Thoughts of a Middle-Aged Romantic

 

“When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now,
Will you still be sending me a Valentine, birthday greetings, bottle of wine?
If I'd been out 'till quarter to three, would you lock the door?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four?”

Is there romance after 30?
You’re thinking - isn’t the answer obvious? I mean, there is a time and place for everything, isn’t there, and if you haven’t found love when both the waist and the age are still under 30, then when? All the same, the question still passes through the mind like a restless breeze through the trees. And it is one that has haunted mankind since the dawn of time. Ever since the Neanderthal man first felt his bald spot and watched his fat, frowsy wife grumpily slap the breakfast fried brontosaurus eggs in front of him. Ever since the Hindi phillums chocolate box heroes of our yesteryears were sucking their middle-aged bellies in to play college kids long after they had celebrated their 40th birthday for the 5th time. And it’s what all those who cross over into the twilight zone of After-30 – and alas, we all will - sadly shake their heads, bite into their soggy bread pakora, sip their tepid tea and mutter to themselves…. “Is there romance after 30?”

Because, the thing is that just because the middle starts spreading, just because the only time love now figures in the conversation is when they’re talking about your love handles doesn’t mean that Ye Ole Dil stops yearning for a spot of pyaar-mohabbat. Just because you’ve seen the wifey in cold wax and colder cream, just because you’ve watched the patidev pluck his nose hairs and belch beer-‘n-biryani just before kissing you, doesn’t mean that your heart doesn’t crave for a dollop of moonlight and roses.
Wot I mean ter say, me munchkins, is that as far as romance goes, the dil never stops saying, “More!”
And if you don’t believe me, ask the Internet. Dunno about all you slaving away at those blogs and dunno about all you hunting the virtual waves for the mating habits of the  Northern hairy-nosed wombat but if there’s a place where you go if you want to poke and prod at the underbelly of our innermost desires, it’s the Internet. So, perhaps you’ve noticed no self-respecting dot.com will be seen in public without a dating-mating section. That there are entire websites devoted to promising you that you’ll find true love – or at least your dream sado-masochist orgy mate – in just 5 quick clicks of your mouse. Yeah, yeah but that’s for the millions of garma-garam blooded, romance-crazed Under 30’s. Maybe but as we watch all the Hum Tums and Main Hoon Na’s and Dhoom’s and all those music videos stuffed to the gills with disgustingly luscious, barely clad NYT’s (Nubile Young Things) – I mean, even a 38- year old Shahrukh Khan is forced to play an army major who can pass off as a college brat - look a little closer at these websites. Which is what I did.
And found that the world is crawling with grizzled After-30’s geezers looking for….er, what are they looking for? Romance? Well, in a manner of speaking – going by some of the e-mail ids. For example what would you say a gent who calls himself boobsmaniac (aged 50 and in case you didn’t get it, his brief but searing bio-data is titled “big boobs lover”) is looking for? Then there was willmakeu2wet (aged 30), wet69 (aged 35), a hotparag and the gent to whom my heart went out to with the wistfully yearning sobriquet of whenwilligetmyhoney (aged 38).
So what, you scoff. One website doesn’t make a whole nation of Over-the-hill-30’s craving for romance. I mean, let’s face facts. The average marriageable age in India for a woman still hovers around 21, over 95 % of women are married by the time they’re 35 and divorce, though rising steadily like the nation’s blood pressure, is still down at healthy single digits. So by thirty – okay we’ll push that to 35 – you’re done with romance, found your soul mate, kindred spirit, for-better-or-for-worse half and have now moved on to other things. Bacchey-kacchey, Saturday night housie at the club, agonizing about hair tints, your cholesterol and what to do with those Wipro shares.
And romance? Ah, it’s there somewhere, fading like the upholstery on the drawing room sofa, often forgotten like that vegetable chopper that promised to mince anything from the onions for your do-pyaaza to your ma-in-law’s pinkie, a trifle moth eaten like your college year book and not even a very good a fit like your shaadi-ka-sherwani. But it’s there and we aren’t looking to redecorate, thank you.
I kinda guessed you’d say that. So I went to a few more “legit” websites, the kind boobsmaniac would shun, where intentions seemed more honourable and the handles a tad more respectable if a little less honest.
And the first indications were encouraging. The search thingie accommodated anyone from ages18 to 99 to search for anyone (man, or woman or both) from age 18-99. One website generously extended that to age 119 to cover all possibilities. So I searched for a man between 30 and 50. (As you can see, I’m not too picky but that’s one of the things that happens to you After 30. Pickiness plummets in direct proportion to the rate at which your craving for romance soars. By 50, you’ll settle for a 4-legged Martian with green skin and one eye, as long as he’s clean and can read the label on your bottle of medication for hot flushes.)  I got 80 web pages of possibilities – er I mean men; most of them married and all with pics. So I narrowed it down to a man between 40 and 55…and still got 37 pages of men. Most of them married and all with pics.

So what, you scoff again. We already knew that the world is full of Over-The-Hill-of-Thirty married men looking to scratch that seven-year itch (thus labeled because it happens after 7 years and stays on for 7 years) one last time before everything droops and sags. True. But my point is. Are there enough women to match that demand? To find out, I swiftly transformed into a man looking for my Over-40 hot leg of baa-lambkin, my warm slice of sweetie-pie. (On the Net you can become anything - Elizabeth Hurley on a bad Arun Nayar day, the cigar on a good Bill Clinton day – anything). Alas, only 5 measly pages and …. I don’t want to be rude but let me put it like this. If the 37 pages of men are looking for matching Over-40 romance partners, they ain’t gonna find it on these 5 pages. Besides, most of these ladies wanted marriage and love. I know – we women always bay for the moon and that’s when the garden manure hits the ceiling….
So are we saying that after 30, women are done with romance? I think maybe not. It’s just that we ain’t tom-toming it from the rooftops.  We may tightly scrape and pin our romantic yearnings into that super mum bun, we may smile brightly and stuff them firmly into the evening’s dum aloo, iron them away with the creases on hubby’s shirts but deep down inside somewhere, something still thrills at the thought of being tenderly treated like a rare hot house orchid. Look at the diamond ads, at the libraries still stuffed with Mills and Boon and you’ll know. Look at a film like Mr. and Mrs. Iyer and you’ll know that for us women, being “happily” married to a good, decent man isn’t inoculation against romance. Look at Leela and Dil Chahata Hai and Freaky Chakra and you’ll know that even at the doddering old age of 40, we aren’t ready yet to hang up our foolishly hopeful, hopelessly romantic little hearts.
So, is there romance after 30?
Well, I guess all that we can say is that the question is a bit like, “Is there life after death?” And the answer is – who knows, dearies, who knows?  But we’re hoping like hell there is….
“Aayega aane waala, aayega aayega aayega
Bhatki hui jawaani manzil ko dhoondti hai
Maajhi bagair nayya saahil ko dhoondti hai
Kya jaane dil ki kashti kab tak lage kinaare
Lekin yeh keh rahe hain dil ke mere ishaare
Aayega, aayeg, aayega…..”

