The Web of Wordly wisdom

First, you court her for some time and she even leads you to believe you have a nice little setup (wink, wink) going.

Then, just when you try to, ahem, make use of the relationship, SHE pops the question (yeah, she doesn’t even wait to see if you would).

You obviously opt to take the road always taken and try to Cancel, leaving it for another day. But she’s having none of it and keeps popping it every time you go near. The poverty-stricken fellow that you are, you can’t buy her something nice. And the insensitive male that you are, you don’t even ask her what it’s all about.

However, all is not lost. You can still get to her by saying you didn’t fly and have kept it fully closed and locked 😉

and live happily ever after.

But what you do is try and show off the irresistibility of the irresistible you and say, “Yeah, honey, a couple. Sorry. These kingfisher girls you know….”

and end up spending time on asking her to move out a bit, cleaning up the registry and the kitchen, inviting her back in and choosing celibacy over the past year when the question’s popped again.

Sigh! Girls are so not understanding at all!

Hairy Tales, these.

Yesterday, three pretty girls were climbing the stairs just ahead of me (some detractors might claim that I was walking behind them). I had work in the Professional Couriers office and I believe the fair maidens were visiting the beauty parlour next door. They were chattering away on what they wanted to do with their hair and I was awestruck by the preciseness of their requirements – “A lateral snip … till here (indicating the exact projection) … a little blah-blah highlights … just this part here (once again with extremely precise indications)…” Wow! I said to myself, girls CAN be clear on what they want. But with respect to haircuts, as a guy, I’m always at a loss of words when I enter the barber’s. Let me elaborate.

The biggest problem with us guys is that we are never sure on what we exactly want but for a very approximate idea. Like for instance the time when I wanted to have a funk. So after having covered all my bases, including informing my lawyer in case my mom disowns me, I plonked myself in front of my barber.
“I want a funk – “
“What type?”
“What what type?”
“Funk! What type of funk?”.
“Whaat?? They have types in funks? When did that happen?”
So I gave in to my usual “the usual”*.
* Have you ever seen a barber ask you what you mean by “the usual”? Even if it’s your first visit there?

Once in a while though, we know exactly what we want. It’s that thing so-and-so actor sported in so-and-so movie. But then, being the men that we are, we’re not going to be messing around with our izzat by revealing that we’re aware of any kind of ishtyle. So I put the “Innovation Matters” that my company asks of me into play by trying to describe what I think the cut is like and the result is disastrous more often than not. Like for instance the time when I wanted my hair to be cut like Josh Hartnett’s in Pearl Harbor, I ended up saying “Well… ummm… I want it to look ruffled… and a little windblown… but err, in place… and neat.. like err … well … you know what, just make it short”!

You can’t blame the barbers for not trying to help you though. They always have these colour posters of extremely happy looking guys in weird hairdos staring back at you from 2 walls (yeah two, not more, not less). As if to suggest, yeah be a man and pick me. But the problem is you are as sure as Ganguly tonking a left-arm spinner over deep midwicket that not one of those hairdos is going to look good on you (or should it be you who should look good in the hairdo? well, whatever)! Also, the places that I usually visit are called So-and-so Saloons. Saloon, mind you, not salon. There is an ‘o’ missing. Now, you could be audacious enough to ask me why I couldn’t just go to one of those fancy parlours where I can first check out a computerized me. But then, you know, a billion dollar head doesn’t need a 2 grand haircut to look good.

Marriage is not a word – it’s a sentence.

A month back. A Sunday evening. Mobile buzzes.
Me : “Solra! Enna thideernu? Enga iruka?”
He : “Machan, nan onnu soluvaen, tension ayidadha!”
Me : “Solra, inna buildup ellam?”
He : “Kalyanam da. Nan. Idhu. Enaku. Adhu”
Me : “Suthama kaekalai da. “
He : “I mean, enaku da. Kalyanam*. Varra Sunday”
Me : “Ot*@, $#?^&!#^”

* Kalyanam – a form of masochism; also known as marriage.

And so, the floodgates open. Just like that. With that one nod of his head to his parents, he’s put an entire batch of guys at terminal risk of being poked in the ribs by old aunties and told “You’re next”! What makes Vijay’s marriage all the more impactful is that it doesn’t fall into any of the usual categories for an ‘early’ marriage: love marriage, lower strata of society, family emergency, long-term onsite, father into politics, etc. His is just a normal arranged marriage, which just happens to happen when he’s 24.

