Good Friends and Bad Books

So I finally finished ‘The secret dreamworld of a shop-a-holic‘. Oh, don’t run away! My taste in books hasn’t turned as sour as my taste in men (highly questionable according to one reliable source). Let’s start with how I come to be in possession of this disastrous book.

Earlier this month, I spotted it while browsing through the bookstores at Heathrow (Oooh…I lurrve how that sounds…like I’m this so-hip globe-trotting exec type or something. Gah, but I’ve already cribbed about how all I saw of London was the airport). What the hell, I decided I’d at least get some shopping done. Cliché queen as ever I bought a Beatles CD and then scouted about for something by a Brit author.

That ought to have been easy I can hear the book-lovers harrumph….I mean think P.G.Wodehouse, Shakespeare, JK Rowling, even Enid Blyton! Ah, well I own all the Harry Potter books (though I could kill to get an autographed edition of the last-and-soon-to-be-released one) Suffice to say I ended up looking at what someone recently discovered as ‘the hottest new chick-book author’. And errrrm…..I remembered that this series came highly recommended by the Best Friend. Guess that was the clincher? So I picked up this book…never mind the pinky-pink flap and the verrrryy gurrrly title.

In a word…DEPRESSING. Different people function differently I suppose but in this month when I’ve been recuperating from stress and trying to collect my scattered wits from too much running around, the last thing I want to hear about is how another maniac is running to disaster. Each chapter, running up the bills had me on the edge of a heart-attack. And then suddenly, abruptly as though the author realized that her predominantly female readers might enjoy melodramatic horror but would need a happy ending….she gave it one! So maniac turns UltraCool, meets man of dreams, has great sex, lands plum job. All’s well and God’s in heaven. Triple Yurrrgggh. I gave up fairy-tales when I was seven.

Remind me again why I subjected myself to this torture…oh yes, the Best Friend. This set me thinking….now how can two people be so close and yet so utterly different? Best Friend and I never agree on clothes, make-up, books, music, movies or even men. Thank goodness for the last one though….no man’s going to have the honour of being fought over by the two of us. But coming back, we don’t seem to have anything at all in common. And yet I can spend hours talking to her and still have enough left over for tomorrow (and beyond!)

So all in all, she’s a fantastic person (albeit with rubbish taste in books….and errm…great taste in best friends!) This reminds me of another incident where we were looking at some guy’s photograph and I said,

Don’t judge him on that alone. A photograph doesn’t always match the real life thing, you know?

She agreed solemnly with

Yes, look at you!

Eh, what? My photographs are great!

Khud ke mooh se khud ki tareef nahin karte…

No seriously, everyone says I’m photogenic!

They have to say that. As your best friend, I’m under no obligation to lie to you!

A corollary to this observation then, I suppose, then is that

You don’t need to have anything in common to have a bond.

Oh but just remember to avoid the other’s recommendations on books!