Ten Best Alternatives to Suicide

 

I guess it was the all the blah-blah-blah about OSO being a tribute to the 70’s era og Hindi films that put me in a nostalgic mood. So, I thought to meself – what better way to raise my own little sentimental toast than to dash off a list. For example10 films in which Dharam pra-ji said “Billi-Badmash!” instead of “Kuttey-Kameeney!” Or “10 films of Ingar Berman that were actually directed by Manmohan Desai“. (Or the other way around?) Except I’m terrible at doing these list things and am deeply, eternally envious of those who can effortlessly dash off  “10 Fastest Pelvic Thrusters in the World” without so much as a twinge in their oblongata. (Which isn’t what you’re thinking, but if you are, then apparently the Algerian jird - a variety of desert rat - tops the list at 120 thrusts a minute. Though we don‘t know what it will be while dancing to “Beedi Jalaile“….)
My problem is that invariably my lists have only 2 things. Or then 73.
But since I’m not one to give up easily, I hammered out a list. 10 Hindi Films That I have Watched 10 times and Plan To Watch Another10 Times. (At least).
Naturally you're thinking - is the woman nuts?
10 times? And then another 10? (At least)
Yep.
Why?
Well, it's not only because they're some of the best work of people who are considered legends of Indian cinema. Or because they have between them 10 Filmfare awards, one National Award and Lord alone knows how many nominations. Or because they demonstrate that immortal cinema has got nothing at all to do with mega budgets, item numbers or swish locations in Baden-Baden. (The combined budget of half of them probably wouldn't buy one of Shahrukh Khan's “rajesh khanna” outfits in OSO.) Or because they remind us that there is no substitute for a great script.
It's also because they are the 10 best antidotes to depression.
Let me explain.
I’ve watched many of these films at least 10 times and will gladly watch them another 10 times. (At least.) And every single time, I’ve come away charmed, entranced and delighted. Even though I know the story, the scenes, even the dialogues by heart and that every road leads to only one destination. Happily Ever After. But they all go through this wonderful, enchanted forest where each time there is something that I never noticed before and what I have hasn’t dimmed even an nano-watt in its wondrous magic. It’s not only that they make me laugh, but also cry; happy-sad tears that gently slip down my cheeks and find their way into the dankest, most sub-Arctic cockle of my heart to fill it with something that’s kinda warm, kinda mushy, even a tad soppy. But that never fails to remind me that even when life, in collusion with your maid, job, boss, potbelly and hair, sucks and you’ve just caught your spouse doing that Algerian jird thing with your fat, creepy neighbour, there’s not much else that can measure up to it….
So here are my 10 best alternatives to suicide.
Anubhav (1971) and Aavishkaar (1973)
How to make rosogollas of a marriage gone sour. Or two of the most sensitive, insightful takes on the subject. Tanuja’s and Sanjeev Kumar’s superb performances in Anubhav are expected, but the rare sight of Rajesh Khanna, the actor, not the superstar in Aavishkaar is not and it won him his 4th and last Filmfare award.  Geeta Dutt’s brother, Kanu Roy scored some hauntingly beautiful music for both films, including Geeta’s last two and perhaps sweetest songs - Koi chupke se and Mujhe Jaan na kaho. (She died a year later)
Parichay (1972) and Khushboo (1975)
Who cares if Parichay was a "remake" of Sound of Music because it was the beginning of one of Hindi cinema's most brilliant partnerships - Gulzar and R.D Burman. Gulzar's genius is that he dared to put Jeetandra in the same film as Sanjeev Kumar and Jaya Bachchan and showed us that inside Jumpin' Jack Jeetu's shiny white shoes was a very fine actor. In Khushboo, he got Hema Malini to flaunt not just her unfashionably high forehead and frizzy hair, but also that she could act….as well as Jeetendra!
Bawarchi (1972), Golmaal (1979), Khubsoorat (1980)
At the dizziest height of his success, when girls were writing him letters in blood, Hrishikesh Mukherjee made Rajesh Khanna give one of his finest performances wearing a khaki "half-pant" throughout the film - as and in Bawarchi. The film also has Madan Mohan's exquisite music. According to me it was not Umrao Jaan but Khubsoorat that was Rekha's finest hour and in Golmaal, Amol Palekar's double role won him his only Best Actor award!
Padosan (1968)
This film is a celebration of so many things - love, laughter, music, but mainly that rare moment in cinema when everything comes together in perfect, flawless synch to make a classic. Obviously, Kishore Kumar and Mehmood and Pancham’s music are the stars of this show but who can forget Sunil Dutt as the bumbling, utterly adorable “Bhola”?
Masoom (1983) - Filmfare should've started a Best Child Actor award in its honour because the kids stole this magical show. And if Jugal Hansraj's baby-blues and little "Minnie" don't make you feel all achey-breaky, the song "Tujhe Naraaz Nahin Zindagi" will.
Katha (1983) - Naseer as the earnest, industrious tortosie, Farooque Shaikh as the slick, irresistibly cad hare, Deepti Naval as the dewy-eyed “prize” are only three of the superb Mumbai chawl-ful of performances in this delightful version of the Aesop‘s Fable…

Confession Of A Royal Watcher

“Throne is only a bench covered with velvet.” Napoleon Bonaparte

It is common knowledge, accepted in the most sophisticated scientific circles that there are basically two kinds of people in this world. For example, there’s one kind who salt their fried eggs before they pepper it and the other kind who pepper their sunny-side-up-s before they lay on the salt. Naturally, both kinds will grimly aver that theirs is the nobler path, the loftier goal, the yummier ovum etc., etc. and that is how wars began. I mean, anyone who thinks that the cause of First battle of Panipat was anything other than the fact that Ibrahim Lodhi wanted to call them golgappas but Babar insisted on panipuri doesn’t know history from a hole in the ground… Or a hole in the panipuri, for that matter.
But that’s a whole other kettle of fish which we don’t want to peek into right now. Or  a whole other can of worms that we don’t want to open either. And that’s one more kind of two kinds of people – those who keep their fish in kettles and those who like their worms in cans. In fact, if truth be told, there are many, many kinds of two-kinds-of-people - at last count, 134 more than number of fruit flies in Bhendi Bazar. But once again, that’s a place that we won’t visit right now because it is a matter of such Brobdingnagian complexity that it is known to cause water on the brain, tomato soup in the kidneys and a tendency to run stark naked up and down Churchgate station while reciting the Encyclopedia Britannica backwards.