It’s never easy for a guy to bring about a mindset of getting married. I mean, one moment his only concern is on watching that borrowed dvd as many times as possible before returning it and the next moment he has to be managing budgets for all the things that his wife wants to buy that she didn’t get at her dad’s. He’s supposed to be this really mature guy who knows exactly the right things to say when his wife is crying (everyone says “I’ll take you shopping” works; does it really?), needs to be this all-in-all-alaguraja who can give suggestions on career guidance to the wife’s brother and assorted relatives. All this maturity and accumulation of knowledge and the change in mentality don’t happen overnight. There are no Bodhi trees or Schaum’s Easy Outline of Principles to being a great Husband around. Any guy will be scared, to put it bluntly. Scared of what he’s getting into, scared of the accountability for the actions of another soul who also happens to be perfectly illogical and irrational (apart from cute, perfect and not-so-fat, so chill!).

Something else also to be looked at is how men and women are conditioned. All through the long eventful history of mankind and apekind, the male has been brought up as this hunter-gatherer fella, the one with supposedly no cares, burdens or ties to weigh him down. And above everything, a guy always dreams of breaking free someday and soaring to travels and adventures; a marriage would effectively end his dreams on this front. Women on the other hand are literally groomed for the role, with choice phrases like “How will you live in your Pugundha Veedu?”, “Just wait till you get a mother-in- law”, “Learn this, learn that” being used liberally. So that by the time she finally marries, she’s rehearsed her role umpteen times with her parents, starting from her toy vessels and play-cooking when she was 3yrs old. Now how many times have you seen a 3 or 4 yr old boy playing with emotional compatibility and budget spreadsheets? I rest my case.
* ever wondered why the guy’s place is called a pugundha veedu for the girl?

It’s a hopelessly no-win situation. I mean, it’s almost like commentary on Ganguly and runouts :
~~ He’s run out – “Well, what did you expect from this immature jerk of a loser? Never really liked the look of him!”
~~ He runs the other guy out / the other guy gets run out – “The poor girl, he’s such an insensitive uncommunicative dork”.
~~ Ganguly manages to steal a brilliant quick single (diving full-length and all that) – “See! How nicely the wife has changed him into a responsible family man”.
~~ Nobody gets runout – “Ah! Now you know why arranged marriages work”.
Now replace Ganguly with the guy, the partner with the partner, and runouts with the wife crying (frequency of both should be roughly equal), and the comments are by the relatives.

So the next time the boyfriend says he’s not ready for marriage, don’t think he’s trying to ditch you, chances are he may really not be ready. And there’s no point in asking him how come his classmates married readily. Because they weren’t ready either, got forced in and that too because an arranged marriage also apportions a part of the accountability to parents and relatives.

A lot of people loved Salaam Namaste without ever realising the significance of Saif’s role – about an everyday guy who’s really crazy about this girl, really loves her and all that, but can’t bring himself to committing to marriage right then. And to be perfectly truthful, I think what Vijay’s done takes courage, not many from our own batch would have accepted such a phenomenal change in life at this point, and I’m definitely not one of them. In any case, if I marry now, I’ll be arrested for child marriage. I’m still emotionally under-age and immature, you see! Mommmyy, where is my G.I.Joe tanker???

I wanna play too!

A girl travelling with her father finds it highly entertaining to stare at you all through a flight. You think, well, two can play this and stare back. Her dad gives you the Arnold Schwarzenegger stare. Then you stare at the SpiceJet safety manual. Stupid game, I tell you!

25 things Venus should have learnt from Mars!

In direct collision-inciting response to this :). Remember Curious, you started it.

