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How many of our friendships are NOT reciprocal? How many of our relationships are nishkAma (Sanskrit word meaning : expecting no results) ? 90% of people we meet in our life will not be fit to be our friends. Vice versa will also apply. That means, we may not be fit to be a friend of the persons we meet in our life. These persons, whom we meet, may be called acquaintances. We can find four levels of our interactions with people. 1. Simple Knowledge only : We know the persons very superficially. Our encounter and meeting with them may be on some purpose as business. They are like co-travellers on a short journey. 2. Acquaintance : This is level 2, a promotion from superficial knowledge. We know some of the qualities of the person, because we have already undertaken a few transactions (not necessarily money) with them and by and large they are satisfactory. Yet these experiences are not sufficient for friendship. Some quotes/usages of the word acquaintance: "

I am not writing this in a preaching mood; because I am not a religious preacher. Nor, am I writing this in an atheist sceptic mode, though I am an atheist. I am writing from my own observations from the experiences of persons around, in this society. There is a need to distinguish between lust, love and friendship. Lust is a part of our instinct. Just as we have hunger, need for sleep, we have sex, as a physical need. Through whom, the need gets satisfied, it is difficult to define, because satisfaction is abstract. (Economist- Marshall and his associates thought that utility and satisfaction are measurable).

People coming together for various purposes, start thinking that they have been friends since time immemorial or through and through past births. Examples: Athletes at a sports meet. Buyers of similar goods at super-markets. Colleagues at a workplace. Diners in the same restaurant. Fans of same film hero/heroine. Garbage collectors at the nearby bins. Hardliners of same line of thinking in a political party. Idlers visiting the same cafeteria. Joggers on the same road or track. Kneelers before the same Godman/Preacher. Lovers of same fine art such as music. Mourners of same dead person or persons who have died in the same accident. Nannies of neighboring households. Occupants of the same foot-path. Patients undergoing treatment on adjacent beds and their relatives. Quaffers of the same brand of whisky at the same bar. Reporters covering the same event. Students of same class / college. Travellers on a pilgrimage. Unemployed persons visiting the same Employment B

QUOTE FROM SHRI KAMAL HASSAN, FILM HERO, ABOUT HIS FRIENDSHIP WITH SHRI RAJNIKANTH, FILM HERO. "We are friends. However, we do compete because it is business. But we are clear about being friends. As a matter of fact, we are also planning to make a film which I will produce. He will act in it." INTERPRETATIONS, OBSERVATIONS, DEDUCTIONS In many respects, cine heroes are practical people. They know their business. They clearly know what they want and how to get it.

Very often we come across friends starting businesses, forming partnership firms. Some of them develop into great businesses and some die soon. Reasons for prosperity as well as failure are numerous. Here is a beautiful article by Shri Jeff Cornwall, Director, Belmont University Center for Enterpreneurship. http://forum.belmont.edu/cornwall/archives/002329.html In addition to the guidelines given by Mr. Jeff Cornwall, I wish to add the following precautions: 1. Better to start businesses only with longstanding tested friends , say of more than five years relationship. Care should be taken while entering into partnerships with class mates/school mates/college mates who shifted to other places for some years and have come back in a new incarnation. They might have acquired new habits, beliefs, ethics and work methods. We have to again spend one or two years with them studying their habits. 2. Better to reproduce every term and condition into writing . Oral agreements can

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels the authors of the Communist Manifesto, were good friends. Though somewhat a cliche owing to overuse in English, the proverb, "A friend in need is a friend indeed", literally holds good in the friendship of Marx and Angels. Here is a link to their abridged biography: http://www.marxists.org/archive/riazanov/works/1927-ma/ch09.htm . There are some adverse reports about the friendship of Marx and Angeles on the inter-net. This area needs greater analysis and search. David Riazanov's KARL MARX and FREDERICK ENGELS An Introduction to Their Lives and Work I quote from it: "...He (Engels) had also been aiding Marx for whom the first years of the International were again years of bitter poverty. Were it not for the help he obtained from Engels and the small inheritance which was left to him by his old friend, Wilhelm Wolff, to whom he had dedicated his Capital, Marx would hardly have been able to overcome penury and he sur