Hey guys! I regret to inform you that - no, you haven’t been rejected - but I will be taking a little hiatus from our weekly shindig for a bit (I know, it’s breaking my heart too!). I’ll be back though, so keep a look out for me in the wild (where you will most likely find me purposefully getting into situations that I know I should most definitely avoid). Anyway, this week, I decided to use this space to pay a little homage to the (wicked and twisted) notion of love. Ah, love is a doozy! For most of my young adult life, I avoided this relentless beast, and rightfully so (my first love ended like most first loves do: with a red fox screaming from within my soul). Regardless, romantic love is simply wonderful (you and I both know that falling in love is like the best feeling in the world, and the butterflies help you lose tons of weight). I plan to keep jumping into the tunnel of romantic love until I find the one, but that’s a story for another day and right now I have some important business to tend to.
Please excuse the cheese that is about to pour out on this page, but there is a kind of love that isn’t fleeting. It’s rare to find, yes, but it’s dependable and it helps you get past the most disastrous experiences of your life. This is the love you have for your friends. My girls are my life, and I really do love them from the bottom of my wretched heart (I told you there would be cheese). I am lucky to have formed these friendships. Honestly, I really do owe it to my all-girls secondary school education that made it possible for me to form these lifelong bonds while I was locked up in a single room for 8 hours every morning with the same group of girls for the first seventeen years of my life (I’ve known my girls since I was 4 or something). They knew me when I was fat and they know me now (that I am fabulous AF). They’ve helped me overcome heartbreak, they’ve taught me how to roll joints, and they have taken part in countless sleepovers and horror movie fests where we have primarily bitched about boys. If you’ve been lucky enough to know the power of girlfriends (and yes, you do need to get lucky with this because it is rarer than romantic love), then you know exactly what I’m talking about.
Please excuse the cheese that is about to pour out on this page, but there is a kind of love that isn't fleeting
It was a Friday night, which meant that the girls were sleeping over at Anam’s, where they could vigorously smoke joints and eat chips after midnight, when Anam’s parents retired to their bedroom. This night, they were re-watching The Exorcism of Emily Rose and had just finished sharing their fourth joint.
“You guys,” Anam said, physically poking Sanam on her arm. “I heard Sahar and Nadeem are having a baby. Weren’t they separated?”
“I don’t know,” Sanam replied, eyes fixated on the screen. “Has Emily Rose been possessed already or is she just being haunted by the ghost at this point?”
“Yaar, I heard Farzeen left Ahmed and went back to her husband, and Ahmed went back to his wife as well,” Zara added, completely ignoring all previous concerns that had been voiced.
“By the way,” Anam interrupted, “Are we going to Sherdil’s party this weekend? I heard he shot a bull, stuffed it, and hung it on his wall.”
“Lol, he’s probably doing Bano under that bull at this point,” Sanam added, barely smirking.
“F*** boys,” remarked Zara, again completely ignoring all previous comments. “I think we should embrace our unfortunate virginities and move in together. That way, we’ll never be lonely again.”
Artist - Gopal Khetanchi
***
So how do you know that you’ve made friendships that will see you through to your old age?
You often hit on each other and call each other ‘babe.’
You see your girls almost everyday, or as often as possible, and your plans basically revolve around their whereabouts.
Your outgoing is always at 70% because you take part in too many late night phone conferences. Sometimes, you just hang out on the phone without saying a word, and that’s okay.
You make fun of each other, especially when it comes to romantic failures and other such idiotic ventures in life.
You scheme together and you have the same enemies.
You have 800 mutual friends on Facebook.
You always tell it like it is, especially when it comes to boys, but you make it a point to diss the culprit just to soften the blow.
Your meme game is strong AF.
You tell them you love them and make plans to marry them in Canada.
“You three…” Madam Faiza began, but paused to take a long deep drag from the joint she had just pulled out from the bun on her head. “You three confound me. At my age, we weren’t allowed to have such close friendships.” Here, she paused again to take a drag. “My friends hated me, as they do today. They hate my guts, they hate my money, and they hate my kids. I only talk to them on the phone all day because I need to be prepared...you know, in case of an attack. Oh, and I need to be updated on all the gossip.”
