One of the aspects of my life that gives me tremendous joy is my friendships, and my circle of friends has grown steadily through every phase of my life.
It began with neighbourhood friends and those I met at the park. School brought friends from the bus stop, the school bus, and the classroom. College and my early working years in Delhi added many more.
After Ravi and I got married and moved to Bangalore, I had to begin building a new circle—first through work and later through Ravi's friends. Once Cheekoo started school, my circle expanded yet again to include the parents of her friends.
Over the years, I stayed successfully connected with this wonderfully wide circle of people. In fact, when I prepared the invitee list for my 60th birthday, I realised just how large that circle had become—the list had crossed 300!
Friendships, clearly, had been one of my life's richest investments.
But then, I began noticing something interesting: some friendships were no longer the same, and I found myself wondering why.
My next instinct was to see whether I could bring them back to the earlier levels of warmth, connection, and joy. After all, I had spent a lifetime building these relationships. I couldn't quite imagine some of them simply becoming less important or gradually fading away.
Was I asking the wrong question?
Maybe some relationships were simply meant to change.
Around this time, I came across an interesting concept—Dunbar's Number.
The concept suggests that our brain's ability to maintain meaningful relationships is not unlimited and that our relationships broadly fall into four different circles:
- Support Core – around 5 people
- Deep Friends – around 15 people
- Active Network – around 50 people
- Casual Acquaintances – around 150 people
Around the same time, I came across a reel on four Sanskrit words for friends that appeared to map rather neatly to these four circles—Suhrut, Priya Sakha, Sakha, and Bandhu.
Clearly, our ancestors may have been onto something thousands of years before Dunbar formalised the concept!
More than the numbers, there is a larger insight: we cannot give every relationship the same amount of time, energy, and emotional investment.
And that made me think about friendships in a completely different way.
Perhaps friendships are a little like gardens.
We don't stop caring for a garden simply because we planted it years ago. We nurture what is growing well, remove weeds that prevent healthy growth, prune what has become excessive, and create space for new growth.
I now believe that our friendships need the same occasional attention, and here is the simple approach I have begun using:
Map Your Friendships
Understand who belongs in your inner circle, your close friendship circle, your active network, and your wider circle of acquaintances. Not every friendship needs to occupy the same space in your life.
Invest According to Significance
Some relationships deserve more of your time and energy than others.
That doesn't make the remaining friendships unimportant. It simply recognises that meaningful relationships need appropriate investment.
Take the Energy Test
After spending time with someone, ask yourself a simple question:
Do I generally feel enriched—or depleted?
Over time, I have begun thinking of people as Energy Radiators and Energy Drainers.
Life is too short to spend a disproportionate amount of time in relationships that consistently leave you emotionally exhausted.
Take the Reciprocity Test
Friendships don't need to be perfectly equal at every point in time. There will always be phases when one person needs more support than the other.
But if a relationship has remained largely one-sided for years, it may be time to reassess the amount of energy you continue to invest in it.
Prune Gently
Not every friendship requires a dramatic ending. Sometimes, simply reducing your investment allows a relationship to find its natural level.
And if the friendship is genuinely important to both people, they may find their way back to each other.
I soon realised that I had initially seen auditing friendships as something rather negative. I don't see it that way anymore.
It is not about having fewer friends. It is about creating more space for the friendships that genuinely enrich your life.
