Being thirtysomething has never been so good. Or looked so good. These days, every twentysomething I know -- even those who lop off five years from their age to remain 21 -- is vying to be 30. They dress older, act crazier and in general exhibit all the signs that normal, neurotic, single, working women -- not girls -- do. As a bonafide 30-year-old Singleton suddenly I find I have acquired cult status.

And it's all thanks to Ally McBeal. I am all the rage because of a television serial that started six months ago.

Now, from all outward appearances, it appears that I haven't all that much in common with the gorgeous Calista Flockhart. For a start, I am not a hugely successful lawyer. I definitely cannot walk into Chivada gali, Lalbaug, in an itty-bitty skirt and tailored jacket. And no one in my organisation has any wonderful in-your-face idiosyncrasies. I mean, I actually work in a place where people don't feel the need to carry aremote-control device to flush the water closet well in advance. No one displays a healthy sexual interest in wattle (the loose flesh under a `mature' woman's chin). No secretary or executive assistant invents a CD that can replace a husband. An ingenious invention that has recorded on it all -- and I mean all -- the sounds that men make. And certainly, I have never in my life had a boyfriend as `yummalicious' as Billy Thomas (played by Gil Bellows).

And yet, come Wednesday 10.30 pm, I turn off my lights, take the phone off the hook and cancel all party plans. I have to. It's a sacrosanct moment that lasts an hour. It's that time of the week when I am Ally. All the way through. I tell you I am her. Just like every other single, working woman today is. And we are the rage because of what we are. Single. Working. Mature. Women who love men, don't want to live without them but are doing so -- out of choice. Why?

Not because we are afraid to experiment. No way. Like Ally, I have played my hand at the game oflove again and again, drawing so many jokers that I have started to believe that I've been dealt a dud deck. I know you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince. Sure, that's fine by me. What I am even more convinced of, though, is that until Prince Charming comes along on his white charger I'm not going compromise. Like Ally I am not going to get hitched just because I have to. Or because my married friends think it is a good idea. I'll get hitched when I find my Mr Right. And till then, you know what I'm going to do? Exactly what Ally does. Enjoy the kissing. And it's possible, particularly when the person in question looks like some what like Dylan McDermott.

And like Ally, I am going to continue to live most of my life in my head. Not because my real life is boring. Being a normal `mature' person I have enough of a past that keeps bumping into my present and threatening my future. It's just that what unfolds in my head gives my reality a wonderfully kaleidoscopic quality. Since I haveseveral split personalities keeping me company I never know who I am going to meet. And when. That keeps me on my toes as the starring role in my life demands that whenever the music starts to play, I have to kick-off into a high step, tango and jig, all at the same time.

But most of all I like Ally because she shows how liberating it is to be honest. She is honest about her needs, her desires and her compulsive urge to end up in trouble. Like me. And all the Singletons I know. If life is about seizing chance by the nape of its neck, then the first thing you learn is to give it a second chance. And another chance. And yet another chance. Because in that lies hope. The hope that tomorrow will be better and today really, in retrospect, was fun. In the final episode of the season this Wednesday, Ally laughed and cried as she reviewed her life. And I found myself doing the same. Thinking about a year misspent, the frogs the monsoon had unleashed on me, and an impending millennium, I realised we were coolbecause we are ourselves. Like Ally, we have the courage to go out with the barest of make-up. Giving an impression of a face scrubbed clean, we approach life without artifice. Or guile. Just a load of wry humour. And I found myself laughing. Laughing so hard that tears started to spill from my eyes. Suddenly I was crying. I'd finally got the joke.Exactly, I believe, at the same time Ally did!

Nonita Kalra is features editor, The Indian Express