ONE-ce upon a time - II

There are few things about people like one, they have a close circle of friends within which they are like any other person -free to interact, often express their likes and dislikes but outside the closed circle no one hardly knows them. Often they are tagged thickheaded, rude and god knows what. This is kind of situation one faced. Four never had such problems, he was an extrovert having no problems adjusting to a new environment, getting new friends, hanging out with them. He just forgot about one who was of no use to him now since he had taken up a different subject at college. Whoever had said that friendship is forever perhaps had never seen people like one, two, three and four or was perhaps a ‘four’ kind of a person who didn’t bother finding out, what the others felt. After college one joined a multi-national company while four and his friends joined another MNC. One’s luck continued as all his friends both school and college friends joined in a different company. So one had to start all over again, but life had taught him some things so one tried his mighty best to be free i.e get rid of his shy attitude and prove it to people that he wasn’t the thickheaded person they thought he was, that he too was a normal person in need of good friendship and attention. One now found new friends in six, seven and eight –all of them very helpful and understanding. But he had no way to tell if the friendship with six, seven and eight will take the same course as two, three and four – only time will tell that. As it happened, one got a mail from ….. Who else – four, his old friend. Although he wanted the old times back, it just didn’t happen – a broken cup remains broken, although it can be mended it will never regain its past glory. Likewise although one maintained contact with four, it was never the same, there was always an invisible barrier reminded him of the past – those darks days … those dark days when four ignored him, atleast three and two he could forget and forgive because they had moved to another school in another town. Now the once close friends remain not even as pen pals but as former contacts. One’s story is not so rare as we would think, it happens to every introvert, there is always someone who uses him and discards him like a paper tissue. It is for people like one to realize this and not give a chance for someone like four to take advantage of him. It is never late to change oneself. As Darwin correctly put it- “ it is a world in which only the fittest and the most ruthless survive”, the weaklings are destroyed. People like one should realize that they are not weak and that is only with his help that four excelled in his exams and take it up as a challenge and succeed in life all the while keeping in mind that they don’t give the same treatment that four gave to one to others. The future belongs to us.