It was just another Saturday; as usual Rashika, Simran and Nik would leave college and invade Alia’s home. Alia’s mum anticipating the attack would prepare a warm, delicious meal, the aroma of which was enough to make people go weak in the knees and elicit a Pavlovian dog response.
Like clockwork, after lunch with a tub of ice cream (Rocky Road to be specific) in hand the four would head upstairs to Alia’s room. They would give each other the latest scoop, fill each other in on what the rest had missed of their life and laugh over nothing and the most idiotic things imaginable, which if anyone else heard would give the girls the most condescending eye roll ever. The girls were content in each other’s company and truly believed that this was how they wanted to live the rest of their lives, work hard throughout the week and then after a tiring day, unwind in the company of each other. In between lols they would discuss literature and music. They would argue about the intricacies of life, what lies beyond the corporeal universe and also whether a particular dress was black and blue or gold and white (DAMN DRESS).
Suddenly on this particular day Nik dropped a mighty, nuclear, introspection bomb on the rest of the girls. Her question was seemingly simple
“What is more powerful? The power of love or the love for power.”
The girls discussed and debated, they chalked out a pro-con list, they tried to bring in examples from real life to embellish their arguments, and one of them even said “Who do you think is more powerful? Mother Teresa or Pol Pot”, “Who affected the world more? Adolf Hitler or Gandhi”, Sim even quoted Kevin Spacey from House of Cards and said “Money is the Mc-mansion in Sarasota that starts falling apart after 10 years. Power is the old stone building that stands for centuries.” “And everyone yearns to be free from oblivion and remain immortal correct?” She had a valid point, might I add. But no matter what they did to comprehend the question and arrive at a logical answer, they just couldn’t arrive at a conclusion.
Sim had reached a saturation point, she had to get away from the argument and think about this. So she obviously went to the loo, after all great ideas are conceived and revelations are revealed here, am I right or am I right? Even Archimedes achieved his ‘Eureka Moment’ here, didn’t he? She thought about it for a while and hollered out to her friends,
“Guys, who are you’ll more afraid of God or the Devil”
and she received a deathly silence from the other end. Damn it, she thought they ran away and hid again, like they always do, like they were five year olds. She opened the door and much to her surprise she saw her three friends just staring at each other trying to fathom what they had just heard, trying to provide an answer to their friend’s question.
Until the time when the girls have another conversation over another tub of ice cream, we’ll just have to try and answer these questions for ourselves. After all a lot can happen over a tub of ice cream.
Written by Kshaema Susan Mathew
