Three friends. One table filled with glasses and empty plates. Three tired and guilty smiles.
Fifteen years of plans and finally they had found the time to have this reunion. They had consciously put away their phones in their designer purses to ensure the one hour was spent with each other and not instagramming food photos and selfies titled ‘yummy lunch catching up with my forevers.’
Or wasted in whatsapping their husbands – ‘did Soniya go for class’ ‘did Fahad eat his vegetables’ ‘did you take Scooby to the vet’ – instructions that had already been repeated thrice, written down on post-its and stuck on refrigerators and mirrors, and repeated to the children so they would remember in case the husbands forgot.
It was one hour – surely their homes wouldn’t implode if they left for an hour?
The plan had been to spend that hour talking about home and careers, reminisce about childhood and maybe compare who had the smartest or the most creative child. But as is the nature of plans…
After the hugs, squeals, oh my gods, we should have done this befores, I can’t believe it has been so longs, ordering the food and drinks, an eerie silence had descended on the trio. It was as if they had so much catching up to do, it didn’t seem worth the effort.
And then the empty space was suddenly weighing down with all the cancelled plans, broken promises and concealed envy. They could feel the weight of it, as surely as they could feel their growing age.
“What happened to us?” One of them was brave enough to break the silence. Maybe it wasn’t bravery at all but a fear of that accusing silence.
“We stopped trying.” Replied the other. Did they? Or was it just one of those excuses, used as swiftly and as conveniently as ‘my child is sick’ to get out of a social engagement?
“Does it matter? We are here now. Let’s just be here.” A sound piece of advice. But the weight…the silence…
“Why did this take so long?” Ah that was the million dollar question, wasn’t it.
They were thankful when the drinks arrived. Now they had something to do with their hands. The alcohol loosened the tongues, the weight became easier to bear, the silence less accusing.
But the arrival of food halted the stilted conversation. Now the air was filled with clinking glasses and cutlery, with murmured ‘could you pass me the’ ‘do you want the’ ‘can I finish the.’
“I feel like everyone is staring at us, wondering why we aren’t talking.” Said one, in another brave attempt to bridge the chasm between the friends she had thought she’d never be able to live without.
“Things change, don’t they?” Sighed the other, making an excellent and yet useless observation. Is that all this luncheon was going to accomplish? Bad conversation and pointless observations?
“Well one thing hasn’t.” She wondered if she should shine a ray of hope on this rather dismal forty-five minutes. When no one objected, she continued, “You have eaten more than you should, you want dessert as always and we still ordered only two dishes so…”
“So we could share!”
And just like that their plan to spend one hour failed. As the shared nostalgia opened the floodgates, the three friends ended up sitting at their table for hours, chatting, laughing and making more promises – promises which they swore they’d not break this time.
tales of Suchita 
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