Dinesh Kamath on Friendship

Friendship is the most valuable commodity. Nobody can live without friends. Friendship is more precious than blood even. An outsider who is your friend is much more useful than your blood relative who is not friendly towards you. What I mean to say is that friendship is more important than blood relationship. In the modern world we see most of the people living in nuclear family. A joint family is become a thing of the past. In the past the family members used to be our friends. But ever since the families got divided and this thing called nuclear family has come into existance, man has been feeling isolated. He misses his own people. In such a circumstance, he finds it necessary to cultivate friends. He badly need friends. Man, after all, is forced to be interdependent. No man can be independent all the time. He has to depend on others every now and then. This is a world where we have to help others and be helped by others. Of course, sometimes, we have to help our own selves too.
There are many Bollywood films which have talked about friendship in great details. There was one bollywood movie in which Jeetendra and Shatrughan Sinha were depicted as friends. There was one beautiful song picturised on them. The song was 'Duniya mein Logon, kuch bhi nahi rehta, rehti hai sirf dosti. Zindagi ka naam dosti, dosti ka naam zindagi.' Then there was a song picturised on Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra who had played best friends in Sholay. The song was 'Ye dosti hum nahi todenge, todenge dum magar, tera saath na todenge'. Then there was a song picturized on Amitabh Bachchan and Shatrughan Sinha in the film Dostana. The song was 'Bane chahe dushman zamana humara, salaamat rahe dostana humara'. Then there is a famous song picturised on Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan in the film Namak Haram. The song is 'Diye jalte hai, phool khilte hai, badi mushkil se magar duniya mein dost milte hai'.
There are also Bollywood songs which talk about the betrayal by friends. Those songs are 'Dost Dost na raha, pyar pyar na raha, zindagi hume tera, aitbaar na raha', 'Dushman na kare dost ne joh kaam kiya hai, Umer bhar ka gham hume inaam diya hai', 'Achcha sila diya tune mere pyar ka, yaar ne hi loot liya ghar yaar ka' and so on.
At the end, I would like to say that both blood and friendship is important. But if one has to choose between blood and friendship, then my choice would be friendship. A good friend is more reliable than a bad relative. I'm sure all of you will agree with me.
I'll talk still more about this subject 'Friendship' some other time. Bye!