~ Pink is not a colour!
~ The weight matters?
~ Reverse gear is never near the first gear. And that car in the rear-view is not in front of you.
~ “Just Looking” exists.
~ The label on the inner sole of a super-tight (and super-expensive) pair of heels doesn’t have to match with the colour, texture and lustre of the bit of metal on the hair band.
~ The power button in the TV remote is not technology.
~ “Chumma dhan irukaen” is not a verb.
~ Shopping is NOT a sport/hobby/pastime/work/chore/entertainment and is NOT supposed to be done just because you’re depressed/happy/sad/alive. Daddy pavam, Hubby pavam.
~ Matter movies are a genre of movies.
~ Homework assignments don’t necessarily need to be done.
~ A handbag shouldn’t weigh the same as a dumbbell.
~ The icecream and chocolates taken in the first 20 yrs contribute to the kgs in the next 20.
~ Sports transcends life.
~ Computers are easy to operate.
~ How to lie without your eyes darting all around the place.
~ The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Everyone knows that. Everyone except that bleddy microwave.
~ Considering you the MOST important thing is absolutely different from thinking you’re the ONLY important thing.
~ A home isn’t required to be maintained like a museum. That bit of graffiti on the wall or the bit of sauce spilt on the couch is not worth the emotional melodrama.
~ Tears shouldn’t be used this frequently. Even if they always work.
~ It’s not required to “Choooo Chweeeet” every pink-faced bundle below 5 yrs you set eyes upon.
~ The above point also goes for ’em guys Maddy and Hrithik. (also check this and this for a former chweetie).
~ One can’t score goals in cricket. And Azharuddin is no more the captain.
~ If you don’t want an answer, then why ask the question?
~ Backbenchers are humans too.
~ “I don’t know” IS a real answer!
~ Men are smart(er). Period. :-p

Your dream girl is waiting for you. Find her at…

It was around 3am on a slow day in UAT last week when a colleague of mine called me to his workstation, where he was browsing through profiles on a matrimonial site. Unfortunately for him, he is now supposed to be at a marriageable age according to his relatives because he is settled (software engineer), and needs stability in life (late nights in office). Note that I’ve not talked about steady incomes or salaries here, with due respect to my company. And so he’s been spending the said late nights searching for someone with a ‘wheatish complexion’ and a ‘good sense of humour’ to spend the rest of his life cribbing about his manager.

And so here we were, filtering through profiles, browsing through them and bookmarking promising ones (yeah, exactly what we do on Orkut but now with a license to send “make friendship” scraps) and there was this one word that kept buzzing around incessantly in my head – IDENTICAL. It was like multiple women having the exact same profiles and the exact same demands. Irrespective of whether the profile had been posted by the girl herself or by her friends or family, they all ended up projecting the same profile and asking for exactly the same type of guy. Mind you, it was no different with the guys. Everyone seemed to be into the “modern yet traditional, calm yet outgoing, virgin yet whore” litany.

So I jokingly told him that I could write a script to automate the whole process to produce genuine sounding marriage profiles. And here it is, though I’ve modified the idea to give just one random data for each click. Click away :
var look=new Array(); look[0]=”Nallavan, vallavan, naalum therinjavan!”; look[1]=”Loving, caring, adjustable and considerate towards me… and my brother who’ll be an add-on”; look[2]=”Down to earth with a good sense of humour (I once watched Madhan Babu’s kek-kek-kek all day).”; look[3]=”Well mannered with good ‘family values’ and neraya respect for elders.”; look[4]=”No bad habits like smoking, drinking…. or blogging!”; look[5]=”Well settled with a steady income.”; look[6]=”Should be a friend and soul-mate first for me!”; look[7]=”Tall, fair, beautiful/handsome!”; look[8]=”Can almost cook paal panigaram and muttai dhosai, but top expert in boiling water.”; look[9]=”No bad habits like smoking, drinking…. or blogging!”; function lookfor(){var randno = Math.random()*10; var rand = Math.floor(randno); alert(look[rand]);} var iam = new Array(); iam[0]=”Graceful with a ‘wheatish’ complexion”; iam[1]=”Tall, fair and good looking”; iam[2]=”A good human being first, with personal integrity”; iam[3]=”Shy but very warm and friendly once I get to know people.”; iam[4]=”Outgoing and fun loving with a ‘good sense of humour'”; iam[5]=”Intelligent, ambitious and hard working”; iam[6]=”Earning ‘kai neraya sambalam'”; iam[7]=”Great affinity towards reading, movies, gardening, bikes, music, cooking, friends, orkut, youtube, dhoni… and a classmate of mine”; iam[8]=”Great affinity towards reading, movies, gardening, bikes, music, cooking, friends, orkut, youtube, dhoni… and a classmate of mine”; iam[9]=”Strong minded and independant but respect our customs and traditions”; function melook(){var randno = Math.random()*10; var rand = Math.floor(randno); alert(iam[rand]);}
I’m supposed to tell you that I am/have :
Looking for an ‘eena vaai’ who is/has :

Note: special requirements such as moving heavy stones or taming the bride’s family kaala maadu will have to be added separately to the profile.

