An inevitable line that appears typically at the bottom of invitation cards for auspicious occasions is also a good opening line for this essay series: “With best compliments from friends and well-wishers."

It is so ubiquitous that we have not only taken it for granted but don’t even notice it, much less delve into the emotion that made it so universal across space and time. The use of the conjunction that separates “friends" from “well-wishers" is rather intriguing. Wishing well for its own sake for another person is one of the purest expressions of the value known as ahimsa — the English equivalent, “non-violence" does not encompass the full range of this value.

A friend is first a well-wisher and everything else later. When the scope of this sentiment is expanded to accommodate the cosmos itself, it is known as Lokasangraha, a philosophical core that the Bhagavad Gita delineates so profoundly.

A mere alignment of ideas or goals or hobbies or interests or a shared worldview or emotional necessity does not make for true friendship. The cement that glues all these bricks is an Americanism that has gained great traction in recent years: stake. Or what is known as “shared interests." Stake is not friendship but transaction. The transactional element is present right in the word, “interest," which, in financial terms, is paid on the principal.

Nowhere else is this glaringly true than in the........

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