Anyway, today, I’d like to bring to your notice one particular set of two-kinds-of-people.
One kind break out in a virulent, violet rash at the mere mention of king, queen, crown, count, duchess, maharajah, marchioness, sultan...you get my drift. The other kind are those who will without so much as a second thought or the slightest qualm, ecstatically cough up one million pounds to own the Kleenex that once almost wiped Princess Diana’s…er nose. (No need to snigger because I’ll have you know that blood has been split to own the single, short - and might I add not blond- hair that was once found on the toilet seat in Di’s bathroom.)
So, naturally, the question that is gently sloshing around in our heads like a fly in tepid bee is - why?
What I mean to say is why do some people have this eternal fascination with royalty? Why so they crave to know which bikini line the Duchess of Glugsburpsburg prefers – the full Brazilian or the Brazilian Butterfly? (I’ll leave you to figure out what those are.)  Or why they prefer collecting pieces of doggy-poop that almost got squished by the Maharajah of Munsilivakkam’s shoes to sex? Or think that it is a far, far better thing to have died trying to get the autographed knickers of the personal eunuch of the 16th concubine of the Nawab of Tikitumgarh than for their country?
Well, nobody really knows and I can speak only for myself....
Now I’m not amongst those who will rush to wash my hair in camel’s urine because the Begum of Bhayankarbhoothamgarh does. But, I’ll have to admit that I’m kinda partial to royalty.
For many reasons.
For one, I am from Mysore where if you throw a Mysore pak (we Mysoreans prefer pak to rock), you’re likely to hit a palace….or in days of yore, a member of the royal family. Our kings reigned from a golden throne that apparently once belonged to the Pandavas, which is understandable because they trace their ancestry to the same clan as Lord Krishna. So you could say that royalty is like mother’s milk to us….well, almost.
For another, I’m kinda picky about who I will allow to sweep me off my feet.
Let me explain.
It’s one of those Cinderella days. Life and hair suck and the hips are not just wall-to-wall but resemble the saggy sofa in the drawing room.
I quickly shut my eyes and imagine my now 36”-tight, toned, encased-in-a-stunning-Vera-Wang gluteus maximus (bottom to you), on which rests the hand of the Most Gorgeous Man on Earth. The clock strikes twelve. I tear away eyes, lips and aforementioned gluteus maximus from M. Gorgeous and race to parking lot where my golden Lamborighini already is turning into a pumpkin.  As I drive off, I see Mr. G picking up one of my Jimmy Choo Cinderalla-series glass slippers (two sizes too big to make sure they slip off easily) and reading the phone number that Fairy Godmother so thoughtfully etched on the sole.
When he calls the next morning, who would I expect Mr. G to be?
Pav Bhaji Masala Magnate Charming?
Cinderella day No. 2. (I know. I have a lot of them) I’m all puckered up and desperately French kissing this warty, vomit-green-complexioned frog type. Who am I hoping he will turn into before I asphyxiate on his rotten-eggs-n’-unflushed toilet breath?
Gutka-King-ka-Beta Charming?
I think you get my drift.
Naturally, not any prince will do. For example, if it were Prince Charles, then I’d probably pass on the whole future-Queen-of-England-mumsie-of-future-King thingie and stick to the rice bran oil baron, even though you know what they say about big ears. But, all other things equal, if it was a toss up between the heir to the Walmart billions and Prince William, my choice is clear. What I mean to say is that there is something about a man who, when he talks about the family jewels, you know he is not referring to anatomical parts but to the 235 carats of diamonds studding his mama’s coronation tiara. And there’s something about a man who can trace his ancestors back 700 years even if one of them was the king’s 10th illegitimate son by his 5th mistress. (Charles II of England had 14 “official” illegitimate children - and no legitimate ones - of which the Duke of Grafton was Princess Di’s 7th great-grandfather.) 
So, as far as I am concerned, we need royalty. There may be others as rich, even richer - only 10 of the world’s 946 billionaires are royalty. Others more famous  - Prince Hans-Adam II von und zu Liechtenstein may compare poorly with Shahrukh Khan on Google hits (758 versus 2.45 million) but his Royal Highness’ $4.5 billion fortune is 900 years old and includes a 400-year-old art collection that has 33 Rubens in it. And there are others definitely more beautiful or handsome – I browsed through the recent Forbes list of the Most Eligible Royals in the world and barring Prince Willie, none of them would make it through even the first round of a beauty contest.
But fairy tales are about kings and queens and we all know the Happily Ever Afters are to be spent only in royal company.
Our fascination with celebrities is as old as the hills because, somehow each glimpse of their supposedly charmed existences briefly touches our ordinariness with something extraordinary – wealth, fame, beauty, often (and preferably) served with large delicious dollops of scandal and shame. And long, long before the Aishwarya Rais and the Paris Hiltons, we got our celebrity-crazy rocks off on the fabulous world of royals.
Anyway, I have to go now because it’s another one of my Cinderella days. Cut to the Princess bedroom of my dad’s palace. I lie on the magnificent 500-year old gold fleur-de-lis encrusted bed, deep in a 100-year sleep.
Outside, a commotion at the palace gates. A royal hunting party has arrived – with my saviour who will kiss me awake. I just hope it won’t be King of Swaziland because even though he’s worth $200 million, I’m told that he has this curious habit of choosing a new bride almost every year.
From among 20,000 naked bare-breasted virgins.
Actually,, maybe I shouldn’t complain.
He’s currently at Wife No. 13 and is planning to build a palace for each one of them.

Bottled Black

Bottled Black

“Unless we have silver hair or are a poet laureate, don't ever call us ma'am”. Mindy Kaling, actress and writer of the “The Office”.

“Going gray is like ejaculation. You know it can happen prematurely, but when it actually does, it's a total shock.” Anderson Cooper, CNN

