In legendary American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson’s words, “It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.” And this exact expression or feeling is what defines the two-decade-long friendship between actors Abhishek Banerjee and Divyenndu. It all began when two movie fanatics ended up in the same college around the early 2000s. Divyenndu was a year senior to Banerjee at Kirori Mal College in New Delhi. From doing a play together in their college to becoming best friends through the shooting days of a famous OTT series, this story of friendship will compel you to rekindle your long-lost friendships in the journey of life. On Friendship Day today, the duo gets candid about their bond on screen and off screen.Abhishek Banerjee and Divyenndu (Photo: Satish Bate/HT)Excerpts:Where did this friendship start? Can you take us back in time?Abhishek: He is one year senior to me from college, and he was our favourite senior. We all worshipped him like a hero, much like we love him as Munna Bhaiyya. He had the same aura in college, but of course, not in the gangster world. So, when I moved to Mumbai, he was always the first person I called for any piece of advice.Divyenndu: We knew each other. We did plays in college together, which became a rage in Delhi university. We worked very closely on that. However, if you ask about friendship, bonding and understanding each other, it all started during the shooting days [of a series we did together] around 2016-2017.Has fame ever meddled with your friendship? Were you ever jealous of each other’s success?A: No, never have I felt bad [about his success]. There was never a scope that you feel bad for someone you know for so many years. When Pyaar Ka Punchnama (2011) came, that was a hero moment for all of us. Because it was like, ‘one of ours has reached that stage’. Whenever I kept seeing him grow, I realised that, there’s a huge chance, because he has come and done things from scratch. There’s no godfather. Nobody he could go to or ask for work and who would give him work so easily. So, when someone like him was doing it, it used to give us a lot of motivation.D: I was very proud of him because he was doing an amazing job in casting [with his company]. When I started out, there was hardly anything which was organised. But when I saw him saw Abhishek taking some very sensible decisions, and casting actors on their merit, I felt really proud. And we are very secure people, and we know what our paths are, and we will not cross each other, we will walk together.What is that one thing that has never changed between the two of you?A: Him ragging me, that is like a lifelong thing (laughs).D: Honestly, jokes apart, our belief system, in terms of working, that we really respect what we do and we don’t take that for granted. We can have fun, on sets, but if we are working on a scene, we go back to our college days. We go back to the basics.Divyenndu, you call Abhishek Beela, where and how did this nickname come into existence?D: It is actually a tussle between my wife, Akanksha, [Shamra] and me. We were all in the same college. The theory goes that she named him Beela because she thought he had eyes like a cat. So, like a male Billa (cat), and that eventually became Beela. And my point of view is that he had just one expression in college. And I used to say, ‘yeh thoda beela hai’. It doesn’t have any meaning; it is a feeling. But I would like to say on record that I don’t like anybody else calling him that. So, people who try to get too friendly and call him Beela, please don’t do this.What does friendship mean to you two, personally?D: For me, friendship holds a really high point in life. Everything else you get as a default. You don’t get to choose your parents or your siblings. Your friendship really tells who you are. That is very important for me. Mere dost mere bohot kareeb hai because I have invested in that kind of relationship with them.A: I am the only child. For me, it’s like a sibling relationship. I don’t even know the disadvantages of a sibling relationship. For me, it’s like a comfort zone. Because I don’t have anybody to talk to about my own personal issues. Because there’s no brother or sister, and mom and dad are different age groups. So, friendship is a very important relationship.What is the most interesting thing about your friendship that not many know of?A: There was definitely some part of destiny [that we met]. Where we come from, how we met. We started doing shows and working together. We ended up staying in the same building; our in-laws are in the same colony, legit like four bungalows, and that too in Delhi. Too many coincidences in life.D: We have a very strong telepathy. If I am thinking of anything I have to talk about, and he calls, and vice versa. We have telepathic connections, clearly. It’s God's gift. If there is any Karmic connection, we definitely have it.