Close Friend-The missing person

A close friend is like a spectacles, with you and helps see things better :)

Confidante

Someday in your life, you feel you are missing one person. That could be your parent, sibling, life partner, business partner, colleague or a close friend. I never had a close friend with whom I could share my feelings, discuss my personal issues or ask for suggestions or solutions on the problems being faced.

My father

My father was working with the State Bank of India as Branch Manager and his job called for being transferred to multiple branches every three years. In 1983, he got transferred to Chennai and this was at the beginning of my 6th grade (aka 6th standard). My parents decided to settle down in Chennai. They decided that my father would travel across locations for his job. This decision made a huge gap in our growing up days. I hardly interacted with him during my school days, never spoke to him about my wishes, problems or issues faced. And as destiny would have, moved to Mumbai for my college and followed it with my work experience. It took me 15 years to return to Chennai, by that time he took voluntary retirement from service.

Home city

After returning to ‘home city’ any major decisions that I took it was discussed with him. My mother is more sentimental and as any perfect couple, my father was more pragmatic. Be it the decision to buy a house or shifting to the new house or quitting the job and starting my entrepreneurship journey in my mid-30s. All of this was discussed and decided with concurrence from my dad.

Advice

I discussed with him about my failed entrepreneurship. He was there to encourage me. I do remember his words, "No worries dear, you did something and failed in it, there is nothing to feel ashamed of. Many in the world haven't even attempted to do. You need to quickly get back and decide your future. It could be joining the workforce for a temporary period".

Terminated

Every relationship has an end. This too had. Terminated in 2010. It was 5 years - a golden period in my personal life. It’s going to be 9 years, since then. I don't have a close friend with whom I can share my feelings, take an opinion. Every time, I face a difficult or challenging situation I think of him. What would he recommend? How would he think of the problem at hand? The possible way forwards he would suggest? I did "DC-DR project", 3 months after his departure and always used to plan how he would proceed under such situation. He would say think deep and plan deep. Think of all the possible solutions. His principle is 'You are responsible for actions that you undertake'. His principle was 'I can be a spark plug, not a lubricating oil'.

Life is a circle

He never asked or said anything about our choice of subjects, didn’t inquire about marks or scores, never wished what we should become, never insisted we do certain things in a certain way.

Now in my mid 40’s, I miss him a lot. I try to give my kids what I missed in my school days. I make an attempt to be a good friend to my kid. Just to pass on what I got from my close friend - my father from '05-'10.