“We’ve made plans to meet again. Will Paul bring his guitar? Who knows. For me, it was about wanting to make amends before it’s too late. It felt like we were back in a wonderful place. As I think about it now, tears are rolling down my cheeks. I can still feel his hug.”

In the 1970s, widely acclaimed folk-pop duo Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel released their final album, Bridge over Troubled Water, which went on to win the Grammy Award for Best Album of the Year in 1971. At the height of their fame however, the duo broke up.

(Image credit: CBS Photo Archive / Getty Images)

With a friendship that began when they first met in school in the early 1950s, the duo was catapulted to the mainstream when their first album was released in 1964. Six years later however, they threw in the towel after their final album was released.

In his memoir, Paul admits that he took offence to Art’s foray into acting and Art took offence to Paul’s decision to record as a solo artist early on in their career. While they briefly reunited for special and rare performances over the years, it was evident to fans and foes alike that the wounds of their ruptured relationship still ran deep.

Both couldn’t deny however that when they worked together, they had the potential to create something special and meaningful to their fans. And 54 years later, an interview with Art Garfunkel last week, reveals that the two musical legends have built their own bridge over troubled water and reconciled, as the opening quotation of this Dispatch testifies.

I received the above wonderfully written note from Takshashila in their newsletter Takshashila Dispatch dated 17 Nov 2024.  It was nice read and I chose to quote as it is. Though   that article’s theme was on AI Chip, my Ordinary mind wandered into bridges that we build , burn and rebuild in the troubled waters of human relationships.

It triggered my memory about a movie I had watched as a young boy and a wonderful book I read during my youth. 

The Bridge on river kwai.  I quite vaguely remember the storyline. How Japanese used prisoners of war to build a bridge for war time use across river Kwai.  In the last scene, the hero who had helped, the Jap to build that bridge, ends up blowing it into pieces.

But I have a very vivid collection of Richard Bach’s wonderful book “A Bridge across forever.”

I heard about Richard Bach in one of the six sigma training sessions of Subroto Bagchi at Wipro.  He spoke about the book “Jonathan Livingston Seagull “and when I went to buy that book from Premier book shop on church street,  Shanbaug told me  Bridge across forever too is a good book. So, I ended up buying both. And I never regretted.  Shanbag was not just an ordinary book seller, he was a true bibliophile. As long as he was running the Premier bookshop, I never ever went to another book shop.

Bridges is a great metaphor about relationships.  May be as humans evolving socially has a lot do with advancement in our collective knowledge and skill of building bridges.  

Many ancient civilizations started building bridges across rough and tough terrains, often in crude way, filling the ravens with rocks and woods so that they can cross and reach out to others. They learnt to bridge across rivers and streams too. Still in the northeast and many part of the world, people build bridges using natural bamboo.

The oldest existing bridge, which is still in use by the local population in the world is said to be  Arkadiko Bridge. It is an arch bridge. The Arkadiko Bridge was built sometime around 1300 – 1190 BCE.

Pic courtesy: Wikipedia Commons

When our ancestors in Greece, learnt about the arch which enables strength to carry a lot of tonnage and  when Romans discovered that Mortar from volcanic rock wont dissolve in rain and water, it was massive fillip to the art and science of bridge making

From bridges to relationships, we Humans are social animals.  Jiddu Krishnamurti famously said that we know ourselves only in the mirror of relationships.  In my view, that includes the relationship with us.

Some of the relationships, we don’t have any choice… Those are the Rummy cards dealt to us by the destiny for this round of the game.  Our grandparents, parents, siblings, sons and other blood relatives. We can’t choose them. They just happen to us. Even after the initial set of 13 cards, the cards you choose from a stockpile, you don’t have any way of choosing it by knowing that card beforehand.  So, it is luck and destiny.  We have the option of scooting and getting out of the game or it is for us to play this game in this round of life. Some discard some cards to the waste pile, have not you seen, broken relationships amongst siblings, cousins, children abandoning their parents, parents abandoning their children etc. I do have my share of broken relationships. And   Some play wisely to create melds out of the available cards and win the game. 