I have finally decided to out.
And the reason to do so is the same one that makes most outers out.
Exhaustion.
I’m tired of the subterfuge.
Of pretending that by a special papal dispensation, no matter what else may wither, waste, shrivel, shrink, sag or crumble with age, my hair will stay forever twenty-eight. (Twenty-eight is a n number at which to freeze anything – age, shoes, lovers, carats of diamonds on engagement ring, inches on waist.) And that the shade of Kohl Natural Black that my hair giddily flaunts is not because every few weeks I secretly marinate my hair for hours in cold, wet, slimy liquids that resemble pond scum and stink of urine but because that is colour Nature intended for Forever Twenty Eight.
In other words, I have officially outed my grey hair.
Naturally, like all outings, it has been a difficult crossing, done with the greatest trepidation, after much gnashing of teeth and twisting of knickers. Because grey hair is not just the first public admission that there is an outside chance that you just might be a mere mortal. For us women, it is also the laying to rest, the putting to pasture, the hanging up of the boots of our inner Helen. The creature who, though she cannot claim to have launched a thousand ships, would’ve certainly caused at least a tugboat or two to twitch for a few brief seconds with unbridled lust.
What rubbish, you scoff, of course men will still find you attractive.
Oh yeah?
Well, take a good look at this list.
Richard Gere. Naseeruddin Shah. Harrison Ford. Jay Leno. Anderson Cooper. Sitaram Yechuri. The actor who plays Dr. Aaron Shutt in Chicago Hope. Bill Clinton. Javed Akhtar. Parkinson. Karan Thapar. Sean Connery. And of course, the unbearably delicious George Clooney
(The women may take a few moments to mop the slaver and drool.)
All gorgeous, all grey. And all male.
When I tried to drum up a similar list for women, all I could come up with was Judi Dench, Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir and the Queen.
Still not convinced? Think of all the attractive older women you know and then think how many of them have grey hair.
The prosecution rests.
So why is grey hair so attractive and sexy in men, but not in women?
Maybe it is a leftover from the times when childbirth made sure that most women didn’t live long enough to go grey. So, for millenniums, nobody knew what a grey haired woman looked like and when one was finally sighted, she was viewed with the same goggle-eyed disgust that one would view an oozing sore. And the feeling lingered like a dead fly in the soup of our collective consciousness…
Or perhaps it is to compensate for the fact that women have always outlived men. (In Russia, apparently by a good thirteen years. No wonder everyone drinks so much vodka there.) So, if you fellas get to be objects of desire even you are grey old goats of eleventy-eleven while we are dismissed from active service because we are withered old crones at the first glint of grey, it balances the books out very nicely.
I know, I know. I’m a man-hating, bra-burning, feminist harpy who can’t stand the fact that boys have all the fun, even when they are grey old grandpas. Well, actually I’m just a freshly outed gray haired woman trying to come to terms with the possibility that I may never ever have a pass made at me again.
So, is it hopeless then, the end of the road?
I would have thought so, till I stumbled on this strange but heartening tale.
Anne Kreamer was a 49 year-old writer and creative director who, after nearly twenty-five years “on the tyrannical treadmill of hair-colour upkeep”, was all but ready to out her grey. So she did, but she also did one other thing. She posted her profile on Match.com. First as a 49 year-old single (separated) woman living in Brooklyn, along with a photo of herself with grey hair. Then three months later, she put up the same profile, substituting the photo with one in which she was a brunette.

And?
Three times as many men were interested in dating her as a grey-haired woman than when her hair was brown. Why? Nobody knows. Not even Ms. Kreamer herself because she didn’t date any of the men who responded since she was happily married.

But, Ms. Kreamer and me not withstanding, it may be a good idea if you chaps came to terms with the fact that there are going to be lots more of us openly grey-haired women in the future because the statistics are stacked in our favour. You see, the human race is ageing. By 2025, it’s estimated that there will be almost as many 40-50 year old women in the world as 20-30 year old ones. And many of those forty-plus old bags are going to be out there, prettily perched on that barstool, sipping their pina coladas, all freshly liberated from the yoke of the urine-scented Kohl Natural Black and flaunting their silver for all the world to see.

I’ve gotta go now. To hang out my brave, new grey-haired shingle on Match.com.

The Whole Six Yards

The Whole Six Yards
“Throughout (Ancient India), women are depicted in painting and culture as naked to the waist while on the other hand the great physical modesty of the modern Indian womanhood is common knowledge…”A. L. Basham, historian


I dimly recall that not so long ago, in a flurry of celebrity gush, Shobhaa De launched her Cocktail Saree collection. Which should do for the saree what Christy Turlington’s butt did for yoga and what Gordon Ramsey would do for the idli if he were to launch his Cocktail Idli collection. In other words, the saree may have been brought out of the ugh-how-behenji-amma mothballs to take its rightful place, which according to De, is right next to the Lil’ Black Dress.
And not a moment too soon.
Because according to me, the saree is one of the most underestimated whatsits since that Trojan horse was wheeled out of wherever it was wheeled out.
Lemme explain and here’s a true story.
The two young ladies were high-powered executives in an multinational, brand managers in charge of some of the largest selling soaps and shampoos in the country. Naturally, their dress code was befittingly Bharatiya power lady - salwar kameez on ordinary work days and sarees for conferences and presentations. Their boss, the marketing manager, was a British expat. Good boss. Nice man, chummy even, with none of the white-man-amongst-natives patronising attitude. Everything, you could say, was hunky-dory. Till one day when he summoned the two ladies into his cabin and told them rather sheepishly that he had a request to make that was of a personal and slightly strange nature.
Could they, he pleaded, keep the saree-wearing down to the minimum? In fact, if it was all the same to them, could they skip the saree completely?
Yes they could, said the ladies with prettily puzzled brows, but prithee why?
Because, he said, he found himself to be terribly distracted whenever they wore them. Now I can’t recall all the details of what it was that caused the gent such anguish but there was mention of frequent sightings of bare, feminine midriff. And though I can’t say for sure, perhaps, the odd flash or two of equally feminine bosom encased in tight-fitting cholis…
Needless to say, the ladies hastily stashed away their power saree collections, to be brought out whenever they next had a boss made of sterner stuff.
Wait a minute, you’re thinking.
Saree and distract?
Isn’t that the job of those nasty jeans and bikinis and other such shameless imports from the West? Aren’t sarees supposed to be the Mantle of Modesty meant to help our lads keep eyes down and minds off rape and on vulgar fractions?
I mean, what mischief can you dratted women get up to if we truss you up in six yards of fabric, right?
Er, right.
But perhaps what you didn’t account for is that we women are masters (should that be mistresses, I wonder) of turning just about anything in our favour. Even being swaddled in six yards of fabric. Let me start at the very beginning. (Which, as Maria Von Trapp pointed out, is always a very good place to start.) The saree actually started life of as a female dhoti. And so, like all you fellas, we’d also get up in the morning, wrap the stuff around our waists and go about our business.
Till one day, some fellow - probably a marketing manager, trying to concentrate on his Power Point presentation while surrounded by bare-chested, dhoti-clad female brand managers - must have hollered, “Too distracting! Cover up those breasts!”
Righty-ho, everyone muttered and scurried off to find a solution. Which they did, right next to the farsan shop in front of Jhulelal Cut Piece Centre. It was Mansukhbhai, the Ladies Tailor. And before long, the female dhoti had an accessory - something called a choli.
(Do you know that choli tailors are almost always men? Curious thing, that.)
We won’t say that at first the choli wasn’t a bind, a terrible bore. That the new quarters didn’t cramp our…er,style, constricting what were till now free agents, blithe spirits. But, like I pointed earlier, we are mistresses of whipping up biryani from raw deals and so, in time, the choli and the saree became inseparable; bosom buddies, you could even say. If the choli was Gilbert to the saree’s Sullivan, then the saree was Salim to the choli’s Javed; if the saree was vada to the choli’s pav, then the choli was Mona to the saree’s Darling...you get my drift. What the saree started, the choli finished off. And vice versa. Together, they connived and colluded, plotted and schemed to simultaneously cover up and lay bare, to hint and insinuate and float the proposition that the devi and the vamp had now taken up residence in the same saree. (What more can a man ask for?)
The female dhoti – by now known as the saree – had also got longer. The extra length called the pallu, its official job being assist the choli in covering up all that naked, nubile female flesh that was getting everyone so hot and bothered under the collar. Unofficially of course, it spent a lot of its time – as it still does - slithering down bosoms (mostly choli-clad, I must underline) that every now and then seemed to turn more slippery than a politician answering questions about his income tax returns.
Just one such artless drop of the pallu has been known to move mountains and topple governments and I have it from the best authority that Salome would have swapped her Seven Veils for a pallu in a shot. (And got herself much more than poor John’s head.)
So, what I mean to say is that the saree is like a file of classified government information and we women use it as cunningly as the wiliest bureaucrat. Which means that most of time, the contents are strictly classified, kept away from the public gaze. But at crucial and critical junctures, we “leak out” carefully selected and might we add suitably inflammatory titbits…..er, tidbits.
The results are almost always very gratifying.
The best part? The Right To Information Act does not apply.
(Incidentally did you know that Tit-Bits was a British magazine that published the first funny piece by P. G. Wodehouse? Nothing to with sarees but just thought you’d like to know.)
I cannot end this piece without a wistful tribute to the hipster saree. For which you need hips. Khatte-peete hips. Swells of undulating curves, undulating dunes inviting a chap to linger and loiter and nestle and nuzzle and finally take voluntary retirement to spend the rest of his life at the belly button. (Remember Mumtaz and Helen and Zeenat and Sridevi and Dimple and Madhuri….)
Sigh.
They don’t make hips like that anymore. All we have now are whittled-down, bony, size zero shanks, on which they hang that ghastliest of ghastly – low rise jeans.
Sigh.
But who knows.
If the saree is making a comeback, then maybe hips will too.
Wallis Simpson, one of the most ardent fans of the Lil Black Dress, apparently said of it, “When a little black dress is right, there is nothing else to wear in its place.”
All I can say is that if Shylock was a woman and wore a saree, he would have had his pound of flesh.

