BID NOT FAREWELL

      TODAY, after the farewell ceremony to our senior batch of MA literature students was tearfully over, my friend in a melancholic temperament observed;"father, we will be in the same boat by this time next year". He was in his poetic exuberance when he remarked that every meeting is pregnant with the agony of parting. Someone was repeatedly quoting the Lebanon poet-mystic Khalil Gibran that it is in the agony of parting that we really realize the depth of love. But I was carried away by the lines scribbled in my friendship diary by one whom i keep close to my heart for more than a decade,

"സൗഹൃദത്തിനു ഒരു കുമിളയുടെ ആയുസ്സേ ഉള്ളെങ്കിലും അതില്‍ വിരിയുന്ന

സപ്തവര്‍ണങ്ങളുടെ ചാരുതയാണ് അതിന്‍റെ കരുത്തും സുകൃതവും..."

Now i know the worth of every relationship i have. From the Book of Tobit angel Raphael reminds that your soul mates are specially designed to fit your dreams from time immemorial. Jesus before his departure from this planet earth prayed for his friends saying that the twelve disciples who shared his mission are the people "whom the father gave" him. Thus there is always a heavenly value attached to your relations.

 But i don't subscribe to the view that the absence of physical proximity would tear away your bonds. I am skeptical to this notion simply because adhering to such a view would completely question the depth of your relations. You can be thousand miles away and still be in love as love crosses all barriers. Physical absence only means one is only taking a leave or one goes for a journey. I cant imagine a mother forgetting her beloved son just because he is not at home. Friend, yes, we part, but with the hope of meeting again soon. Compel me not to bid farewell,because wherever we go we bring ourselves too.

  Its drizzling in the valley of friendship, welcome my bosom friend...
we shall walk into this heavenly shower so that no one one will see our tears.....