Lasting friendship

 The other day a friend of last 46 years  visited my house to cement our friendship and polish the rusty parts (if any).  He came along with his brother in law who lives in our locality also a member of our Parish.  The friend's name is Delphin B Ferz,  who is known as 'friends' in the construction office circle.  The story goes back to year 1977.


I was appointed as a construction office assistant in ICI Pharmaceutical site for a vacancy actually was for an Engg Draughtsman.  Later on as the Chief Architect of Plant design Mr Pramanik insisted another appointment was made and Delphin joined the team.  We both were appointed on the rolls of Architects C R Narayana Rao who made monthly payments after deducting his commission of 30 percent.


Our friendship has taken roots, shoots and flowers while visiting the CRN office for salary and then Nageswara Park where we took  our heats off.  On holidays I frequented to his lodge Nadar's Garden at Pursaiwalkam.  There we met a number of Mallu friends such as Ramachandran Nair, Job Thomas and Jayaraj. We also visited Nehru park  at P H road to cool off.


The construction activities have been completed in 1979 and Delphin was relieved from service but I got absorbed into the Purchase Department of ICI.

Delphin remained in  his rented house for some more time in search of job and it was then I introduced him to my Aban friend Ramakrishnan and got an opening in Raab Pipeworks and from there to M N Dastur.


In 1981 got engaged to Christy but our marriage was put on hold as my priority was to get a suitable partner for my sister and marry her off. But our courtship continued till our marriage on 19 April 1982. 


During the visit yesterday Christy recalled all such important occasions in our life witnessed by my friend.  Right from giving a bouquet of bougainvillea flowers from St Francis Xavier Church where he accompanied me to attend the Sunday mass during our courtship days, transforming our kitchen  at Tondiarpet from kerosene stove to LPG gas, many years later after VRS from ICI in 2003 supervising our dream home construction  right from identifying the contractor, introducing Sugathan a civil draughtsman of 30 years experience in Dastur & co to  design and then supervise the execution  stage wise  till  the completion.


He also made  visit atleast once a year to keep the friendship intact.  This urged me to make a reciprocal visit to him to reinforce our camaraderie.  Yesterday' s visit was such a one and his brother in law was awestruck during the one hour with us enjoying the re visit to our past.  Though no pleasantries were served to visitors ( as he was high on spirit )all had the satisfaction like  having a delicious biriyani.  Long live friendship.

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