yellow mums

yellow chrysanthemums
Originally uploaded by ratna_rajaiah

heart of a rose

heart of a rose
Originally uploaded by ratna_rajaiah

grasses

grasses
Originally uploaded by ratna_rajaiah

through pink eyes

through pink eyes
Originally uploaded by ratna_rajaiah

Happy New Year

Wishing All my Friends

Peace - in the centre of the photo is the Jain Tirthankara, Shantinath or Lord of Peace

Prosperity - to the right is the Goddess Laxmi

Wisdom - to the left in the Goddess Saraswati

Happy New Year!

Lots of love
Ratna

A Christmas Truce

It was December 24th, 1914. Christmas Eve.
Across hundreds of miles in Ypres in Belgium, the Germans troops lay in their trenches and within shouting distance, was the enemy – the Allied soldiers made up of the French, Belgian, British and the Canadian.
Already, the toll of this trench war had mounted to about a million men, frozen bodies strewn between the trenches.
Suddenly, the strangest thing began to happen. The German soldiers began to place lighted candles on the Christmas trees that they had in their trenches and singing Christmas carols. Seeing this, the Allied soldiers began to sing too and shout Christmas greetings across the trenches to the Germans.
What followed was perhaps one of the strangest and the most beautiful events in the history of war ….and peace. The shooting stopped and unarmed soldiers came out of the trenches on both sides to shake hands, salutes and even gifts….
It continued into Christmas day and the peace was so “scary” that the commanding officers on both sides threatened the “peace-mongers” with court martial …..but no one seemed to care!
And the carol that probably set off the whole event?
“Silent Night, Holy Night”.
I found this story while surfing YouTube for recordings of this composition…..which is when I stumbled on a recording of Walter Cronkite narrating the story as he hosts the Mormon’s Tabernacle Choir’s Christmas concert. As Cronkite points out, it’s extraordinary how almost 100 years later, this still holds so much meaning – that we humans never learn, not even from the lessons history puts in front of us and that peace is always possible, even in the most impossible circumstances.
I also found on a rendering of this incredible composition by none other than the greta Mahila Jackson. The two versions are radically different but no matter how many times I hear this music, no matter who sings it or performs it, it always makes my hair stand on end and at the same time fills my heart with a peace so beautiful it make me want to weep.
I am giving below the links to both the recordings – please, please do listen.






So, I know I am a day late but methinks its never to late to be wishing that this peace will fill all your hearts, my dear friends, and also the hearts of the people that are right now filled with so much hate and fear!

Merry Christmas!

