I found her on the futon, lying there with her shoes still on.

“What up babe?” I asked, not really wanting to know the answer.

“I don’t really want to talk about that jerk who just smashed my heart into a million little pieces” she was saying when I interrupted with “Million little pieces, you have got to buy that book. I just blew all of my allowance and I’ve been dying to read that book.”

“Sure, and would you like me to give you the red carpet of my heart which I laid out for him to trample all over on?” she exclaimed, a tad too excitedly.

“No, I’m just fine over here”, I nervously sat down on the nearest chair.

She jumped off the futon and proceeded menacingly towards me, “Promise me something she says with a wild gleam in her eye that I did not really care for.

“I don’t want to,” I meekly reply.

“Promise a world without heartbreak. Promise me a world in which my lover doesn’t cheat on me. And yes, I will call him lover, though I know you hate the word so. Guys are the bane of our existence” she included me and I’m guessing the entire female race with that generous line. “Henceforth it’s just us girls for each. All for one and one for all. With the guys out of her mind we can finally devote ourselves to higher pursuits, like uh, that thing Erin Brokovich did.”

“I can’t help you with that, I haven’t seen the movie”, I said.

“What the hell does it matter?” she said with considerable asperity. “Out of mind, out of sight. I say guys should be-(phone rings) Hello, no, she’s gone out.” And she calmly hung up.

“Wasn’t that your mobile?” I bewilderedly ask.

“It was jerk.” She said.

I thought she handled that in a very collected and composed manner, after all the first call after a breakup is the most distressing when you lose all your self-control and either rant at your ex or sob asking him to take you back.

I start to commend her, when I notice she’s dialed some number and “Hello? Listen up your two-legged moron, stop wasting my time. I’ve spent a lifetime too many for you. I don’t care if you rot in hell or burn in it. Or both or either. Or one after the other. You can rot and then  burn”- I cut in and snatch the phone away from her and end the call.

After which she called me cynical, bitter and disillusioned about ‘true love’ and how I always try to stand in it’s course. All I’ve got to say is,

Bah, humbug!

“Marry a Gemini girl. That way, you’ll be guaranteed at least two different wives, and on occasional weekends, as many as three of four.”- Courtesy Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs

Linda has successfully made Gemini Women sound like the descendents of nymphomaniacal harems. She cleverly inserts phrases like “heartless”, “artificial”, “superfluous” in the midst of “multi-faceted”,”dynamic” and “spontaneous”, hence diluting the quality of these seeming compliments. It is apparent from her treatment of the sun sign that she has some deep rooted vendetta against some Gemini. Be it her husband’s mistress, or a best-selling author, or a fair critic, be it whatever- she has absolutely no right to degrade Gemini’s so decisively.

The way she writes, one would almost think that she was right by His side, jotting down notes, while he was perfecting the mould for Geminis.

I was expressing these views to didi over a sinfully creamy cake with bits spraying out of my mouth as a sign of my indignation.

Didi skimmed over my words saying “What one calls weird, is actually unique to most people. So when she says ‘artificial’ it translates into‘masked’. And ‘heartless’ is also another way of saying strong, resolute, responsible, take your pick.

See I know many Shilpas. There’s one who’s levelheaded and sensible, the other one doesn’t care what happens as long as she gets her way. Shilpa makes tea for me when I’m sick, at the same time she wants ten cooks one of whom she’ll ring a tiny bell for. She falls in love with a guy she’s only too willing to never talk to, never see again- at the same time she goes out for a whirlwind of dates with some jerk. She’ll splurge on a dress she’ll never wear and yet think twice before picking up a pair of bangles in her favourite color.”

I told didi that everybody is a little bit of this and another bit of that.

Didi said “Everybody is a little bit of this and that. But you’re a little bit of this and that, and that and that and that. I can never decisively say Shilpa will like something at any given place at any given time. I bring chocolate cake for you yesterday evening and you looked at it as if you’d barf at the mention of it even But look at you today hogging. And just an hour ago you declared you were off fattening foodstuffs. I never know what or who stands where with you. That is just you, now stop plotting against Linda and finish whatever little is left of the cake, without treating me to a shower of bits and pieces.”

In all fairness, one ex-boyfriend did tell me that I changed my mind more times than he changed his underwear in a day. From then, I always thought he was one dirty boy.