It’s a great honour, when friends repose confidence in one, and share their troubles…and this has the added benefit of showing one that what one considers one’s own difficulties are often far less in magnitude than that of one’s friends, which they often face with so much courage and determination.

Two of my friends have been passing through very difficult times, for a fairly long stretch of time….. and in both cases, the clouds seem to be breaking up, and an easier period dawning. One friend is leaving Bangalore to take up a job elsewhere; another friend has got a clear time-frame of a few months in which to face and solve certain issues.

In meeting and spending time with both of them, it cheered me up immensely to see the new-found hope and serenity in the faces that, a short while ago, were shaded with tension and trouble.

We seem to have so little control over our minds and emotions, but we also seem to find the strength, somehow, to face difficulties and sort them out little by little. I’m really proud to have friends with such strength of character…hopefully, I will learn this way of handling adversity from them. They have already helped me realize that handling difficulties with grit and positivity is a way of slowly attaining victory over them.

Friends…my greatest treasure in life. One that the Income-Tax man cannot chop pieces of, and take away to line the nest eggs of politicians in Switzerland.