Welham Girls' School

This wintry November evening

I sat with my friend on a wooden bench

That belonged to a Nawab

We were draped in warm clothes 

The light under a street lamp had a bluish haze

  

We talked about all things mundane

And then on things like

How to occupy leisure

She narrated the plot of a nerdy animation 

I spoke about the dark side of Lolita

The hidden mechanism 

Of putting a perfect eye liner 

She said the idea of mortality is overhyped

And that we are mammals at the end of the day

The glorification of everything human, she said

Was the outcome of bored intelligence

I shared with her a perverted joke

And we laughed out loud

She said her maid was having another baby

I told her the bathroom drain has clogged again

We agreed running a house was a torture we take upon ourselves

And we imagined a day when we could sit next to a river and paint 

I told her I would like to be a full time hippie

She said she is planning to get in touch with NASA

I said I was afraid of death 

She gave a scientific explanation of how we are ultimately just ash 

I told her about the soul’s trip to another galaxy

And the longevity of love

She said she is planning to grow lemongrass in her vegetable patch

I told her I was adopting a pet kitten

She asked me if I been to the momo place

I told her my gynae is forcing me to take a Pap smear test

She said she is happy her uterus is gone

I told her I wanted to go see a broadway musical 

She wants to do a trans Siberian rail trip

We argued on why bring rich is not a privilege 

And she defeated my argument citing a 1930 essay by a Russian sociologist

I showed off my intellectual bank

By telling her who Kim kardashian is

She said the new Bollywood flick

Is a slap on feminism

I read out a poem by Maya Angelou

She read out an even better one 

I asked her if she had heard of a website that uploads DNA samples of famous people

She asked me if Matt gold lipstick will go with her red dress

Suddenly my phone rang

And we realised we had been sitting for longer than our lives permitted

We got up and rushed to the parking

Drove off with not an iota of memory

Of the things we had talked

Because sometimes you talk not to be heard

You talk because there is someone listening.

 

Ms. Shefali Thapliyal