I cannot claim a very wide circle of close friends. This maybe since I have never felt very close to any friend . Further, I am not exactly keen to visit people. it is said that God gives us relatives : thank God we can choose our friends. But I have always relied on my relatives at all times of crisis. Maybe since my closest friend is my wife. Still I can claim a few close friends.

- Sneh Bijlani - My batchmate in service is a wonderful person. I shall always  remember my two years of probation due to her and Chawla. -

- Ashok Chawla - Though senior to me due to his previous army experience, he was my batchmate. We were also together in Vadodara. I have always enjoyed his company.

- N.Parthasarathy - Though four years senior to me, we get along extremely well. He tries to help everybody.

- N.Krishnamoorthy - One year senior to me , we were together in Chittaranjan. Both he and his wife are our family friends.

- Samar Jha - A brilliant officer with a literary bent. I have a lot of admiration for him as well as his wife, who is a very good writer.

- S.Ramasubramanian -  My classmate for five years in college and now my colleague in Railways in the Signalling &Telecom.  department. Both he and his wife are close friends to me and Amritha.

- M.V.Krishnamoorthy - We were together in Vadodara. Though we have little in common as far as our nature is concerned - he being pious and serious, yet we get along fabulously. My entire family enjoys the company of his entire family.

- K.Subramanian - A brilliant programmer in Autocoder, we were together in Chittaranjan. Though we are not very closely in touch after he resigned from the railways , I shall always consider him a close friend.

- V.Subramanian - An officer of stores department , we are friends for over 25 years. We were also together in Vadodara and his wife and my wife are also friends.

- Abhay Bhave - We were together in U.K. in 1989 and got along very well. He is good company and has a taste for good things in life.

- Bulbul Ghosh - We were together in U.K. in 1989. She along with Bhave helped me pass the three months there easily.

- Pattabhi Raman was a close friend in school and college. Unfortunately he is no more.

- Jaya Raman and Raj Kumar were my other friends from school and the friendship had continued through college. I was happy to meet both in 1992 when we had our class reunion after 25 years.

- Sridhar, my cousin and Santhanam, my brother-in-law have been my friends for over 40 years.

There is a thin line between a close acquaintance and a friend. There are a few other close acquaintances.