HOUR 6

SUNDAY MOVIES

Nothing prepared me for college.

I was a city girl

who’d never left home.

College was in a rural setting,

eight hundred miles,

and three states away.

The highpoint of our lives

were the weekly English movies,

where we could meet

young officers from the army base.

In their presence,

our walks had an extra sway,

and hair was tossed around often.

 

On such a Sunday,

My two best friends and I

were swaying and tossing,

in our best clinging sarees,

when a cow approached

at a run

straight at us.

Without a second thought,

one best friend and I ran and

reached a ditch.

With vulgarly hiked-up sarees,

like synchronized gazelles,

we sailed across to safety.

When we looked around,

our other best friend,

was still running in front of the cow,

screaming ‘save me’

like a B-grade heroine.

We couldn’t control our amusement,

while a gleeful officer pulled her away.

The cow kept running.

It wasn’t chasing us after all.

It was just in a hurry.

Later, I had just one best friend.

And the Sunday movies were

indefinitely postponed.