There is something comforting about knowing that no matter how chaotic life gets, there will always be a familiar face waiting on the other side, a friend with whom you can share a cup of tea after work, tuck away handwritten notes in unexpected ways, or plan a get-together that finally makes it outside the ever-chatty WhatsApp group.
For 20-year-old student and singer Roshni Ghosh, reassurance has become the language of friendship. She hides handwritten letters for her friends Amani Shaikh and Sarah Syed to discover and sends playful ‘vlogs’ documenting everyday lives. The ritual began after she visited her friends’ PG accommodation. While helping them clean their room, she realised how relentlessly her friends worked. She quietly left each of them an appreciation note. Even a year later, the tradition continues. “As girls, we require a lot of reassurance, and positive affirmations from our best friends go a long way,” she says. Whenever life feels overwhelming, she returns to the long messages her friends have written to her over the years or the vlogs. “I’m blessed to have people around me who cheer the loudest at my smallest wins and reassure me even when all feels defeated,” she adds.
In a world where friendships are reduced to emojis and the inevitable ‘let’s catch up soon’, these rituals become deliberate acts of choosing one another – the very reason friendships survive changing cities and adulthood. Now separated by distance, senior executive Anjitha Eldho and her ex-roommate-bestie Sheena Mariam Mathew’s friendship is built around time. As roommates, they kept a simple promise – to wait for one another before heading to a neighbourhood tea shop. “I’d wait even if it’s seven or eight in the evening,” Eldho shares. Those evening breaks eventually turned into cafe-hopping adventures across Bengaluru and mini vlogs.
Another ritual the duo shares is exchanging keepsakes, whether as simple as a postcard or souvenirs from wherever they travel. “When Sheena moved to the UK, the ritual adapted rather than disappeared. She now sends Bengaluru cafe recommendations from abroad, while I update her with every new place I discover. It’s not just about making the friendship last. It’s about getting to know the other person better,” she notes. On difficult days, those postcards, souvenirs and notes become reminders that distance has changed geography, not friendship.
What began as a spontaneous attempt to reconnect with art evolved into an emotional refuge for content creator Malvika Pattenset and her friend Gayathri. “We randomly decided to paint again after years, and ever since then, we’ve made sure we always take time to do it. It’s like a stress buster. This ritual got us both through some of our worst days,” Pattenset says. The duo painted so consistently that the hobby soon outgrew their living room, leading them to launch Ima Art Space, through which they have sold more than 25 paintings and completed commissioned artworks.
But not every ritual is about spending time together; some are about waiting. Aayushi J Patil, a 21-year-old psychology student, and her friend Aditi B celebrate birthdays unconventionally. Instead of sending gifts on their birth dates, they spend months creating handmade presents to gift one another. “Since their birthdays fall months apart, each exchange is filled with anticipation. Knowing that she spends months planning and crafting something for me transforms a simple gift into a profound symbol of our journey,” Patil says. In an era of instant gratification, she believes the tradition has taught them patience. “Those handmade gifts have become an ‘invisible thread’ that keeps the friendship deeply personal,” she shares.
On the other hand, Bharatanatyam dancer and project trainee Shreya Anand Andewadikar has spent nearly eight years nurturing a friendship with her bestie through pyjama parties and impromptu travel plans. Their sleepovers are events in themselves, complete with handmade invitations, themed decorations, skincare sessions, board games and late-night conversations. Whenever life becomes overwhelming, one message saying, ‘Let’s leave’, is enough to set another journey in motion.
Together they have explored Assam, Meghalaya, Varkala and Kabini, discovering as much about each other as the places they visited. “Friendships don’t survive because people keep saying, ‘Let’s catch up sometime. They survive because someone actually says, ‘Pack a bag, we’re leaving tomorrow,’ or ‘Come over, I’ve already bought the chips.’,” Andewadikar says. Looking back, they realise that none of those traditions solved life’s problems but served as a reminder that they don’t need to do life alone.