I have always thrived on my close-knit circle of friends, sometimes even more than family — not a scandalous confession, merely a practical one. Blessed with a sprawling army of cousins and an extended family large enough to require its own seating chart, I have still found friends to be my go-to source of moral, emotional and social support. Even my husband began life in my universe as a university friend in London, although that plot twist deserves its own episode, preferably with snacks.
My forever pride, however, has been my girlfriends — friendships I have nurtured for over 40 years, which in friendship years is basically heritage status. My first friend, acquired at the grand age of six months, lives in Kolkata, and we still talk every week. Another friend, from when I was four and she was one, reappeared at a wedding in 2022; since then, not a day passes without a hilariously long WhatsApp voice memo, or a strange meme or reel on Instagram — the modern equivalent of carving initials into a tree, except with worse lighting and more filters.
Friendships today are complicated — and I say this as someone who has watched entire relationships survive on blue ticks, delayed replies and the occasional heart emoji. With age, not everyone remains in the same stage of life. Losses, insecurities and the mysterious hormonal chaos of one’s 40s can bring a bitterness that makes everything feel more dramatic than the final scene of a television soap. Some friendships seep away like sand through a loosened grip, while others withstand time because they never expect you to remain exactly the same person forever. Evolution, after all, is also part of friendship — even if it arrives wearing reading glasses and complaining about back pain.
Technology, meanwhile, both helps and hinders. It keeps us connected, but it also takes away the urgency to meet. The security of physical meetings cannot truly be replaced by video calls, voice memos and texts, no matter how many emojis we throw at the situation like digital confetti. Yet as people get busy with work and the general circus of adult life, technology sometimes becomes the only thread holding the friendship cardigan together. With fading videos, irregular calls and messages beginning “Sorry, just seeing this”, you start questioning your place in a friend’s life. Am I still important? Am I still needed? Am I still missed? The questions sit there like unread emails from the universe.
And then come incidents that remind you friendship can also appear suddenly, gloriously and without prior appointment — such as finding yourself stuck in the Middle East during the Iran-US-Israel war, after missing a connecting flight to India. I was heading to Kolkata for a family affair when my flight from Heathrow was delayed. I was escorted to a waiting area with a very angry passenger, originally from Bangladesh, who had also missed her India-Dhaka connection. She maintained a dignified distance, while we were taken to a hotel that was clean and basic — the sort of place that says, “You are safe, but please do not expect luxury toiletries.” In the dining hall, while munching on dal rice like it was both dinner and emotional support, I met three other Bengali women, with roots in Kolkata, who became the backbone of that fated trip.
We were strangers, yet we chatted and laughed at our English lives — one a student at a Russell Group university, one an influencer, and the other an ex-risk analyst from Australia and the US, now on a sabbatical and attempting creative writing after moving to the UK with her husband. In 24 hours, we looked out for one another as though we were kin, despite having been complete strangers the day before.
As we parted at Kolkata airport, we promised to keep in touch, as people always do at airports, weddings and emotional endings — fully aware that life might immediately attack those promises with calendars, fatigue and poor network coverage. For a while, we almost did not. But at our climate change panel discussion last week in association with the RAF (see p16-17), one of them (in photo) turned up with her husband. It reminded me, beautifully, of the power of friendship, especially between women — the kind that makes life feel lighter, easier and occasionally less like a badly managed group project.
Happy International Friendship Day (30 July), readers. Let this be your official reminder to poke that friend you haven’t spoken to in ages, before they start charging you emotional late fees!