ps : A primary school kid could write code for a button with random alert msgs. So spare me!

uS vs. tHEm

I’ve been following this increasingly popular trend of girls trying to ape guys in social behaviour – wearing boots, riding bikes, calling each other machi, maapi, and dude. And I started thinking of the things that girls can do but we guys would never be able to carry off. The first thing that comes to mind is how girls can dress up in pink and wear enough accessories to give Shilpa Shetty a complex. But “No!” I said to myself. I’m not going to go the fashion route. Instead, I will talk about other social phenomena that the fairer sex can get away with but we men shudder to even think about. Here goes:

~~ Be in a group in a party (or any goddamn place for that matter) by themselves and NOT look desperate. This one completely amazes me. A group of girls standing all by themselves in a social gathering is a sexy thing and the same scene enacted by the male species is a sight of sadness? Someone sees a group of guys minding their own business in a corner and people exchange smirks, “Look look! Despos.” But put a group of five girls by themselves yakking and giggling away and the nudges and expressions change, “Man, that’s so progressive”!!!

~~ Be completely useless in a situation and yet come off looking cute. Take a flat tire on a moonless night for instance. While the guy is out changing nuts and bolts, cursing the Gods and swearing at the Indian Cricket Team, the girl with him will most likely be caught aiming the flashlight into the sky while intently peering at what he’s doing in the dark.

~~ Have a Best Friend. Every girl it seems has a best friend. Atleast one. You know, that someone who writes an Orkut testimonial with “muaaaaah” in it. Now it was all fine when my mother asked me when I was in 3rd standard why I’d brought my lunch back and I replied, “My best friend brought rotis today”. But down the years I (and guys in general) have become increasingly hesitant to even accept that I have “close male friends”. But the fairer sex have it different. Every girl has a “Best Friend” story any day of the week – “Me and my best friend, we bought matching salwars”, “Me and my best friend have the saaaame tastes”… And sometimes it’s not just limited to best friends. They take it one notch higher, “Simi and I are the bestEST of friends. We’ve known each other for ages and share everything with each other!” Now try replacing Simi in that statement with Rahul and ask yourself if it still sounds right. The first thing that crops to mind when the word ‘share’ is uttered with respect to two guys would be a pair of undies. I rest my case.

~~ Get away with crinky call-names. Let’s take a pure desi name like Deepika for example. She can be called Deepi, Deepu, Deeps, Dee or even just plain D; apart from the fact that some guys she know will greet her with “Hey Deepuuuu” or “Bye Deeepiiii”. Now, if you even try calling your friend Deepak by any of these, I’ll bet on Dhoni’s house that your friend will die a virgin.

~~ Add sexiness to something as unremarkable as eating. How does this system work anyway? An airy fairy maiden eating a banana or gently licking a lollypop is supposed to be an erotic sight? And sucking in the last teeny-weeny bit on the strawberry or licking in the bit of dark chocolate from the corner of her mouth is not supposed to be gluttonous – it’s the quintessence of sexiness. Now, can you think of any food that you can imagine a guy eating and you relating to anything remotely sexy to the situation – think – idli, briyani, chicken tandoori, rotis – nothing. The only effect we men seem capable of producing is that of disgust when we have sauces and stuffing dripping down our elbows and try to cover it up with what starts as a winning smile that only reveals more unmentionables stuck between our teeth – aaaaargh!

gAnder bias

Tuesday afternoon. Pavement in front of Shanti Sagar, Domlur. Pretty girl searching for some DVD from the DVD walla. Office going guy flipping through Akio Morita’s “Made In Japan” from the adjacent bookwalla. She looks up. He looks up. Their eyes meet. Her look turns angry while he hurriedly looks away, visibly flustered.

This is what strikes me as to how differently both sexes react to a simple situation like this. If two pairs of eyes meet, then both parties are equally to blame for whatever eye-candy theft that’s happened. Yet, the “thou is fairer” sex immediately assumes a morally superior “he was leching at me” stance, while the male member instantly goes on the defensive thinking “Oh no! She must think I was leching at her”. The irony is that the crime committed by both sides is the same and so is the evidence the jury has against them. And yet, one party instantly assumes the role of the offended and the other, of the guilty.