A Rough Guide to Terror Tourism

“Ram Gopal Varma ki yahi kamayee
Do sarkar banaye, ek girayee.” On SMS

Bungee jumping. Paragliding. Skateboarding.
I mean – yawn.
Because on December 1st, as I watched our dear Chief Minister tour the ravaged interiors of the hotel Taj and Trident, I knew it was time to make way for the hottest, hippest way to take a break, let your hair down, tune out, switch off.
Terror tourism.
Now I don’t know about you fellas but my motto is - “be prepared”. So, I write this in preparedness for the outside chance that someone amongst us might just get as lucky as aapro Vilasji did to tour the latest terror hotspot. I also write this in preparedness for the even more outside chance that a certain male relative of a certain gent who was once known as Maharashtra’s Remote Control might be reading this. For tips and tippanis for his very own impending terror tour. Which should be happening anytime now?
So, without further shilly-shallying or beating around the bush, let me begin.
First and foremost, this is an extreme sport, not for the lily-livered, the yellow-bellied, the milksops, the pusillanimous chickens. For example, right now, there is a huge misconception doing the rounds that the brave hearts of the Mumbai terror attacks were the NSG commandos, the hotel staff of the Taj and the Trident, the cops etc. etc. What a crock.
Because the bravest of them all was our beloved CM-saheb, strolling so courageously through that ghastly burnt-out shell of the Taj. With nary a thought for the extreme danger that he was putting himself in. After all, any minute, his beautiful white neta-in-mourning kurta could’ve been picked off and blackened by one of those deadly soot-covered walls. Or lurking around the corner could be a deathly bullet hole waiting to ruin his manicure. And we shudder to think what terrible fate awaited his freshly dyed-for-the-telly, carefully coifed hair in the hands of that terrifying rubble-dust.)
In other words, be a terror tourist only if you have the guts for it. And only a few very, very brave people do.
Second of all, if you are one of those me-alone-communing-with-nature kind of people, then it’s best to give this a skip because terror tourism is a group activity, best enjoyed in the company of friends and relatives. And that could include your third grandson’s personal potty-trainer, your fourth second cousin’s ex-wife’s current mother-in-law, your pooch’s psychiatrist, your dhokla-khandvi chef and your dhobi’s donkey.
Not to mention your friendly neighbourhood film director.
I know what you are thinking. You can see how a rousing round of bullet-hole-spotting and musical bloodstains in company of kith and kin help to unwind, unclench those teeth, relax that sphincter and generally aid world peace.
But the film director?
Ah.
How else could he get people to forget that he made a film called “Ram Gopal Varma’s Aag”?
Third of all, it’s very important to have a tour guide at all times After all, you need as much to be able to tell the blue-bottled fly from the blue-bottomed baboon as you do to differentiate rubble from rabri (no relation to Laloo) and charred ballroom from charred toast. (Ideally, the guide should be the cop who held the terrorists at bay for eight hours before the commandos turned up. Adds globs of “realism” to the enchilada.) The important thing though, while listening to the guide, is to constantly make hissing noises and scrunch up your face in expressions of horrified commiseration. (Don’t worry if it looks more as if you’ve just smelt some very nasty navel jam - you can take tips from your actor son before your next trip.)
Fourth of all, the walk. (I’m sorry, fellas. We do plan to get cable cars and limos very soon, but right now, you’ll have to do it all on foot.) It’s very, very important how you walk through the…shall we call it “terror sanctuary”? What you need is a measured slow amble, all the while sticking out your well-toned, six-paunch, spelling out a pleasant post-beer-‘n-biryani perambulation with wifey on Marine Drive. This will serve two purposes. It will make your bowels move. And it will terrify the terrorists. How, we can’t say exactly as yet, but it will.
(We are thinking of asking future terror tourists to whistle as they walk to make the terrorists even more terrified, but that will be only allowed in a more advanced version.)
I could go on, but for the moment this much will suffice for you to go off and practice your terror tourist moves.
Which leaves two things
First the tricky question that’s trembling on everybody’s lips.
Will one get to see live dead bodies? Or at least a few body parts? After all, after a point, how terrifying can a few mounds of blackened rubble and a few tons of broken glass be?
Er.
Lemme put it this way. Terror tourism is taking its first baby steps. (Though with the kind of patronage it already getting, that baby is gonna grow up very fast into a full-blown adult.) So, for the moment, I’m afraid you’ll have to make to with bloodstains. Not much, I’ll admit, but it’s a start.
Finally, terror tourism is the sport of the future and for two reasons. We’ve already covered one - the strike-terror-in-the-hearts-of-those-naughty-terrorists bit. The other reason is that it’s a great stress buster, especially for high-powered folk like chief ministers. This was obvious when our beloved Deshmukhji faced the press the day after that epoch-making terror tour. Fresh as a daisy, not a furrow on brow or a bag under eye, unfazed by all those pesky journos bombarding him with silly questions like, “Do you take moral responsibility for these attacks?”
I mean, for crying out aloud.
Moral responsibility? (Or any other kind for that matter.)
Duh. Wot dat?

(After watching the footage of Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh’s terror tour, I thought that in terms of sheer shamelessness, callousness and crass insensitivity, nothing could beat it. But I was wrong. I underestimated our politicians. This morning’s newspaper said that according the said Chief Minister, the television footage of his visit was provided to the news channels by the government. Meaning him. Of course it was.
Did we not tell you how terrifying that walk was?)

(Published in the December 2008 issue of Man's World magazine

Rain

An Unideal Husband

Has anyone noticed that by the mere shifting of the letter “i” by just two places, “marital” becomes “martial”?
And my point is?
That even though we may have invented it, what most of us know about hacking it in a marriage would fit into a thimble with room left over for the Taj Mahal. Yet we view the prospect of being married with the same twitchy excitement that the average Hindi film producer does his forthcoming film. Which is - who cares if there’s one failing every minute, we can’t wait to take the plunge because something tells us (the darling way he burps after biryani, maybe?) that not only is this for keeps, not only will we be putting away slices of our golden anniversary cake for the diamond one but that …what was that again?…ah yes, that we’re going to die in each other’s arms.
Only to discover four hours later that….

I know, I know. Sigh.

So, naturally, like aforementioned film producer, we’re constantly on the lookout for the magic formula, the foolproof plan and we don’t really care if it comes from the numerologist who told you to spell your name Bunshawli or the massage-wali bai.

Or, for that matter, a recent op-ed by Maureen Dowd, in the New York Times titled “An Ideal Husband”.
Ooh, I thought.
If one of America’s most respected newspapers allows one of its most toasted columnists to set aside more weighty matters of state and dwell on matrimony, there must be a very good reason. (Maureen herself has never been married and has written a book titled “Are Men Necessary”.)
Apparently there was. While the divorce rate – unlike the price of crude - was holding steady at 50%, the recent rash of celebrity Prince Charmings turning out to be Royal Toads of the Blood compelled the need for some urgent introspection on the subject.
I mean, we look to celebrities only for one thing - to assure us that a happily-ever-after definitely lurks somewhere behind that sunset. So, when Christie Brinkley discovers that her baa-lamb No. 4 has a 3000$-per-month-internet-porn habit and an 18-year old piece of fancy, naturally it’s time for us to gaze moodily at ye olde navel and ponder – have we forgotten how to tell good husband material from garden manure?
I was worried for Maureen. Who was she going to consult on the matter? Oprah? Ellen Degeneres? Hilary Clinton? Or closer home, Mayawati? Well, she did the only sensible thing that there was do and sought the advice of a man who, more than anyone else, should know. A 79 year-old Roman Catholic priest.
And?
I’m sorry to say, folks – nothing that we didn’t already know.
I mean, of course he has to make us laugh. And have charming relatives. (Or at least a mother who isn’t Godzilla in drag.) And has had her apron strings/saree pallu snipped along with his umbilical cord. And is as good with money (earning it) as he is in bed. And remembers birthdays, knows what colour ecru is, the difference between a bad mood and PMT, and that roses are good but diamonds are better. And doesn’t order his underwear from the Victoria’s Secret catalogue.
But where on God’s Earth are we going to find it all – and in one man? (Why do you think Draupadi tanked up on five?) Subhiksha? On the buy-six-get-one free-shelf? Anyway, even if he did exist (and I’m told there have been the odd sighting or two), he’d probably be out hunting for the Ideal Wife. Which briefly is - cooks like mother, makes love like - how the hell should I know, you filthy man? And looks like a million bucks without spending a single one.
So, I thought to meself - why I can’t have a go at this? I mean, what does a 79-year-old celibate man know about an ideal husband that I – who’s never been married since age three - don’t.
So, here goes.
First of all, don’t look too hard.
In fact, always keep your eyes slightly screwed up so that he’s a constant blur. (Will come handy later, because after a few years of marriage, apparently, everything is a blur.)
Ask him questions like if you were to choose between knitting socks for my mother’s pom and surfing porn sites on the Net, what would you choose? (Stick your fingers into your ears and sing a Himesh Reshamiya song loudly while he answers. That’s good practice for post-marital arguments. And post-coital snoring.)

