Interviews

Honeyika
I interviewed my mom and grandfather. We started with
their permission for use of pictures and personal
information. We decided to conducted the interviews at
home as travelling was not possible for all the group
members due to COVID-19 restrictions. The interviews
lasted for about 5 minutes each. The interview was
concluded by thanking the interviewees for their time and
permissions.

I interviewed two people:

1. Hritika.
Age: 42
Works as an assistant vice president.
Relation: Mom

During the interview, I got an opportunity to explore

friendships from a different perspective, along with a life-
lesson. Childhood friendships are the most special ones and
create memories that can be cherished in the entire
lifespan. The kind of bonds shared with the childhood
buddies is unique and it’s rare to find such a bond in
adulthood. The kind of activities my mom’s generation did
with their friends are very similar to mine like playing,
gossiping, studying, hanging out etc. However, they used to
meet in person (at each other’s homes), more often as
compared to us since they didn’t have the facility of social
media. Friends were believed to be people within the
comfort zone. Anything could be shared without fear: be it
secrets or food or books! Emotions could be expressed
freely with the childhood friends. However, things change
at work. Although talking to friends helped in reducing
stress, things couldn’t be shared more freely. The bonds
are not that strong and the gossip is more formal, like work
related talks, or a trending news topic. The number of non-
work-related meetings are significantly low (for example, at
someone’s house or at a restaurant). Surprisingly, they still
meet their childhood friends casually at visit each other
often.

2. Thakur
Age: 81
Retired railway engineer.
Relation: Grandfather

Friendship had a different importance during my

grandfather’s generation. Family was always the priority
over friends. Although, friends were important. They gave
each other advices relating to school, college, work etc. and
had each other’s back. Again, the activities with the
childhood friends were similar to my generation as well as
my mom’s. However, while growing up, as each one became
busy, a lot of them lost touch. Over the years, my
grandfather made a lot of friends but few of them, mostly
those whom he met during his educational phase, are special.
Social media acted as a boon by helping him reunite with his
childhood friends. He is the happiest when he chats with his
school friends. Since most of them are learning how to use
social media, they consider it important to help their peers
and learn to use social media together. Additionally, the
major difference is childhood and adulthood friendships are
the activities. The topic s for discussions have changed.
Their preferences have changed- the prefer going for a
walk in the garden together, and volunteer for social service
activities. Their bond has changed post retirement.
However, their happiness has no bounds when they are with
their childhood buddies.

Trisha
Interviewee:

Name: Anju Saini

Age: 47

Profession: Certified career coach

I thanked my mom by giving her a picture of her friends and

her friend from 2001. My mom isn’t comfortable sharing any
sort of videos and pictures.

To start off, in this interview, we mainly talked about

friendships from Anju Saini’s (my mother) perspective, she
felt nostalgic digging up her old memories. To my mom,
friendships are very important, growing up having a
companion was helpful for her. She likes that she has
someone to lean on and share thoughts and ideas with.
When she was younger, she liked having a small group of
friends, this was because she thought it was more
convenient and safer. Her friendships today are still strong;
however, she meets her best friend from childhood only
once every one to two years due to their jobs, but they
keep in contact through WhatsApp and videocalls. With her
friends, when she was in her teens, they used to meet often
only in school and go study in the library, and play hopscotch
during their free time, it’s one of her favourite moments
from when she was young. Now, she usually meets them for
lunch once every month, she also often calls her friends
over the phone, and they discuss their daily lives, she also
plans an annual trip somewhere in India, a girl’s trip, which
she really looks forward to, it’s a nice way to relax and just
hang out with her friends.

Summary of interview 2

Interviewee:

Name: Archana Saini

Age: 82

Profession: Retired Government official

My grandmother doesn’t have any photos from her

childhood with her friends. Growing up my grandmother
didn’t have a lot of friends, but when I asked her, what
friendship means to her, she told me it means to have
someone by your side when you need to just take breath of
fresh air and someone who you can be yourself around. She
said friendship was important but not as important as
working and helping her family out. When she was young,
friendships were sweet and nice, not as close but they
would just be classmates, to simply put it, mainly like close
acquaintances. She’s not in touch with most of her friends
from her school but she has friends from the society we
live in, they call over the phone and talk. When she was
younger she usually just studied most of the time and she
also had friends who studied alongside with her, so they
didn’t do much together unless it involved school.

Talin
INTERVIEW-1 (GRANDMA)

Name: Vimala Jaganathan

Age: 78
Profession: Retired
Agreed to take pictures and record interview
Was interviewed over call at 5:15 PM on 15th December

1. Being a friend is a kind of special emotion, one can

share love and feelings. It’s a show of affection shared
between individuals.
 2. Yes its very important to have friends to talk to and to
engage with.
3. It’s the same as now, close friends are very important
and are very dear. They also return feelings.
4. Same friends as before, mainly very close friends.
5. Mostly in school; outdoor games like- sports, running ,
drawing and indoor sports like- carrom and chess
6. I meet with friends, go to temples, talk on the phone,
talk in real life, watch TV, go to live music sessions,
etc.
7. They are more or less similar in the school aspects
however, meeting outside school and activities differ
vastly.
8. I think during that time my grandparents had very
limited or specific number of friends whereas
nowadays it’s not that way in most cases and there are
large friend groups.

Summary of interview: Friendship is a very special and

loving emotion between individuals it can be shown through
time spent together, sports, and general affection that is
returned. Most friends are very close going back to school
days.

INTERVIEW- 2 (FATHER)
Name: Senthil Kumar
Age: 43
Profession: Global travel head of WNS
Agreed to take pictures and record interview
Was interviewed in person at 6:00 PM on 15th December

1. It means to have dependability, loyalty and honor

2. Yes, it is important to have friends to understand
caring and sharing
3. It was very adventurous, interesting and fun
4. Right now its lots of good memories, lovely stories and
laughter
5. During school days- Trekking, swimming, movies and
music
6. Chatting, texting, restaurants and bars, pilgrimages
and holidays.
7. The friendships are pretty much the same as the age
gap isn’t much however I think the activities we did
differ.
8. I believe that my parents had about the same or
perhaps more importance to friendship as they their
friends now are the same ones they had during their
college days.

Summary of interview: Certain emotions personify what

friendship means and friends teach a person to care and
share. Back in school days, friendships were more
adventurous and fun, which is carried over to the current
age; generally, one interacts through texts and meets with
friends in public places.