Girlfriends. I have never been able to do without them. Be it an endless analysis about what "he" actually meant or finding the perfect pair of shoes or how similar our mums are or how our siblings annoy us or what we want from life. Bonding over a face pack, a song, a book, the garish red nail paint, a smoke, girlfriends just seem to make life so much easier.
We are a group of 8 "girls" who have known each other for more than 10 years now. There have been several fallouts, parties, break-ups, new friends, night-outs, sleepovers not to mention crazy drunkenness, random crank calls, getting busted smoking or sneaking out or sneaking a guy/alcohol in, getting caught by the cops, holi/ diwali/parties. I could go on and on.
And now we are growing up. My closest friend got married day before. She moved to New York 6 years back but we kept in touch. We used to not talk for months but when we did it would be like the old times. We were the same people so we never needed explanations and justifications. We've grown apart over the past year. I went to New York for her engagement to convince myself that things were the same. But it just got worse. I wasn't as involved in the marriage as I would have wanted to be. I didn't even speak to her once while she was here for a month before her wedding. In fact, I was just there for the wedding as a guest. I didn't even attend the pheras.
It was so impersonal. We had had endless discussions about being each others Indian version of the Maid of Honour and preparing an item number for the sangeet. We were supposed to spend hours shopping and getting pampered before the wedding. I was supposed to hide the "jootis" and pester the guys side for lots of money. I was supposed to be there for her at every step.
I am sure that things will never be the same between us. She now has begun a new life. And I am not a part of it. Most of us who went for the wedding planned as usual about what we'll do at each others wedding. How we'll prepare item numbers and camp at each others places a month before the wedding. How we'll make sure our kids get along and more importantly our husbands get along. How we'll arrange bachelorette parties and how we'll spoil each others kids rotten. How we'll shop till we drop and get each other very special gifts.
I don't know if it'll happen. I really hope we do.
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