Check his bank balance. I’m not specifying the lower limit because there’s no saying how low some women will sink but if it’s anything upwards a million euros, marry him even if he has breath that could double up as anaesthesia.

Don’t worry too much about his mother. You can always feed her poisoned mysore pak.

Unless you are Madonna or J.K. Rowling, never sign a pre-nup. Look how far it got Heather Mills.

What about all the other stuff?
What other stuff?
Good human being, intelligent, showers every day, has same interests, not a habitual liar, cheat, etc., etc. And what about that t-shirt with “So I’m a Pedophile. So What!” printed on it?
Most importantly - what about love?
Hm.
Tell you what. Check his feet. If they aren’t pointed backwards, call the wedding planner.
If they are, remember the advice of an aunt that I never heeded - “You can always train him later, dear.”

A Butterfly in Waiting

Night
I lie softly curled
In my mosquito-net cocoon
Watching
The shaman-witch wind
Weaving a shadow play
With the light from the street lamp
And the leaves of the parijata tree
On my soft cobwebbed walls

It’s an enthralling tale
Sung, not told
In voices that only I hear
Of how it will be
To have gaily painted wings
To flit and float
And sip from
Flowers
More gaily painted than me
And bask in the fame
Of a million delighted gasps,
“Oh, look, how pretty!”

I watch and listen
Enthralled

And think how much
I like it here
Close to the ground
After all, when I fall,
How far down will it be?
I like the way
It smells here
Of known darkness
I like that I am still
A possibility, a promise
Not a pretty fulfillment
Flying to my death

You could say
I’m not ready to be a butterfly
Just yet…

The Art of Having a Crush

“The Guide says that there is an art to flying,” said Ford, “or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and missing.” The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Come to think of it, there is an art to everything. Pouring exactly 32.5 sips of tea into your teacup every morning. (Barring Sundays and Flashers Unite Day, when it is 37.8.) Pretending your head lice are dandruff flakes with legs. Picking your nose during your question and answer round in the Miss World contest in such a way that the judges believe that it is your goobers, not your breasts that will save the world. Etc. Etc.
And there is an art to having a crush.
Now the dictionary defines a crush as an intense but usually short-lived infatuation. But that’s a shallow definition, as if having a crush were like having a zit or a sandwich and it doesn’t to justice to a noble, ancient art, fraught with such subtle intricacies, not to mention intricate subtleties, that it deserves at least 10 volumes of the Brockhaus Konversations-Lexikon. Which I am in the process of penning but till then, this little jotting will have to suffice.

BC (Before the Crush)
Before setting off to have a crush there’s a very important matter that you have to first sort out. And that is to make sure that you’re not Kareena Kapoor. Or Justin Timberlake. (Tick only one.) Nor have been ever listed as one of the World’s Ten Sexiest Warthogs. In other words, the number of people currently beating a path to your door (or website) on account of how hot and whatnot you are should be one less than that for a maggot. This instantly expands by nineteen million galaxies the universe from which you can choose the object of your crush (more on that later). Which can now be anyone from Laloo’s buffalo minder to the boiled potato masher at your favourite vada-pav stall, both of whom, we’ll have you know, are as crush-worthy as your next Kareena-come-latelys.

OOC (Object of Crush)
Having got that out of the way, let us now dwell on the tricky matter of choosing the Object of Crush, henceforth referred to as OOC. Now there have been instances of people having a lifelong crush on a slotted spoon, having taken the word “object” literally. But speaking from experience, people are better. (I once have a crush on a red pencil sharpener for about two weeks and it wasn’t much fun though I have to admit the “prup-prap” sound it made every time it sharpened made my superior gemellus tingle in the most gratifying fashion.)
What about animals, did someone ask? Hm. Well, there was one case of a crush on an amoeba but we’re still as hazy on the subject as the fetish wallahs are on having sex with a shoe horn.
The next and most important thing about your choice of OOC is that he/she (since we’ve now ruled out “it”) should be unattainable. And we don’t mean your everyday, garden variety of unattainable like buying up one floor of Antilla. (Those who are asking “Antilla who?” may immediately drum themselves off this planet.) We’re talking about unattainable that makes crossing the Atlantic on a rubber bath duckie seem like licking tomato ketchup.
Unattainabilty is critical because it’s like virtual sex - you’ll never get to know the more intimate details about your OOC. Spitting while eating boiled egg. Nymphomaniac vampire half-sister who visits every full moon. Barking in sleep. Passing garlic-scented wind during….well, never mind. Mother who’s just had a sex change and likes to discuss her (his?) post-operative plumbing during lunch.
We see you blanch. You’re thinking - Richard Gere and garlic-scented….?
Really?
Who knows me darlings, who knows. But more importantly, do we really want to know.
Also, hop off the beaten path, eschew the straight and narrow and venture to where few others have dared to go. So, while George Clooney is a good choice, George Bush is better. Similarly, Beyonce is sweet but Hilary Clinton is…well, you know. (You’d be surprised how many amongst us think that ice-queen-meets-AK-47-laugh is nothing less than a Playboy centre spread coated Viagra.) So are Prince Charles, aforementioned buffalo minder, Heather Mills, Michael Jackson’s children’s wet nurse, Osama’s third wife (not to be confused with Obama who has only one wife anyway), the man who left a crate of rotting Alphonsos at your door in 1993. Famous dead people are also a good bet, as long as the dead body has been disposed off. (I mean, we don’t want any talk of necrophilia muddying these sacred waters, do we now.) Which mean King Tut is off limits, Attila the Hun is not.

And Now, The Crush
Righty-ho. Unattainable, dream-the-impossible-wet-dream OOC selected. God in Heaven, coffee on boil, libido on roil. You can now get down to the actual business of having that crush. Which basically involves thinking of the OOC every waking moment (barring while shaving underarms and performing other ablutions that we can’t mention) and generally deteriorating into the most awful kind of drip. In other words, you have to pine and ache, hanker and crave, long for and lust after. You have to gnash teeth, tear hair and eat heart out. (All yours and mercifully, it’s all low cal AND organic.) And every now and then, you have to dissolve into a deliriously gibbering, slavering puddle of ecstatic saliva at what might be a glimpse of the right-hand corner of the hangnail on the left little toe of the OOC.
And you have to do this all the while making sure that the distance of sixty-three gadzillion light years of unattainabilty between you and your OOC has not lessened by a even single millimetre.
Naturally the question that springs to mind like a startled toast out of toaster is - but what if it does? You mean what if you suddenly find that you’ve just pipped Salman Khan to the sexiest-napoleon-with-hair-weave post and Katrina – whom you lusted after for so many long and hopeless moons – is giving you the eye, not to mention the once-over, laced with a couple of smouldery-over-the-bare-shouldery come-on-overs?
Well, remember the stroke-of-midnight trick in Cinderella when the coach goes back to being a pumpkin and the coachman to the dirty, two-timing, double-crossing, whisker-twitching rat that he always was?
It’s more or less the same thing with a crush.
Which is that without so much as a by-your-leave or a hey-ninny-no, it simply will vanish into the morning smog. (Or at the next traffic signal.) And the OOC will topple off the altar, shattering into sixty-three gadzillion pieces and then morph into an ordinary mortal of flesh, blood and gumboils that you can now proceed to have as bossa nova partner, running mate or to drape on your arm to the next Star Parivaar Awards.
But never ever again to be the OOC.

