One fine day I sat in front of my PC checking my emails and I found that I had received an email from an old friend of mine. The subject of the email: “Happy Friendship Day” And then I thought about all the silly days that had come into existence in the recent times. There was a day for your father, a day for your mother, a day for your lover and I am not sure of this but probably there are days for brothers and sisters too. I don’t approve of them quite frankly. I don’t quite understand the logic of dedicating 1 of your 365 days (or 366 if the year happens to be leap) for some relation of yours.
One day, during a course of a discussion, one of my friends tried to demonstrate to me the importance of having these days. He asked me visualize a scenario. He asked me to consider two good friends whose relationship had been strained because of some misunderstanding. Since the “bad day” the event had taken place they were not talking to each other. But on one fine day, they notice the date shown by the calendar and the calendar also showed that it was Friendship’s Day. Seeing this both of them were forced to rethink about their hindered friendship. They began to recollect the good old days they had spent together as friends. And slowly one took the initiative and picked up the phone. They talked over the phone and said that it was the ideal day to patch things up. Hence, the tradition of celebrating the Friendship Day had helped them rekindle their relationship.
I thought over this scenario for some time and asked my friend as to how he could justify the existence of Father’s Day or Mother’s Day. He sat in front of me silently and seemed to have no answer to my question. And then he stands up and offers some explanation. He asks me to visualize another scenario in which the son has gone to some far off place maybe for his education or maybe for some job. Since he is away from his family the existence of such days would make him call up his father or mother and speak to them. And then I stood up emphatically and said, “Exactly. This is what I am trying to tell you.”
Why is that we need the calendars to remind us that back home we have a mother or a father who have worked so hard their entire lives to make our life? Why is that we should need a calendar to instruct us that we should give a call and speak to our parents, our brothers or sisters or our lovers? I mean it is possible for me to understand the fact that a calendar could be used to remind us of what work is to be done when and what meeting we have to attend on which day and at what time; and what time which program on the television is going to be aired but I do not understand why calendars should remind us what relations we have in this world and that we must take time out for them.
With changing times our lives have become more and more mechanical. But have we become so mechanical that we need to be programmed like robots to filter out days in the year for each relationship? Have we become so mechanical that we cannot celebrate these wonderful relationships on each of the 365 or 366 days of the year? Celebration does not mean that we call and talk to every single person every day. Though ideal, I guess it is not practical. But I sincerely pray that there be enough humanity alive in all of us that we don’t need to be reminded by the calendars through the medium of these “silly days” that there is something in this world called a father, a mother, a brother, a sister, a friend or a lover. Our life is defined by our relationships to a very large extent. Let us cherish them every single day of our life.