Introduction: History

Friendship day is celebrated every year on 30th July in the whole world and on 2nd August in our country India to commemorate the spirit of friendship and the sacrifice and sincerity associated with it. Friendship Day (also known as International Friendship Day or Best Friend's Day) is an international holiday dedicated to friendship and the celebration of it. Its date varies greatly by country and region. The idea of a World Friendship Day was first proposed on July 20, 1958 by Artemio Bracho during a dinner with friends in Puerto Pinasco, Paraguay. Friendship Day was first proposed in 1930 by Joyce Hall, the founder of Hallmark Cards. The idea was further promoted by the greeting card American National Association, but was not taken in a healthy spirit as it reflected the commercial gimmick to promote the greeting cards in name of Friendship Day. The original date of celebration was 2 August, though it has since been moved to 7 August in the United States due to de-synchronization in the US. To honor Friendship Day, in 1998, Nane Annan named Winnie the Pooh the World's Ambassador of Friendship at the United Nations. The event was co-sponsored by the U.N. Department of Public Information and Disney Enterprises, co-hosted by Kathy Lee Gifford. The World Friendship Crusade lobbied the United Nations for several years to recognize 30 July as World Friendship Day; Finally, in 2011, the General Assembly of the United Nations decided to designate 30 July as the International Day of Friendship and proceeded to invite all the Member States to observe the International Day of Friendship per the culture and customs of their local, national and regional communities, including through education and public awareness-raising activities.( source :Wikipedia)
In our childhood we used to listen to the stories by our elders about the friendships and the legacies they have left behind. And the best of all being the friendship between Prophet (pbuh). And the idiom “Ghaar ka Yaar” is told to have emerged from this legacy. At the same time, Abdullah- Bin-Obaye pretended to be companion of the prophet, but his intension was to spy the activities of prophet’s party to Abu Jahal.And our teachers would teach us “A friend in need is a friend in deed”. Then they would write the story “The Two friends and the bear”. Later on, we could learn from English Literature about various stories of the friendship that would tell us about the reality of a friendship. That would tell us about the insincerity and hypocrisy among the so the so called friends. The sarcastic phrase “Etu, Brutu”(You too Brutus) from the play “ Julius Caesar” that Caesar tells to his friend while breathing his last breath indicates that sometimes the friends are more dangerous than the enemies and act like the Snakes of the bosom. Critical estimate of friendship: In his famous 1940 essay "What I Require from Life", British-Indian geneticist J.B.S. Haldane lists friendship as one of his four fundamental personal needs alongside work, freedom, and health. He defines true friendship as a bond existing strictly between social equals who can freely exchange mutual criticisms. Equality over Hierarchy: Haldane states he cannot be friends with anyone whose orders he must blindly obey, or someone whom he cannot openly criticize.
In past there used to be the realistic friends and in current age , no doubt , the circle of friends has got widened through social media, but the emotional connectivity, sincerity and sympathy has vanished from the scene. In past, we used to visit the friends’ home and they used to visit ours, but nowadays we see that we see each other on social media for life has become so fast and complex that we no longer afford to meet our friends physically and it is also an undeniable fact that we no longer wish to meet someone physically for having the apprehension that our friends might ask for some sort of help and always try to avoid the situation. We only offer the lip service to console our distressed friend when he is in need of our company to share his inner feelings and thoughts with us, but we are not willing to help him. Facebook friends are the friends in absentia and hence can’t be relied upon in times of adversity. I must say that likes, comments and shares don’t make any special impact upon our life. On the surface level Facebook friends like our posts, but in the heat of their hearts look for the mistakes and that too for showing us down, not for correcting us. So we may say that Facebook is a book without friends with the real friends. As majority of the people hide their identity on Facebook. There is an idiom “fair weather friends” who always look for suitable weather and only then come forward they are the most untrustworthy type of friends. So it is only wastage of time and energy to make friends with them. And it is always preferable to avoid them and be free from burden.