Seriously, try this. Sit in a Coffee Day and keep staring at a girl. She’ll soon whisper into her friend’s ear about “the pervert in the opposite table”. And if she’s with her boyfriend, boy, talk about looks that can kill! Now try and imagine a situation where the tables are turned (pun intended) and you find a girl staring at you. However now you’ll be the one who’ll become all jittery and start a mental check of what you’ve done in the last 5 minutes – zipper’s locked, no sugar crystals sticking at odd places, socks are matching… And don’t even try telling your friend about her, unless you want to become the comedy story of the week for your gang. If you’re with your girlfriend, then woe betide you; she’ll sniff out what’s happening with that beautiful nose of her’s and settle the issue with an accusatory look at you. Yes sir, you! Even if the girl in the opposite table is the one guilty, your girlfriend will in all probability conclude YOU must have done something to attract her attention.
In all this, not for a moment, not for a single freaking Kodak-clicking moment is anyone going to even dare imagine the remote possibility that the girl in the opposite table was eyeing you.

I would dearly love to see the day when a young guy takes to task two members of the fairer sex who’ve been giving him the eye, with choice phrases like “Unakku annan thambi ellam kedaiyadhu?“*, “Ne annan thambi kooda porakalai?“, “Un appavum oru ‘paiyan’ dhana!“** and a couple of men passing by give them dagger-looks, muttering “Cha, poriki ponnunga“

* You don’t have any brothers?
** Your dad is also a ‘boy’ only, no?

Wall Street kadalai

SHE : I really enjoy your company.
HE : Yes. We seem to bond so well.
SHE : But let’s not go public with it.
HE : Yes, I would hate to share you.
SHE : That’s a stock answer.
HE : Why? Do you know of any other offerings?
SHE : It’s none of your business.
HE : But I’m keeping a close look on the market anyway.
SHE : Why? Do you want to trade me?
HE : Maybe not if you’re ok with mutual funding for this pizza.
SHE : You’ve just been liquidated.

Let’s play Tintoretto

Read this first.

HE: Hi!
SHE:Mmm
HE: How’s my coochie poochie today?
SHE: Mmm
HE: Is something wrong? You look quiet.
SHE: No.
HE: Sure?
SHE: Mmm
HE: Ok then. – Did Prem call-
SHE: I’m upset with you.
HE: Why?
SHE: You know why.
HE: No! I don’t.
SHE: You know it very well.
HE: No! I don’t. Really!

Now, a quick question for all the HEs (who interact with SHEs) who read this blog. How many among you haven’t ever tasted some flavor of this conversation? I can bet my blog the answer will be zilch. Everyone talks of emotional wars and such – but the above mentioned technique is something SHEs have used masterfully over the years. And boy, does it work like a charm! Coz never in the history of the sexes has a conversation like this taken place:

HE: What happened?
SHE: You know.
HE: Yeah! I do. It is because I forgot that today is the 4th anniversary of the day I bought you the 27th Dairy Milk since we proposed.
SHE: Yes. But I forgive you!

No way. The fairer sex don’t play fair. It’s always like a trailer to a terrifying movie that’s likely to follow, but never will SHE tell HE anything about when the movie is actually gonna release. So what does HE do? HE starts guessing.

HE: What is it? Is it because I called your dumb friend, dumb?
SHE: No. You know what it is.
HE: Is it because I looked at that girl on the road?
SHE: No. You know what it is.
HE: Is it because I gave you only 47 missed calls today?
SHE: No. You know what it is.

And so in quick succession HE accepts everything – from being a stone-hearted, insightless boor to being the reason why India lost the cricket match. And still SHE sits and nods her head. (Point to be noted here is whatever HE’s just told is going to come up right back from SHE a few months down the line. Not now. No Sir! Right now the object of concentration is solely what’s on SHE’s mind).

Now, let’s say HE is in the same situation. What’s the probability that HE would be able to control himself or the situation? The above scene if reversed is likely to be like this :

SHE: You look quiet. What’s wrong?
HE: Nothing.
SHE: Cool. I had a hectic day at work.

That’s it. The tiger that he is, HE jumps up to pour his heart out. “You did this. You kept me waiting 40 mins today. You did that … blah blah blah.” To all this SHE will but utter one silent reply “I just told you I had a terrible day and still … you … never mind.”

Saying this, SHE chews her lips and keeps quiet.
HE stops shouting.
HE looks at her.
HE wonders what to say.
HE innocently asks, “What happened now?”

“You know what happened,” SHE answers. “You know it!”