retreat back to your busy life, people will learn to play your tricks too when you need them. That thought struck me recently when I got a text message from a 'stranger' who called me a "close friend." I was taken aback because I had not seen or heard from this guy in over five years even though we both live and work in Kampala. Yet he wrote: "As one of my close friends I expect you at my wedding meetings starting next Thursday."

Where there's true friendship there's regular contact

I had to whip out my dictionary to be sure I had not forgotten the meaning of "close." For in my world, just having gone to the same school and sat in the same class, is not enough to quality us as "close" friends. Where there is true friendship there is regular contact. Friends call or meet often to talk politics, business, and crack jokes over tea and boiled maize or something. But when you are too tied up in your affairs to check on people, how do you expect them to respond positively when you need them?

I was once told a story of a rich man who rarely showed up back in the day when things used to be done communally. He would just send money with a note that he was too busy to attend personally. One day,
he lost his son. The villagers collected money and sent it to the rich man with a note that they were too busy to get involved physically. And in those days, companies that offer funeral services were
nonexistent.

There is more that life throws at us that we cannot go through alone however rich we might be. Sudhir Ruparalia must have had this at the back of his mind when he said to Meera and Ravi at their recent
wedding:  "A man's wealth is not judged by the size of his bank account but by the number of his friends."