I - Isosceles #AtoZChallenge

Isha, Indu and Itika apparently are the super trio from school. From all the stories I've heard, everyone is jealous of their group, because they’re the super trio. Everything was going on fine, until one day after school, Isha confessed, ‘Today, we were talking about food and apparently Itika likes a Burger much more than Pizza. When she left the room, Indu and I laughed about that for a long time. Then Indu started playing music loud on her phone. Who does that? Itika gave me a ‘she’s crazy’ look. I couldn’t help but agree with her. How weird is that?’

I didn't want to interfere in their group fights, because I knew how strong their bond was. I listened without advising when she complained, the frequency of which started to increase. Few days later, she said, ‘I don’t understand how they could use so much ketchup on one sandwich. They both are so stupid.’ ‘Isha,’ I said, ‘maybe your little group is breaking up. Because you’ve been best friends since years doesn’t mean you’ll be forever. You three fight on little things. If you want to work it out, there must be something that you all like. Find out what the thing is and then spend more time on that thing.’

Looks like I said the right thing. They were sitting in the backyard the next day, discussing deeply. When the other two left, with rather long faces, Isha said, ‘We found nothing that we all like. Those little things, to which we never paid attention, now it’s all thrown at us at once. We were the best of friends at school. Now we found out that we don’t have anything in common. In spite of being different, we made it work so far because we weren’t aware of the differences. Maybe it is time for us to separate and find new friends now.’

I knew their bond was greater than these petty arguments. I said, ‘Maybe, the reason you stayed friends all this while is because you wanted to. I think that is the one thing you all have in common. All three of you spent the whole evening, trying to figure out a way to stay together. That means you still are good friends. I don’t think you should stop being friends just because of this little argument. Sleep on it, you can speak to them in the morning and then decide what to do.’

The next evening, she handed her geometry text book to me. She said, ‘Do you know, when the three sides of a triangle are of the same length, it is called an equilateral triangle. That’s what we tried so hard to be. The sides are our similarities about a particular issue. But we were isosceles, with only two sides common. If we worried anymore, then we’d have become scalene. So, we stopped looking at similarities and focused on dissimilarities. Then, at any given point of time, exactly one of us would be dissimilar. If the criterion for the sides is changed to dissimilarities, and three such dissimilar points of time are considered, then we’d make an equilateral triangle. We are equilateral now. So, the day is saved by geometry.’

‘Yes, you are. Isha, now repeat it in plain English.’

‘Acknowledging our differences and being friends despite them is what made our group special. So we are special because of our differences.’

I was happy that they all were happy. But, one thing kept bothering me. ‘If there are similarities in differences, then they’re special because of their differences or similarities?’