Then there are relationships, where you can choose. You can choose your spouse, your friends, your neighbors (to an extent), your boss and colleagues and clients ( again to an extent). OF course you can choose your spiritual guru. In Zen tradition it works both ways. A disciple / student got to accept the Master, and the Master got to accept the disciple.  These choices are informed choices.  Though, I do know now, our so called Free will is limited, still we can exercise to an extent. We can’t blame Destiny for these set of cards.

In some of these relationships, (amongst both set of cards), we don’t have to build any bridges.  People miraculously will walk across water, like Jesus and Peter in Bible, to reach out to others. Each one of us, do have a Jesus and Peter in our life. I do.  My better half Thara, my children Manu and Rishi, my best pals for life like Komal Jain and Sheik Iyer etc.

I do have many more great relationships.  Like Amma, my siblings Sasi and Sandhya, my Zen Master AMA Samy,  my mentors and well-wishers from childhood Dr. Radhakrishnan and Usha Aunty, late Dr. Richard McHugh,  late Ranjan Acharya, Brij Sethi, Dan Pacheco, LH Rao,  Ram Ramanathan , my teachers Gopala Thatha, from ALP school to APU, my bosses from R Bala to late SMR to  Robert Meier, countless colleagues (especially Risk team mates from SMR’s team like Guru and others..)and even clients, my friends from KTMHS (Manoj, Dr. Dinesen, Satish) to BVB (Dagar Gang) to Wipro to Mantri Tranquil, some of my cousins and relatives, some of my friends from Coaching community and Bodhi Sangha members, late Jackie Mu, the Zendog…. But none of them were tested in real rough waters like the previous list of Jesus and Peter. Here we were all good to each other through out to a great extent.

 But those who walked across water to reach out to me, did that regardless of what I was at that point of time. Or I walked across the water, regardless of what they were at that point of time.

I can share a mild example. 

 A long time back, we had a friends group called Tennis Mafia, (we still have that group, though some of them have moved out of Tranquil).  Some of us were good in Tennis. Some of us were learning to play.  And I and others, had organized a tournament (that too prize money one) . During one match, Sheik and LP@HP were playing against irrepressible Erode Subbu and his teammate.  I was trying to officiate the match.  On some incident, there was very heated argument between Sheik and me. And as I was storming out of the court literally fuming, I heard Sheik saying, “Vishy you are my friend and you won’t walk away, regardless of what is the matter” and I turned around. That was kind of walking over the water and reaching out.  And that match ended.  Subbu and his teammate won that game. Sheik and LP@HP lost Tournament got over. Prize money was given.  Subbu and his teammate got that purse.  I had moved out of Tranquil.  Life continued and our friendship too. Still, he was one of those to whom I reach out in hours of distress. I can count on him. So he can too.

I do have a similar stories about Komal, Thara, Manu and Rishi etc.  May be some other time. At least, I would wait for Komal to retire to write that story. 

Aristotle in his epic Nicomachean Ethics, wrote a whole chapter on friendship. He defined friendship on three levels. Friendship of utility/ transaction, friendship of beauty or power and friendship of virtue.  It is when friendship is based on virtue, people start walking over water and reach out.  Even troubled waters.  Even fire.

Even we can classify all other relationships in these three levels.

One does not need bridges to build across.  Love, gratitude and compassion are the invisible mathematical arches and mortar which make it happen.

But for other levels of relationships, we may still need to build bridges.  And in some very rare cases, we got to burn the bridges too. Because we know very well, those on the other shore/side, wont or can’t walk across the water or fire.

British built bridge across Nellipuzha river at Mannarkkad, which is a gate way to my home town. Still it is good and strong.  A bridge which was built parallely , fell down within an year of construction and was rebuilt at a cost to the state. 🙂