The Telegraph, Kolkata April 06

Urban Indians are learning to bank on friends and regard them as their family,

reports Sulagana Biswas

Friendly does it

Antara Basu, 27, a Calcutta-based software engineer, recently got a good job offer that required her to move to Pune. Her parents, though delighted, were wary about letting their single daughter relocate to a city where they had no relatives.

But they needn’t have worried. When they visited her a month later, Basu had already settled in comfortably. Smiles Basu, “My transition to a totally unknown city was unbelievably smooth, thanks to my college friends who stay here. As soon as I got my offer letter, I e-mailed them and sure enough, they swung into action, finding me a paying guest place close to my office.”

Like Basu, most urban Indians are learning to bank on friends and regard them as their family. Take Utsab Bhowmic, a marketing executive in his late thirties who had an unpleasant experience recently. “Driving to work, I suddenly felt dizzy and started sweating. I called my friend Sandip and within 10 minutes he had taken me to the nearest nursing home. My wife and parents learnt about my stroke only after I was admitted.” Asked why he telephoned his friend before his family, Bhowmic says, “My wife and ageing parents would simply have panicked. Sandip kept a cool head and took fast decisions, which saved my life.”

Pals, critics, therapists, lifelines, babysitters, gloom-busters, surrogate family – suddenly friends are the pivots in the lives of many Indians. While friendship is certainly not a new phenomenon, the importance that friends command is. Earlier, the family was defined by relatives – by blood or marriage. Friends, even close ones, did not play as decisive a role in an individual’s life. For today’s generation though, things are different. Take Ranju and Ayan, a young double income no kids (DINK) couple based in Bangalore . After work, the couple’s social life revolves around their friends. Originally from Calcutta , it was their friends who introduced them. “They set up our dates arranged an intimate wedding in Bangalore when we didn’t get enough leave for an elaborate Calcutta wedding, even got us our LPG connection, “recounts Ranju.

To be sure, both the Internet and cellular revolutions have a big part to play in making friends accessible. But this accessibility is now matched by a change in attitude. And a major reason for this change of attitudes is the emergence of the nuclear family and fewer children. “I am a single child, while my parents came from large families. They didn’t understand why I had so many friends during my growing up years in Jamshedpur , calling friendship a deterrent to studies,” recounts Rishav Gupta, now a Delhi-based banker. Today, Gupta’s school friends visit his parents regularly in his absence, even keeping tabs on their health.

But what about larger families with siblings? Says Sritama, a 23-years old student who grew up in a comparatively larger family with siblings and a younger cousin, “I don’t think that being close to my brother and sisters compromises my feelings for my friends – or vice versa. But the fact that my friends are important to me is recognized and appreciated by my family.”

“Middle class urban families have changed beyond recognition in the span of a few years,” asserts Dr Anjan Ghosh, a sociologist at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta . “Choosing and keeping one’s own friends is an individual act of choice. So is it any wonder that people are giving more importance to friends is an individual act of choice. So is it any wonder that people are giving more importance to friends than before?”

Asks Dr Ranjita Biswas, a practicing psychiatrist at the Antaragram Psychiatric Treatment and Rehabilitation Centre, Baruipur, “The dimensions of all relationships have changed, so why not friendship? In India , as in many traditional Asian communities, the extended family meant a common kinship identity and shared economy. Friendship is free of that baggage – it is more of an emotional investment, an act of choice, which people today are freer to exercise.”

Many urban Indians move out of their family homes for higher education or work. Consequently, living arrangements are changing with more hostels, paying guest digs and rented apartments shared by friends. “My friends are my family now,” declares 23-years old Dimple, a working woman who shares a room with two close friends in south Calcutta . “Since our landlady doesn’t provide food, we cook and shop together, even budget our accounts together. We fight a lot but these are no secrets.”

While same-sex friendships were always prevalent in India, nowadays it’s not uncommon to see “just friends” among the opposite sexes. Across campuses and offices, men and women are becoming friendlier than ever before, without any of the covert or overt sexual strings popularized by myth and media. “My closest work-place friends are two women, and no, neither of them is in love with me,” laughs Ritwik Sen, a married software engineer in his twenties.

“Friendship is the urban Indian’s expression of his or her self-discovery – a sharp transformation from previous relationships enclosed by the ties of blood, caste or kinship,” Dr Ghosh sums up.

In the US , Friends, the smash hit sitcom, may have folded up recently, but Indians seem to be looking forward to a long season of friendship.