Once upon a time a man named Shorpa lived in a very small village. Shorpa was a happy go lucky chap. Apart from his family he had many friends with whom he would love to pass time. Shorpa was a nice man who valued friendship more than anything and hence sometimes he would go out of the way to help and support his friends whenever they needed him. Being a very small village most of his friends lived in the same locality in the adjoining huts near his. He was very happy when he was with his friends.
It so happened once on a Sunday morning that the family members of Shorpa went to attend a religious ceremony in a nearby village. Shorpa didn’t go as he wanted to rest a bit due to the holiday. He woke up late that morning. After a bit of lazing around he came out of his hut with two empty buckets in his hands. He wanted to fetch water from the well that was on the opposite side of the road. As he was crossing the road suddenly a man riding a bicycle hit him from behind. Shorpa was hit on one of his legs. Luckily he just suffered a minor bruise. An angered Shorpa scornfully reprimanded the man for the rash way in which he was riding the bicycle. What poor Shorpa didn’t know was that the rider of the bicycle was a goon. He reciprocated by hurling abuses at Shorpa and raised his hand to beat him. Shorpa retaliated by clenching his fists and then a scuffle ensued soon after. The goon immediately gained an upper hand and began to thrash Shorpa. Shorpa quickly realised that he wouldn’t be able to overcome the goon alone by any means and hence he cried for help. Being a holiday he was quite sure that all his friends would immediately emerge out of their respective huts to help him and then the rogue who was beating him will be overpowered and dealt with accordingly. To his dismay none of the friends turned up to help him. The goon was thrashing him like anything. Shorpa again wailed and shrieked loudly for help. On hearing his continuous shrieks, two of his friends emerged after a while from their huts and ran in the direction of Shorpa. They reached there and tried to rescue Shorpa from the clutches of the goon. They requested the goon to end the fight and leave Shorpa. The goon somehow was not willing to let go and carried on his thrashing. The two friends were trying hard to save Shorpa. After some time some other friends too emerged from their huts and tried to reason with the goon but in a tame manner. Finally after some time the goon after being satisfied at having thrashed Shorpa very badly and severely injuring him went away on his bicycle unscathed. After the end of the commotion and the fight some more friends emerged from their huts and tried to console a badly injured and disgruntled Shorpa, while some didn’t turn up at all. Shorpa was moaning in pain and was blank for the moment. He sluggishly walked in the direction of his hut, went inside and closed the door. He was tired. The pain due to the thrashing was very severe than the minor bruise that he had suffered on being hit by the bicycle. He went to sleep again.
After a few days Shorpa went to a nearby village to meet his spiritual Guru at his Ashram. Whenever Shorpa needed answers to questions that perplexed him, he would visit his Guru to know the answers and seek his blessings. This time too he had some questions hovering inside his mind. After reaching the ashram, Shorpa sought his Guru’s permission as always to seek answers for his questions. After receiving the nod from his Guru, Shorpa narrated the whole incident that had happened with him a few days back. After narrating everything Shorpa asked his Guru that in-spite of having so many friends why he had to suffer so much? Why was he thrashed badly? Why didn’t his friends came to his rescue immediately and save him? What’s the use of so many friends and friendship in whole?The Guru calmly listened to Shorpa and then said “Shorpa, the friends, the many friends of yours that you are talking about are not your friends. You have misinterpreted and misrepresented them as your friends. It’s your fault. You yourself are to be blamed as you don’t know how to differentiate. You should learn to recognize true friends from a bunch and I hope that the incident that happened recently would have opened your eyes. If not then let me elaborate it this way: - Your so called friends were actually not friends but individuals of various types. You must have observed this when you were thrashed. Some preferred to totally stay away knowingly or unknowingly. Some preferred to pretend of not knowing early. Some put up a tame show. Some came up with lame excuses. Some never stepped out and pretended that they were not present at the time of the incident.(Cont’d in comments section)
