The story one might barf at if it hadn't really happened

Consider two women. Call them A and B (for want of wanting to come up with better names). Bosom buddies. Siamese twins in an ethereal way. Love to love each other, love to hate each other and all that jazz and a bit of overkill even. Have disturbingly similar taste in men. Must always stay on toes about that. Sometimes compensate and at other times heighten each other's flaws. Have most satisfactorily overlapping moral sensibilities. They both share the opinion that put together, they might make one really decent person. Except that either is much too much in love with her most imperfect (and never claiming otherwise) self to think about being put together with anything. That would be too easy, says one, screwing up is the funner way of growing up.

So when a conversation between such two females of bohemian leanings, and what they like to think of as a jointly wild and rampant spirit, took the following turn, at least one of them found it unsettling:

B: I need to get home. I haven't cooked yet.

A (triumphantly): I already cooked and came.

B: Cool. (Proudly states further) Dya know I made idli-sambar one day?

A: Ooh. You can make idli-sambar? Wow. How did you make it?

(At this point, it strikes A that with the way this little chat is going, they might as well be talking about neck jewellery from the latest serial K. She makes a brave attempt to check this disturbing stream of conv.)

A: You know what...DON'T tell me. I'm really not ready for idli-sambar yet.

B (still in the momentum of things): And badi aaloo!

A: I know how to make badi aaloo.

B: No, you don't.

A: I'm telling you I just learnt from Z's mother. It's the exact same recipe. With dhaniya powder!

Despair. The conversation, once dealing with Dustin Hoffman, had slipped to dhaniya powder and there was nothing either could do about it. So they dealt with the stress in the best way they knew how. They burst into hysterical fits of laughter. In a less public place, they'd be cackling obscenely in a matter of seconds.

It just so happens that this seemingly deviant dialogue had brought with it a refreshing aroma which rekindled an old warmth between A and B, who had actually been treating each other like cold, three-day old chicken of late. But that's another story.

By the end of the evening, B had smacked A with a heart-warming expletive and was returned in kind. They hugged and A found that she was quite silly-happy after a long time indeed.

Disclaimer: The author means not to belittle the fine art of cooking for which she has recently acquired love and respect of the highest degree. It's just that she associates culinary conversations with marriage-obsessing aunts and dragons that shriek.