Yet there are some who always remain ready to help others irrespective of being friends on Facebook or not. They look for the opportunity to offer a helping hand to others. They come to ask for your condition when you are on the hospital bed. They come to solace when you lose your close ones. They weep and cry as if their own kith and kin have died. They are the people who encourage you to take a daring step in order to have a new start up. They will not help you financially, but will stand by you through thick and thin. They will inform you in case your ward is going on wrong path and will very modestly say that you should advise your child. They will pray for your well being and be happy when you really prosper. And certainly they will feel bad if you are not progressing in your business/ studying etc. surely they will make aware of your faults in a sensible way.
What Francis Bacon puts about friendship and its purpose, “A principal fruit of friendship is the ease and discharge of the fullness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and induce. We know diseases of stopping, and suffocations, are the most dangerous in the body; and it is not much otherwise in the mind; you may take sarza to open the liver, steel to open the spleen, flowers of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain; but no receipt openeth the heart, but a true friend; to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession.He then explores the second fruit of friendship:
The second fruit of friendship, is healthful and sovereign for the understanding, as the first is for the affections. For friendship maketh indeed a fair day in the affections, from storm and tempests; but it maketh daylight in the understanding, out of darkness, and confusion of thoughts. Neither is this to be understood only of faithful counsel, which a man receiveth from his friend; but before you come to that, certain it is, that whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and break up, in the communicating and discoursing with another; he tosseth his thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them more orderly, he seeth how they look when they are turned into words: finally, he waxeth wiser than himself; and that more by an hour’s discourse, than by a day’s meditation.
To this he adds a chief benefit of a friend — the capacity to neutralize our astounding gift for rationalization through wise counsel:Add now, to make this second fruit of friendship complete, that other point, which lieth more open, and falleth within vulgar observation; which is faithful counsel from a friend. Heraclitus saith well in one of his enigmas, Dry light is ever the best. And certain it is, that the light that a man receiveth by counsel from another, is drier and purer, than that which cometh from his own understanding and judgment; which is ever infused, and drenched, in his affections and customs. So as there is as much difference between the counsel, that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend, and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man’s self; and there is no such remedy against flattery of a man’s self, as the liberty of a friend. Counsel is of two sorts: the one concerning manners, the other concerning business. For the first, the best preservative to keep the mind in health, is the faithful admonition of a friend. The calling of a man’s self to a strict account, is a medicine, sometime too piercing and corrosive. Reading good books of morality, is a little flat and dead. Observing our faults in others, is sometimes improper for our case. But the best receipt (best, I say, to work, and best to take) is the admonition of a friend. It is a strange thing to behold, what gross errors and extreme absurdities many (especially of the greater sort) do commit, for want of a friend to tell them of them; to the great damage both of their fame and fortune: for, as St. James saith, they are as men that look sometimes into a glass, and presently forget their own shape and favor. As for business, a man may think, if he win, that two eyes see no more than one; or that a gamester seeth always more than a looker-on; or that a man in anger, is as wise as he that hath said over the four and twenty letters; or that a musket may be shot off as well upon the arm, as upon a rest; and such other fond and high imaginations, to think himself all in all. But when all is done, the help of good counsel is that which setteth business straight. And if any man think that he will take counsel, but it shall be by pieces; asking counsel in one business, of one man, and in another business, of another man; it is well (that is to say, better, perhaps, than if he asked none at all); but he runneth two dangers: one, that he shall not be faithfully counselled; for it is a rare thing, except it be from a perfect and entire friend, to have counsel given, but such as shall be bowed and crooked to some ends, which he hath, that giveth it. The other, that he shall have counsel given, hurtful and unsafe (though with good meaning), and mixed partly of mischief and partly of remedy; even as if you would call a physician, that is thought good for the cure of the disease you complain of, but is unacquainted with your body; and therefore may put you in way for a present cure, but overthroweth your health in some other kind; and so cure the disease, and kill the patient. But a friend that is wholly acquainted with a man’s estate, will beware, by furthering any present business, how he dasheth upon other inconvenience. And therefore rest not upon scattered counsels; they will rather distract and mislead, than settle and direct.” So goes the discourse of friendship in a world that in real sense has very least friends.(source: of friendship: by Frances Bacon )

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