HOW MANY FRIENDS DOES A WOMAN NEED?

Ten things that attract me to my friends:

1. I am generally reasonably tolerant, but there are some things I cannot stand, malicious gossip or any attempt to tell me something personal about somebody else puts me off. Let's say we are above all that AND such people will probably tell others some nonsense - true or false, about me.

2. Support System/truest friends – Some friends are not just a lot of fun to be with, I know we are there for each other. These are the ones I confide in, they are rare, cherished gems and I look for any opportunity to repay their goodness. They took care of my child when I had to rush to Delhi unexpectedly, they are always there. And I make sure I am there for them too.

3. Friends to yack yack, chatter chatter, gup shup, giggle etc with until the phone wire is so hot it’s burning – Working friends, busy friends, angry-with –their-other-half friends, fed-up- with- lack-of-drive-in-today’s-children friends, problems at work, autocratic MIL friends, angry with the system/politicians/news friends etc. We are all counselors cum sounding boards for each other.

4. Old, old friends. A friend I went to school with. A friend from college. Friends I met just after I got married, through my husband/his friends’ wives. We learnt to make cheese omelette and dal tarka together..Cooking was a big thing then! A friend who understood my enthusiasm for having the best baby in the world, and played Tanpura while I sat (very bored) and listened so the baby will develop a taste for classical music.(She didn’t) Friends who came running with a bottle of Paracetamol when a toddler had fever and I was convinced it was some life threatening unknown disease.

5. Mothers of my kids’ friends. We share the same problems! Long conversations reassuring each other that there is hope after teenage, and cursing the Indian education system, Lack of compulsory PTA in schools, the misuse of Internal Assessment by schools (to bully the parents). In the end we became good friends.

6. Shopping, Clothes and Party friends –Not at all frivolous..we have grown up (and sideways) together, shopped together, bought our first spaghetti straps together, hunted for the best (and the most reasonable) gowns and formal wear, discussed in detail every aspect of the suitability of an outfit for an occasion. Hair styles, foot wear and lipstick colours. And when I feel ‘over the hill’ they appear with smart, white framed, new sunglasses and ask “Guess where I got a new tattoo?”

7. Friends who love animals. Then I have friends who will come running (or driving) if I see a hurt animal needing help. (I will do the same for them). Over a period of time, we have become good friends and will come running or driving even if the crisis is of some other kind.

8. Friends into Stock Markets – We console each other when things go bad (and recently there’s been a lot to console about). Earlier we celebrated the bulls watching CNBCTV18 in our own homes, on the phone...

9. Gym friend – One makes Gym such fun with her bubbly chatter. We talk about other things too, but I have hardly ever met her outside the Gym! The other shares her Thera band and borrows my dumbbells...With her I can shamelessly discuss an extra cm without being branded narcissistic.

10. Internet addicts - Friends who cannot survive without the life giving supply of a minimum of 250 kbph. We know who to threaten if our Wi-Fi needs to be replaced / repaired or if the connection is too slow...and we always have that odd cable wire/splitter/phone number that the other urgently needs and just cannot find anywhere – in the middle of the night.