The greatest crisis of the modern time is the lack of human relations based on sincerity and integrity of soul. Human bond of this order as against indiscriminately and often thoughtlessly used love is a rare commodity. Love governed by passion may be more intense and prompt one to fall in it and do the most unthinkable but it is hardly free from possessive instinct. There is what is called selfless love but the feeling working behind it is to impress the loved one by heightened magnanimity or assumed nobility.
However, two people can reach out to each other without expecting any favour from either side. It is a relationship bridged on something unexplainable. Usually it is between people of the same sex or even across the gender divide. There is bonhomie unlike any other. They just rejoice in their masculine or feminine or heterogeneous companionship. Their deliberations may be of little substance or even without much sense but the time they spend in togetherness is invigorating.
If two people can open up so unreservedly to each other, it is because their soul is clean and unspoiled. Childhood is the best time to experience such unalloyed relations. As children reach adulthood, their world changes, relations suffer but in some rare cases those last forever -as long as they live. Old camaraderie in its purity in most cases does not last. They simply lose their innocence and turn jealous or egotistic. Has not Tolstoy made a caustic comment that children may be wiser than their elders?
The moment people sell their souls to the selfish devil within, they become cynical and the world becomes a terribly hostile place to them. It is because of this, people feel no qualms at being at each other's throat for the most trivial reason or object on this planet. Today, the trend is to derive instant pleasure and to get what one wants there is no such act from which one would back out. Selfishness has been taken to its extreme point.
In such an environment it is almost an impossible proposition for people to live childhood simplicity. But some have the naivety or rusticity to shun the complexity and intricacy of minds and surrender their hearts to each other in confidence. Blessed are these simple souls. When two such people walk down the corridor or some open space hand in hand, discussing something, their beaming faces say it all. At least for the moment they forget their surrounding and their companionship elevates on a higher plane, taking sustenance from something beyond the mundane world. It is friendship of souls -pure souls. But mere friendship does not explain the bond established. Exulting in companionship of each other is heavenly but most people are deprived of such enrichment of souls.
Well, in a particular case two such employees of lower ranks in an office lost their office boss a few months ago. They mourned the death like other staff members. But now is the time to discover in each other the warmth of heart which keeps human beings going after the loss of their near and dear ones. After every night, there is a dawn too and those alive have to pay their mortal debt. For one single and lonely person, paying such debt proves excruciatingly painful. It is because of this, human beings seek and offer comfort from and to someone close to their hearts.
Thus forms the bonding between man and man, between man and woman, between persons of different ages and standings. Deprived of this boon, sometimes some people shower their warmest feeling on animals. A relationship of dependence and trust develops and without the assistance of language of mouth, the language of soul exchanges the feeling for each other.
Sometimes such relations may look bizarre to most members of human society. For example, a Japanese youth fell for, of all creatures, a cockroach. According to him, the creature could reciprocate his feeling for it. The bonhomie between the two lasted for months, then the insect died. To make it a part of himself, the youth then ate it. Yet another incident of extreme fondness for a cock is reported from a South Indian state. The cock attacked a neighbour's daughter and injured her. When this happened a few times, the girl's mother went to court. Both the cock and its custodians were summoned and when the cock was sentenced to imprisonment, the woman in charge of the feathered creature implored to be taken to jail in exchange for its release. Bonding may be on a completely unexpected level too.
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