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Limits of Friendship

There is this Indian movie that I love, in which the protagonist is a Robin Hood style character, someone who helps the poor but is forever at loggerheads with the corrupt government and the police. He befriends a local ganglord, who like our hero is a dog-gooder but an arch enemy of the authorities, and ends up being his right hand man.

The story reaches a climax when a new mayor is appointed to the province. They mayor, being a good man, is determined to get rid the city of all the evils, like our hero and his leader. In the midst of the ensuing battle, our hero finds out that the mayor is in fact his half brother and promises the mother that he would not kill him.

However, in the midst of the battle, the hero's leader is captured and beaten up. On his release, he tell's the hero to kill the mayor, which he refuses. Visibly stunned at this defiance, the leader demands an explanation and the truth comes out.

So the leader asks the hero "Why? Why after knowing that he is your brother and his mother is your mother, why do you still stay with me?".

To which he replies,

"Because you are my friend".

That is one scene that I love to watch again and again. Simply because, that statement, so simple and straightforward in meaning, beautifully exemplified the loyalty and the friendship the hero had for his leader.

Forgive me if I seem overemotional. But I just watched an episode of the TV series 'The Kennedy's' in which Joe Kennedy senior, the father of Jack F Kennedy, tells his son before his marriage, "Son, wives do not expect fidelity, but they do not expect infidelity thrown in their faces". Sitting their watching John F Kennedy cheating on (the super pretty) Jacqueline Kennedy (played by Kate Holmes), I kept thinking "What an asshole!".

And this is the kind of thing that still happens. Be it Tiger Woods or Arnold Schwarzenegger, cheating on spouses seems to be quite a fad these days. Worse case is when your own friends sometimes indulge in this kind of behavior. At first you kind of admire him for his playboy behavior, but on deeper thought it is not a very nice thing he is doing.You tell him that and he laughs it away.

So what can I do? Dump him?

I cannot do that.

Because he is my friend.

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