Ted Lasso And The Joy Of Intergenerational Friendships

The only saving grace of the recently concluded third season of TV show Ted Lasso was the continuing  intergenerational friendship of Keeley Jones (Juno Temple) and Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham). It transported me to a moment three decades ago when I found myself addressing a church full of people from the pulpit. I was saying goodbye to a friend who died at the age I am today. 

He was a Jesuit priest, the director of the communications institute where I attended evening classes while doing my BA degree; a talented, abrasive and extremely funny man. We became friends quickly. I was out of town when he fell ill and asked to see me on his deathbed. There were no cellphones back then and by the time I rushed back, he was gone. I spoke (and sobbed) my way through his church service where I read out a tribute to my friend. Our 30-year age difference was never a talking point. By the time I met him, I was already a veteran at intergenerational friendships. 

My first one was with a housekeeper at the hotel where my father worked and where we resided. I was 16, she was 32, and we told each other everything. I inherited a stack of Levis 501s that she had outgrown and I helped her handle the backlash that came from being an independent, plain-speaking woman in charge of a largely male workforce. It was easier to confide in her than it was to share with my peers or family. She looked out for me, but also treated me as an equal. I often wish I could conjure such a friend for my teenage daughter.

There were many more but my last such friendship, where I was the younger of the two, was with my grandmother whose favourite story from the Ramayan was the testosterone-free tale of Shabari, who tasted every berry before offering only the sweet ones to Ram. Quite like me, my grandmother was not an easy person to get to know. Yet we blithely broke through each other’s barriers and reaped all the rewards that followed.

In retrospect, I realise that all my older friends were people who didn’t live by anyone else’s rules. They spoke candidly at all times, sometimes at the cost of offending the listener. None of them could be described as diplomatic or gentle, and they probably influenced me to follow in their footsteps. 

Some people have even monetised the idea of intergenerational friendships to assist seniors who live alone. Last year, industrialist Ratan Tata said he had invested in Goodfellows, a startup that pairs lonely seniors or ‘grandpals’ with younger volunteers or ‘goodfellows’ to form relationships.

Luckily, I still haven’t found the need to subscribe to any such paid service. I’m now invariably the older person in any intergenerational friendship, the Rebecca to many people’s Keeley. 

It’s thanks to my younger friends that I know what shows to watch and what gadgets to buy. I listen attentively when they share how they conduct their relationships and how life’s challenges have changed since the time I was their age. I also see, especially with my younger female friends, all the things that haven’t changed. These friends have the power to shift the way I’ve thought about things for years. These days I’m arguing with one of them about why I use ‘uncle’ and ‘auntie’ as derogatory words. 

Their friendship rules can be frustratingly different at times (most millennials, for example, are allergic to phone conversations), but two things I share with almost all my younger friends: liberal values and a love for music/poetry. Most of them are gentler than me, and I’m happy to report that I have mellowed in their company. Life, they say, always comes full circle. 

Rebecca and Keeley’s friendship on Ted Lasso begins around the time the younger woman gifts the older woman a cactus saying, “It made me think of you, it’s strong and a bit prickly.” She also thinks Rebecca is a “bit judgy”. Keeley’s just the opposite.

She shows Rebecca how to look her best on the red carpet and teases her that she’s fantasised about the older woman. Soon they’re sharing drinks and secrets as they refresh their makeup. They hold hands through breakups and, together, they teach the kit man (who later becomes an assistant coach) Nathan Shelley (Nick Mohammed) how to be assertive.

“There’s no Rebecca without Kelley,” Hannah Waddingham said, when she won an Emmy in 2021.

Rebecca is Keeley’s biggest cheerleader. She pushes the younger woman to start her own company and explains the meaning of ‘love-bombing’. “That's when you're bombarded with expensive gifts and trips and grand gestures of love,” she tells Keeley. 

When I ask a younger friend about our intergenerational dosti, he says he identifies as ‘generation fluid’. Now, that’s a younger person’s way of saying that age shouldn’t matter in a friendship.