Fair weather friends

There’s a very popular Bollywood number that explains the irony of the theme of this blog. The song runs as-

सुख के सब साथी दुख में न कोई ।

A very close friend of mine recently had the first hand experience of this when his mother-in-law fell seriously ill following the adverse consequences of the deadly dengue. She developed multiple organ complications and being in a small place with limited medical facilities, he had no option but to rush her to Chandigarh, the nearest large city. Leaving all his businesses and his wife’s job, he camped with the aged patient for more than 3 weeks and in fact, had to go to her place again following the re-emergence of the symptoms.

Of course, his mother-in-law comes from a large extended family, most of the members of which are well endowed – academically, socially and financially. The family comprises members having high end jobs, with a few of them professionally qualified being doctors and engineers.

While he had no plan to dump any of his responsibilities on others, being an outsider himself to her native place, he just tried seeking guidance on the next best option after Kurukshetra. The quality of suggestions and responses that he received could be at best described as apologetic if not outright pathetic. And he shivered at the very thought of if he had to ask for financial help from any of these financially sound so called “ relatives”.

Let’s face the facts. It’s a very cut dried cold world out there. While social media has played part in bringing friends and families together through creation of FB and WhatsApp groups, these platforms are mainly for wishing good mornings, happy birthdays or announcing some achievements. Whenever a member of these groups tries to highlight a problem, he is either ignored or blocked.

Let’s all have financial security and adequate medical insurance for ourselves and our close family members. Don’t test the dependability of your friends and relatives. They are all fair weather or Sukh ke sathi.