Dost

4th April 2025

On festivals, I usually check my phone less because I am too occupied cooking special meals, and doing all the extra celebration preparations, in the last few years I have started telling stories about festivals to my son so that he learns the reason, belief, and science behind them.
Last Diwali, when a tired me checked my phone after 3.5 hours, I replied to most of the messages sending a Diwali creative I had made. But, after I opened that chat, the glow on my face was different. The message said, "Happy Diwali, Dost", from a very close friend. That one moment reminded me of how sweetly he used to call me Dost and not a friend. That one moment reminded me of how a group of 3 boys comforted a naive, small-town girl who was trying to fit into the equations of a city.
In 2011, when I was in my third year of engineering, Facebook was a new thing, and everyone made an account on it. They used to have so much fun discussing it, and sharing what they explored there. There I was, trying to seek permission from my parents to have a social media account. Yes, believe it or not, that was me. I was so desperate that one day I even fought with my mom for not allowing me to have an account there and told her how I felt like a Stone Age creature in the group. She was unbothered.
The next day, in the college canteen, Facebook was again being discussed at the table and I started feeling left out. I quietly got up and started walking towards the library (the only place I thought I could fit in, although I could rarely find there otherwise! ) 3 of my friends noticed it and followed me. They did not let me enter the library and instead, we 4 took a bike ride to Khadakwasla (a dam in the suburbs of Pune)



We were all sitting quietly and one of the Bhuttawala's (there are a lot of corn stalls there. They sell roasted and seasoned corn kernels) radio started playing, "Aaja main hawaon pe bitha ke le chalu tujhko... Tu hi to meri dost hai.." and then one of my friends continued the lyrics further in his non-melodious voice, lending his hand and picking me up to dance with him. " You have got real friends Nilshree, why are you worried about Facebook friends?", he said. And from that day he always addressed me as "Dost"
The day I took my last exam in engineering, 02/06/12, was the day I made my Facebook profile. I was too excited already. I also have a lot of "Friends" on Facebook, some 4k+, I guess. But how many of them are the real Dosts, that is something I will probably never be able to figure out.
The term friend has somewhere lost its essence because of Facebook, I feel. Because merely accepting the request does not let you know everything about them. People you make friends with on Facebook may be a different person in real life and you would never understand that. The joy of gradually knowing about each other, sharing good and bad times, teasing, and pulling legs, does not have the same impact on Facebook as it has otherwise.
What would you prefer to be called Friend or Dost?

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