Give Me a Sign!

Some of us believe in it and some of us don't, yet all of us are enamored by it. We compare ours with celebrities, we feel we share their own traits. "Hey I and George Clooney share the same sun sign!" we exclaim as if we are chosen to act in a movie alongside him. We may share the date of a celebrity but that does not mean that we share their fate. But then isn't it quite a thrill to know if we really are like what Linda Goodman has described us to be in her book?  Let's face it: we all must have read what the week holds for us as we leaf through  our Sunday newspapers, even though we know that chances of "You will have financial benefits"  or "You will fall in love" or "You will inherit a family heirloom" are highly improbable, yet we are still tempted by the curiosity of what a Linda Goodman or a Vaamanan Namboodri (the always incorrect "fortune teller" from The Week) has to tell about us.

In a culture like ours where we consult our stars when it comes from buying a car to choosing a spouse, the bizarre revelation that there are actually thirteen and not twelve zodiac signs would turn our little personal universe upside down. For me the news of hearing that "You are not a Gemini, but a Taurean" had rattled me to the core in the same way that an over-aged wig sporting hero from yesteryear Hindi movies would be when he hears from his mother "Vijay, tum hamare bete nahi ho, tumhari maa koi aur hai" (Vijay you are not my son, your mother is someone else). It was as if the universe had played a cruel joke against me, but for once I was not alone at the receiving end. 

I had grown up believing that I was a quintessential Gemini - The Twins. I had all the traits of a Gemini, I would be reserved in front of new people, I seldom spoke and when I did my voice would drown among the cacophony of others. I was very slow in making friends, it was when the Good Twin had complete control of me. It was one of those rarest occasions where I would actually think before I speak and had a Halo circled over my head. But it is among the company of the closest of my friends that the Evil Twin surfaces as out of nowhere I grow the Devil's Horns, my sense of humor would move from lewd to gross to slapstick to cynical, I would play pranks on the closest of my friends, and I would metamorphose from the Mama's Nerdish Boy to the prankster with a  devil-may-care attitude. How cool is it to have two people residing within you who are the exact opposite of each other? Not many... hell NONE of the Zodiac signs offer you that kind of package. JFK, Johnny Depp, and the Big Daddy of them all Mithun Da ("Mithun" = Gemini in Hindi ) were all Geminis. JFK was enigmatic, Johnny Depp is a chameleon and Mithun Da is a bit of both (and you can't deny that!).  If the reports are to be believed then my new sun sign would be Taurus. 

It is a tough ask to STOP behaving like a Gemini and to START acting like a Taurean, you don't read Linda Goodman and say "That is how she has described a Virgo, so it is time I got my virginity back!". That is much like going to bed as a man and then waking up as a woman, which would mean I would have to stop shaving and start waxing, and that too regularly. A change in sun-sign means a change in almost every aspect of a Gemini that was embedded in me since birth. A change in my character, a change in my tastes, a change in my fate, a change in my email id which means gemofagemini@yahoo.co.in will be replaced by turbulenttaurean@yahoo.co.in. It would also mean a change in my fortunes, so if in 2011 as a Gemini I was predicted to have a promotion at work, then that would be struck off the list and will be replaced by a Taurean's "You will be diagnosed with goiter", which means I better start eating more salt.

Why I don't want to be a Taurean and stay as a Gemini

Taureans are identified as people who are

Patient and Reliable - That I am NOT. I may be patient which may occasionally be displayed when I am in a queue to book a railway ticket. But reliable I am not, you cannot rely on me to proofread your thesis on "The Effect of Global Warming on World Economy" and give you timely feedbacks, you cannot even rely on me to send you the snaps I had taken at a birthday party the other day.

Persistent and Determined - I always believed in the Homer Simpson theory: "If something's hard to do, then it is not worth doing at all". I have been labeled as a Serial Quitter, something which I don't deny. I have quit full-time courses, I have quit part-time courses, I have not even spared Distance Education courses, because I always believed in maintaining a safe distance from any sort of education, be it high school education or sex education.

The Taurean Professional - It is written that a Taurean can make good bankers, architects, bureaucrats, auctioneers, chemists, insurance people compare that to a Gemini's profession who are mostly debaters (JFK), diplomats, authors, poets, journos, teachers. Which one of the two professions is the most yawn inducing? Clearly not a Gemini. A Taurean Profession asks for a stability that is as stable as a flatline recorded on a deceased patient's cardiograph. I am on the verge of moving on to a third job in less than eighteen months, stability is not my kind of ability.

Compatibility - This probably is the only aspect of a Taurus that I am willing to embrace.  Having barked under the wrong tree all these years after having made to believe that a Gemini's perfect compatible partner could either be a Leo, Libra, Aquarius or an Aries, I now have to start from a clean slate by searching for women who are compatible with Taureans. "What's your Rashee?" will be my conversation starter hereon with members of the opposite sex.

The last yet a prime reason why I wish to stay a Gemini and not a Taurean is that I always get a spelling error whenever I type "Taurean".