जिगरी comes from जिगर, the liver, which in Urdu poetry occupies the place the heart holds in English — so a जिगरी दोस्त is a friend lodged in your vital organs. सहेली is specifically a woman’s female friend and has no male equivalent in common use; men simply say दोस्त or यार.

Indian friendships are maintained by frequency rather than by scheduling. Friends call without a reason, drop in without notice and expect no advance arrangement. A Western habit of proposing a meeting three weeks ahead can read as distance rather than politeness.

Four expectations that are genuinely different from Western norms.

• Money lent between friends is often informal and unpapered, and asking for it back too soon damages the relationship more than the debt does.
• Friends involve themselves in each other’s decisions — jobs, marriages, purchases — and offering unsolicited advice is a sign of closeness.
• Turning up at a friend’s home unannounced is normal, and being fed is automatic.
• A friend’s family becomes partly yours, with the titles to match — your friend’s mother becomes आंटी and their elder brother भैया.

एहसान is worth understanding. It means a favour that creates an obligation, and Indians track these carefully in friendships without ever mentioning them aloud. Saying एहसान मत जताओ — don’t make a show of the favour — is a real rebuke.

Same-gender physical closeness is normal and carries no romantic implication. Male friends hold hands, drape arms around each other and sit pressed together in a way that startles Western visitors. Reading it as anything other than friendship is a straightforward misunderstanding.

Cross-gender friendship is more complicated. In many families and smaller towns a close friendship between an unmarried man and woman attracts assumptions, and both parties may manage the relationship carefully in front of relatives. This is changing quickly in cities but it is not gone.

There is also a formal festival for friendship between siblings and, by extension, chosen relations — tying a rakhi on a male friend makes him a brother, which is both a genuine bond and, occasionally, a graceful way of closing off romantic interest.

दोस्त ends in a cluster where s and t run together — ‘dost’ as one syllable, not ‘dos-ta’. जिगरी has three light beats with a soft j. सहेली has a long ee at the end. भरोसा is three even beats with an aspirated bh at the front. And एहसान separates the h clearly — ‘eh-saan’.

• Using यार with an elder, a stranger or a senior colleague.
• Scheduling friends far in advance, which reads as keeping distance.
• Reading same-gender physical closeness as romantic.
• Repaying a favour too formally, which can seem like closing an account.
• Using सहेली for a man’s friend. It is specifically a woman’s female friend.

1. Describe your closest friend in five Hindi sentences.
2. Use दोस्त, यार and जिगरी दोस्त correctly in three sentences.
3. Practise inviting a friend somewhere without advance notice.
4. Explain what एहसान means in your own words.
5. Address a friend’s mother and elder brother with the correct titles.