In an era, where we had crossed letter friendships, sweater friendships😊, telephonic friendships, and reached social media friendships, I wondered, if, such virtual friendships would have been possible a century before.
During this progression of my age regression to bring back what I had heard in childhood, I went far beyond a century and unearthed two very interesting examples of friendship from Tamil literature. They happened in the BCE, when there was no digital, no media, no gadgets. Only the society existed😊.
In the first one, these two friends never met during their life and death. One was a king, and the other one was a poet. Their friendship grew completely virtual, just hearing about and admiring each other. It was so deep, that when the king decided to end his life by fasting, due to a defeat, he was confident that the poet would hear about it, come to meet him, and reserve a seat next to him. Alas, when the poet came, the king had already died. The poet sat on the reserved seat and fasted till death, to meet his friend in the other world. The king was Kopperunchozhan and the poet was Pisirandhaiyar.
Another similar example of a virtual friendship was between King Paari and the poet Kabilar. However, here, they meet and get associated for a brief period. Paari is killed by the three great kings Chera, Chozha, and Pandiya in a war. After Paari's death, Kabilar got Paari’s daughters married, a nearly impossible task, since whoever marries them would invoke the wrath of the three great kings and be punished. After years of hardship, the marriage happened.
It doesn’t matter, what kind of friendship it is... Only genuineness matters.
If these historical friendships happen in the current social media era, how would they be?
Kannan Parthasarathy
RPC180
