If you could go back in time and offer advice to your younger self what would it be? Sometimes I want to shake up my fourteen year old self and ask her not to fall in love at the drop of a hat. Convince her with the only logic she will understand, ‘ Ishq se bore ho jaygee baad mein’, hoping for the sake of my older self, it works.

Do you think people change? I think essentially, our core doesn’t change very much. Push comes to shove, we react quite predictably. Like in my case, the words ‘ I love you’ it turns out get the same reaction- anger or escapism, from the first time I heard it from a boy to last night.’Bloody ostrich’, SB yelled at SC, as she hastily gave back the box of jewellery she had been presented with and ran inside the house, as if she had seen a ghost. ‘I don’t want to hear this!’ is all she could muster the courage to say. SB is so much better at handling this. Her replies have ranged from, ‘Wow! What a revelation Bhangra pau?’ to ‘You think you’re getting in my pants by saying that?’. Before you decide to do a psych analysis of my lovely behaviour, spare me the 101 on commitment phobia, one’s taken enough of those classes and has miserably failed at them, as you can see.

The list of how obnoxious SB can be, is quite long and the man whose endured it the most, has been my dear Shets. One suspects, his sporadic phone calls, over the past ( almost) twenty years, to profess his love are purely for the entertainment value, SB brings to his life. He giggles in glee, as she responds. But he does have a sixth sense, I grant him that. Last night, as I was driven to my favourite spot in town and the volume of the music was turned up, he called. I suspect, in hindsight, this is where I was originally, supposed to be told. Thank the lord, the plan got spoilt. Someday, I have always hoped, some weirdo will paint the words, ‘ you’re mine you crazy bitch!’ at that spot, to which I will respond, ‘ let’s see how long you can keep me around, asshole!’ Which translates to let’s do it, in cuckoo land.

For now, SC will loose another friend at the altar of love and SB will continue to convince her she’s having the time of her life!