Had you been a girl

And not a guy would you still chide me on skype? Would you laugh at the man who wears too short a shorts and decide to stroll down the streets? Would the tiny keypads of your ever beeping cell phone squeak at the constant sms-ing? Would the smile still be a shade fader when you were caught in your own world and yet couldn’t bear to disappoint others?

Had it been easier to be friends, to share the secrets without test runs? To look at the stars, read the poems, wonder at words, the depth of songs, walk bare feet and share stories, real stories of life and beyond.

The days spent talking; with your head tilted on one side listening attentively and suddenly you brighten up, animated about that one incident that happened years ago. The roof seems quite, the noise of children playing in the summer evening floating by from somewhere far, the yellow and pink striped kite tangled in the coconut tree and a jug of lemonade at our feet. The soothing flavored water brimming in the white jug with pale blue starry prints crawling all over, the handle stretched and ice all clustered in the jug.

The aged door went back to and fro with the wind and downstairs the house over populated by guests and food, bustled with life. The black glittery sky with the pale round moon spread itself all over us. We talked and drank some lemonade and when the hunger couldn’t be replaced by lemonade any more, I ran downstairs to grab some food. The cement stairs still warm from the summer heat, my hand sliding along the railing, till I rushed in the house got the white china plates that were gifted last summer from my aunt with yellow cake like frosty piping on the edges. A few handfuls here and there and I ran upstairs skipping one stair at a time to get the plates on the white floor flooded with moonlight.

We laughed at the stories, the unreasonable arguments of moms, the desperateness to buy the black tank top with cropped white sleeves showcased at Allen Solly in Park Street. How life can change we thought, poems newly written were stacked in some corner, papers strewn all over, and the old leather bounded Tintern Abbey rested in the comfy chair used often as a tray for my tea cup in the morning.

We never had any excuses not to talk, not to walk past the coconut man, have dinner at the lit restaurant on the Ganges with Lobster and the over orangish flute of cosmopolitan while sailing away in the darkness. If it wasn’t for Conrad we would have never met, who would knew the power lied in the shelves of the library. Books dusty and spiders crawling, pictures sketched on half torn away pages. Crossroad came later, the swanky coffee shops and the palm pilot, the craze for flying away to other countries and drive cars with sun roofs.

The love of water, the sound of laughter, the cold touch of the steel scissor while the shabby parlor girl smelling of freshly applied cheap cream straightened the sprouting eyebrows enthralled us. The smaller things in life were happiness; like the paper windmill bought in the local train still stands faintly on my desk. I take it once in a while in the clouded summer storm and see that it can still turn and put it back for another year to stand among my books, pens, never sharpened pencils and the bright red lamp.

My diary has been scribbled all over, my fears, my losses, my first love, how I knew that I had the lucky stars in me and every time I was forced to study, I dreamt of me years later walking down some hall in stilettos and pencil skirt with arm full of files and papers and the crowd moving away as I walked through them.

You knew it all, what I thought when I looked away and had the distant look, how attached I was when I said I didn’t care, how I loved chocolates and McDonalds french fries and there would still be secrets I would perhaps never share.

Life would be a lot different only…only if you were a girl!