New Delhi, June 13 -- My drinking partner has not been drinking. This should not affect me an ounce, given that I've been off the sauce for a decade, but the very fact that she isn't having a negroni nowadays brings up flashbacks of drinking duels and dubious decisions, and of a champagne bottle that kept comically bouncing off a Bandra wall instead of, politely and spectacularly, shattering against it. Yet here we sit at a breakfast table, speaking with fetishistic fashion about chemex coffee, sober as a day-and fiercer friends than ever.

That deserves a toast. As we get older, and less patient and more mindful of our own needs, friendships change shape. Some fall by the wayside. Ride-or-die friendships metamorphose into occasional catc...