Something that is happening because of the latest kind of communal thinking is that of losing friends we made and kept for many years! I truly believe, only the renewing of those old bonds will destroy the sad polarization happening here!
For years we have looked at each other as friends, while today it seems we’ve been handed tinted glasses to put on.
“What is this?” we had asked, as new fancy glasses were given to us.
“Free glasses for you to put on, we have made it exactly according to your preference!”
“But I have my own glasses for the sunlight, and for reading and for also looking at a distance!” you had said bewildered.
“But these are different,” you were told, “they will help you to look beyond what you have been taking for granted!” And in innocence you’d put them on, then looked at a friend, yes your best friend and said, “Hey! You look different!”
“And you look different too!” he or she had also shouted.
“I didn’t know you worship God in a different way than mine!” you carried on, “How dare you!”
“And how dare you!” shouted your old friend too.
And a friendship broke.
Today take those glasses off!
Now, that you’ve done so, let’s see together what others say about the friendship you lost:
"Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light." - Helen Keller
“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one.'" - C.S. Lewis
"A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself." - Jim Morrison
"A single rose can be my garden... a single friend, my world." - Leo Buscaglia
"Love is flower-like; Friendship is like a sheltering tree." - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
"A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart, and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words." - Unknown
"Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends." - Virginia Woolf
"A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out." - Walter Winchell
"Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down." - Oprah Winfrey
"One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives." – Euripides
No! Don’t put those glasses back! Throw it, smash it, stamp on it and pledge today, that whether we are Hindu, Muslim,
Christian, Sikh or whatever, we will look at each other as a friend, and nothing else! Our nation needs to be saved through old bonds being strengthened once again..!
Robert Clements is a newspaper columnist and author. He blogs at www.bobsbanter.com and can be reached at bobsbanter@gmail.com
