So, how did you meet your friend?

Indoreans narrate their friendship tales, as how the person they met accidently became the best friend for life
A chance meeting with a stranger while travelling in a train who becomes your best friend forever… No, we are not narrating a scene from any film. This happens in real life too – when you hit it off well with that guy in a gym or bump into someone on a dance floor or start talking with your co-passenger while travelling in a train.Phone numbers exchanged, meetings get more frequent, and before you know it, the person you met accidently becomes an indispensable part of your life. This Friendship Day, we get Indoreans to share their buddy tales with us.
Met my best friend on a dance floor!
Usually, parties are thrown by friends and for friends. But there are also some bashes where you meet your future best friend. This happened with Sona Dalwani and Nayan Mehta, when they accidently hit each other’s heads while dancing at a common friend’s bash. “Both of us went ‘ooww’ in pain, and we stood there looking at each other before bursting into laughter. Now we are best friends and can’t stay without talking to each other. In fact, we celebrate that day when we bumped into each other as our friendship anniversary,” Nayan says.
Bus time, buddy time
If you love to talk and find bus and train journeys boring, you would surely have at least one friend you made while travelling. Like Jitendra Junwal and Ashok Sharma, who met in a city bus. Says Jitendra, “We used to take the same bus for work and had the same route from Bhanwarkua to Geeta Bhawan Square. At one such instance, we started talking and were soon engaged in deep conversation. This became a routine and we would look forward to our bus journeys. Our bond has grown stronger over the years and now he has become an indispensable part of my life.”
Books exchange
While books are our friends, but sometimes books are the reason we meet our friends. Saurabh Kumar Das, a writer from Indore, and Ankit Shukla, DSP, Indore, met through a website for avid readers. Saurabh says, “We would often post our views on the website about writers and books and indulge in discussions. Soon we exchanged phone numbers. Now we go to each other’s house and meet at coffee shops.”
Rajni Deshmukh, a homemaker, says, “I’ve made some friends at Ahilya Library. So, everyday I go there for at least one hour to spend time with them. We might not be able to talk much, but we share a deep bond with each other.”
Health-conscious friend
When two fitness-conscious people bump into each other at a gym, they are bound to hit it off well. The same happened with gym buddies Akshay Tripathi and Nikhil Pandey. Akshay shares, “I had newly-joined a gym and would exercise by myself. One day, a guy came to me and corrected the method in which I was exercising. Nikhil was into gymming for long and knew all the nuances of exercising. Soon he began to guide me with fitness tips and that’s how we bonded.”
Friend's boyfriend is my best friend
You must have heard of two-friends-falling-in-love-with-the-same-boy story. But there are also instances when your girlfriend’s friend becomes your best friend. When Ajay Paliwal needed a flat in Mumbai, his girlfriend’s best friend, Karandeep Saluja, helped him. Karandeep says, “My friend told me that his boyfriend was looking for a place to live in the city, and so I made him my room partner. We bonded so well and now we are best friends. Humein toh yaad hi nahi tha that we have met through a common friend.”
Sometimes, even in an ugly situation one finds a true friend. Recalls Nitin*, “I was dating a girl, who I didn’t know was cheating on me. One day her friend Aashima Dixit* came to me and told me the truth. Since then we have been friends and share all our problems with each other. She is a true friend who stood against something that was wrong and I admire her for that.”
* Name changed on request
By Tanmay Chandniwala