“We have to make a full tea set.”

“Okay, okay,” Pooja said. She dug deep into the soil to retrieve our clay. I waited patiently for her to show me her roll-and-bend technique to make the tiny handles for our teacups. We were artists, rolling clay into the tea cups to use for our pretend tea parties. We were hosts. We were sculptors. We were friends. I was her confidante. She told me about the boys who teased her for raising her hand in class. She confessed that she couldn’t wait to get her menses. She told what she thought that was. Her narratives made me feel more. More than six. More than a measly first standard student. When we were together in public, I carried myself taller, like her, chest out, spine straight.

I idolized Pooja. She lived upstairs as a neighbor, but to me she was a friend, a mentor, a dreamcatcher.

“Come, let’s visit Pooja.”

Mama stood over me holding a sari and a plate of sweets. I glanced at the tiny clay plates in front of me. Pooja and I had made them just last week; they were drying in the sun like our friendship.

On our way up, I received a series of instructions:
“do not stare”,
“do not touch her,”
“do not sit near her.”
“she’s not clean right now;
just stay away from her.”

I glanced back at the veranda with the drying clay toys we’d made. Her laughter echoed up from down there. How was I going to stay away from her? Pooja and I only knew entanglement. I felt nauseous as I walked up the stairs, unsure I could stay away from her.

On Monday Pooja had disappeared. I was not allowed to visit her. I had spent four lonely days away, believing we’d reunite and return to our making.

Confused and disappointed by mama’s instructions, I asked for an explanation.
“She hasn’t bathed in a week.”
“Why?”
“She got her menses for the first time.”
I nodded, considering this word I’d heard once before. Menses. It sounded special, womanly. The way mom said it and glanced at me knowingly. A secret society of women and girls who one day got their menses and then were different. No more come down to your six year old friends to host pretend tea parties.

I wanted my menses too.
I wanted to join Pooja on the mat.
I wanted to be the same as my friend.

Inside her apartment, mom hugged Pooja’s mother. I tiptoed in, behind mom and glanced at Pooja. She sat yogi style on a straw mat on the floor. Her apartment was a large room with a family bed in the middle and a small table off to the right of her mat. Adult women were congratulating each other in hushed voices.

“She will make for a beautiful bride soon!”
“She can’t wear dresses anymore, she will need half-sarees from now on.”
“Make sure she stays away from the little girls, and the boys, of course!”

Everyone had the same advice for Pooja’s mom. Pooja’s mom nodded proudly as if she herself had created the menses to happen in Pooja’s body.

I reached a hand towards Pooja’s, but mom blocked me like the bars of a prison wall. Pooja’s eyes lit up at the sight of me. The silence of this practice was overwhelming. I yearned to talk to her, laugh with her, chase her about.

“Are you ok?” I whispered. She nodded. Against my mother’s strict instructions, I placed my index finger on Pooja’s mat; I wanted to feel close to her again. She looked down at it and inched hers close to mine.

On the way down, I pressed my thumb to my index finger. I was grasping for a piece of Pooja. My Pooja.

That night I lay in bed confused, revisiting the details of the evening. Pooja had become a woman, I was told. After that day, she would never join our imaginary games again. Instead, she wore half-saris, carrying herself as a mini adult. No more clay for Pooja. No more giggling till we peed our pants. No more races or scraped knees.

I was left to yearn for the old Pooja while simultaneously yearning to be her and get my menses too. A deep loneliness sunk when we separated and although she did send me stolen smiles, I never got more. So I succumbed to solo tea parties with my new imaginary friends.

I often think about how different my first period was, simply because I was no longer in India. Pooja had a week of acknowledgement, I got maxi pads dropped off by my grandfather accompanied by an awkward hug. Now, decades later, I still remember the strange mix of emotions six year-old me felt. I had a deep-rooted longing to be her—a grown woman who got so much attention for becoming a woman. And. I had a deep-rooted resentment at her for remaining obediently in place. Questions still fill my mind: why did she have to sit in the middle of the living room on the floor on a mat, while we all sat on the bed above her? Why did my mom tell me not to touch her? Why hadn’t Pooja showered in a week?

The woman in me knows that getting your period immediately separates a girl in society, puts her into the square lines of marriage, straight, motherhood, home-maker. The girl in me refuses to own these truths; she is still playing on the veranda with her the toys she sculpted with her own two hands.