For Delhiite Medha Sharma, 29, who works in the finance sector, entering the corporate world came with a guarded mindset. “My expectation was that nobody is your friend in a corporate environment,” she says. “Everything you say can eventually be used against you.”
During a particularly difficult day, Sharma recalls reacting impulsively to a company email. Instead of reprimanding her, her manager responded with unexpected empathy.
“She took me out for a walk, we had coffee, and she just let me talk,” Sharma recalls. “She was so patient. It was kindness on a very human level — something you don’t expect in corporate spaces.”
Months later, the relationship deepened further when the manager opened up about a personal health struggle. “That moment made me realise corporates are not all that bad. People are still people,” Sharma says. “She still checks in with me sometimes — asks if I’m okay or if I need anything. It’s not a daily friendship, but it’s a real one.”
For Parul Sharma, a communications professional, one of her most meaningful workplace friendships also began with a boss. Nearly a decade ago, during her first job at a CSR foundation, her assistant manager Samreen Gauri was someone she initially saw strictly as a superior.
“People often say work is work and colleagues aren’t really friends,” Parul says. “But my experience has been the opposite.”
Over time, the relationship evolved beyond hierarchy. “She has been my toughest critic, my biggest cheerleader, and also the shoulder I cried on during difficult days,” she says. Even ten years later, the two still meet and catch up over margaritas. “She remains my go-to person when there’s stress or uncertainty.”
While some friendships develop through mentorship and time, others form in far less expected ways.
For Arshia Gulrays, 28, who works in public relations, her closest workplace friend is someone she has never even met in person. Working remotely, Gulrays says the friendship began with resistance.
“I didn’t like her at first,” she admits. “I was working on a client alone and suddenly she came along and my work was being checked by her. It was an ego thing.”
But when the colleague suggested they simply get on a call and chat, something shifted. “She became my only real friend at work,” Gulrays says. “We know details about each other’s families, relationships and friendships — things nobody else in the office knows.”
A support system
For some women, these bonds are formed through shared experiences. During an internship at a heritage organisation in Delhi, 24 year old Tahreem Rahim, an education student at Jamia Millia Islamia, became close to another intern Writtka while travelling to Agra for a project. Long bus rides between locations turned into conversations about personal struggles.
“We bonded over the challenges queer people face,” she says. “We ended up falling asleep on each other’s shoulders during those long journeys.”
In a big city like Delhi, where many move away from home, where friendships at work are often the only daily social connections people maintain, colleagues become surrogate support systems.
Many women say these friendships do more than make offices friendlier — helping them cope with workplace stress. Without those connections inside an office, Sharma says bluntly, work would be far harder. “Otherwise we would go crazy.”
Still, not everyone enters a workplace expecting to form friendships. Saanya Malhotra, 31, who works in her family business, says she approaches professional spaces differently.
“When you go to school or university you go to make friends,” she says. “At work, I go to grow and build relationships — not necessarily friendships.” Yet even with that mindset, genuine connections sometimes emerge.
One of her closest workplace friendships developed with a colleague much older than her who is also a parent. Another close friend is younger. “That’s what I love about work friendships,” she says. “You become friends with people you wouldn’t normally meet in your personal life. When the friendship works, age or hierarchy stops mattering. It just becomes equal.”
Some, like Malhotra, find it easier to maintain friendships with colleagues in different teams or departments, where competition is less direct. Regardless of the structure, many women say a degree of emotional distance remains necessary.
“It’s safer to keep a little bit of distance,” Gulrays says. “Friendships are easy to form, but it’s also easy to get pulled into drama you never asked for.”
Breaking stereotypes
That women are each other’s worst enemies is a notion that still has currency. But it is not the full story. “Yes, women can feel jealous,” Rahim says. “But jealousy isn’t the only emotion in female friendships. Men feel jealous too.”
Gulrays adds, pointing out that workplace alliances among women can also counter structural imbalances. “It’s kind of a man’s world,” she says. “So you need allies.”
Ultimately, what many women value most is having someone at work who instinctively understands the pressures they carry. Often, that understanding comes from other women. “As women, I think we connect over the difficult things we’ve experienced,” Rahim says. “And knowing someone else understands that makes you feel less alone.”