Finally, AD (Or What’s The Bleeding Point about the Whole Darn Thing)
I mean, that’s a bit like asking what’s the point about balloons at birthday parties. Or umbilical cords if it’s her apron strings that’s going to keep us attached to our dear mamas. Or the p in pneumonia if we aren’t going to pronounce it. These are the unquestionable essentials of life that don’t need silly, pointless things like points. (Which are mainly for fingers and the pervie-brain that designed the pointed bra.)
But since you’re asking, actually there is a point to having a crush. It’s a lesser known but well documented fact that the secret of the longevity of the centenarians in the Upper Silesia (no relation to Yash Chopra’s Silsila) is not bathing in the urine of the Caucasian tur but a lifelong, unwavering, passionate crush on the Abominable Snowman.
And that’s simply because a crush is cross between an emotional laxative and Oil of Olay.
Lemme explain.
See, basically life’s mainly a dreary drag, a grimy grind and the daily diet of the ho-hum and the humdrum clogs up the bowels of soul to ultimately give you the worldview and complexion of an ageing constipated eel. Having a crush evacuates and expels, it also opens up the pores, irrigates the pons (not what you are thinking but close), hydrates the appendix and generally gets what till now was a grudging, grumpy trickle splooshing in great, happy gushes through your tubes.
Leaving you with softer, younger-looking….um….er….well, certainly the bowels of your soul will look like that of a sprightly 17 year-old. We can’t guarantee anything else.

Sheep’s Eyes and Baboon’s Bottoms – Reading the Signs.

“Biologically speaking, if something bites you it's more likely to be female.” Desmond Morris
“The power to charm the female has been in some instances more important than the power to conquer other males in battle.” Charles Darwin in The Descent of Man.

Saturday night.
You are single and so willing to mingle that it hurts but you know that tonight’s the night because you are one fourth Marilyn Monroe, one fourth Angelina Jolie, half a hank of Mallika Sherawat, whisked together and stir fried with a few pinches of Silk Smita.
(Yeah, the mirror. Well, you’ve politely asked it to shut up and go suck eggs with the Wicked Stepmother.)
Through the mists of cigarette smoke rolling over a sea of Margaritas, you spot him. George Clooney meets Akshay Khanna. Pure dishy-ness. On the rocks.
You give him the works. Zinging come hithers like flashes of liquid lightning from under thick, languorous lashes. (Okay, so they’re false but by the time he knows it will be too late.) Interspersed with smiles so mysteriously seductive that Jezebel would’ve slashed her wrists in jealous despair. All done while throwing your head back so that your hair cascades down your back in voluptuous eddies, showing off the long, lovely line of your neck.
(Shut up, mirror.)
Quick break, pretending to sip drink but actually checking cleavage as you think - should be reeling him in any moment now.
You wait.
Nothing.
Shocked, you peer across aforementioned Sea of M. No GC-met-AK, instead a Frankenstein-meets-pyorrehea is leering his way over to you. You now feel like one-fourth yesterday’s cat vomit, one-fourth today’s doggy poop, two bags of saggy, stale underwear stir-fried with….
I know.
But girls, do not despair.
Because the fault is not in your come-hithers, but in the men.
Apparently the poor dear baa-lambs can’t tell flirting from a boiled egg. So you can flash those come-hithers (and whatever else you’ve got to flash) as much as you want, you can wiggle all your wiggle-ables, you can giggle the sound that’s supposed to turns saints into helpless putty, sinning as if sinning is going out of style. But unless you’ve have also sprayed “Hey, you’re cute! Wanna….?” across your naked breasts in neon pink and have thrust them – jiggling - into his face, he probably thinks you’re asking if you can join his car pool.
Thus spake not I but the findings of a study just conducted by the University of Indiana.
Now, before we all skewer ourselves on our tail combs (not what you’re thinking), let’s take a few deep breaths and mull on the matter.
Maybe there is a reason why men are so confused.
Maybe it’s because in most other parts of the animal kingdom, it’s the males that do all the hard work. For one, it’s they that have to be pretty and titivate (again not what you’re thinking) - all those gaudy colours and stripes and horns and humps and antlers and shiny feathers. Whereas the women mostly slop around in nighties and no make-up. I mean, have you looked at a peahen lately and what do you think the lion gets to have the mane?
For another, the lads that have to do the impressing - flashing and prancing and singing and swelling up and puffing out and generally strutting their stuff while the ladies get to just sit back, languidly sip iced tea, check out the merchandise. And if something catches their eye, then they select. (“You. Yeah, you with the bright green feathers growing out of your butt…”) Naturally, if the bloke’s bump-‘n-grind is not up to snuff, he don’t get any tonight and if it is, he may even be rewarded by becoming a tasty post-coitus snack. Chomp, chomp. I tell ya girls, the women have it good in the jungle.
So, I’m thinking why should it be any different with our boys considering that the genetic distance separating us from the fruit flies is only some 43 and a half DNA helices or something. I mean the poor things have been asked to squash deep-seated primordial urges to paint and pout and flaunt their fishnet stockings. So, naturally they are confused when the women start doing what they should be.
In other words, fellas - there, there.
We understand. Kinda.
And come to think of it, we women shouldn’t really be complaining because there was one other very important finding that popped up in that research. Not only do men not get it when we make sheep’s eyes at them, they often also mistake mere chumminess for the glad eye. Which makes it all very simple now. All we have to do is just walk up to the he-who-we-lusteth-after, give him a sisterly peck on the cheek, maybe arm wrestle for a bit, rain a few hail-fellow-well-met slaps on the back and before we knows what, we’ll have him sucking our toes all night long.
Or whatever.
Incidentally, girls, while we’re on the subject, the next time you’re desperately dateless, you might want to try a fruit fly. I’m telling you, these chaps have got their romancing fundamentals down pat. The minute a male fly spots a prospective date, he wastes no time and starts tapping the lady’s abdomen with a foreleg. (The fruit fly equivalent of “haven’t we met before somewhere”.) If she’s interested (he’ll know when she doesn’t slap him and stops yawning and painting her nails), he serenades her by vibrating his wings. (I have it from the best authority that Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful tonight” is a hot favourite.) If she melts, he clinches the whole thingummybaba by licking her…er, well let’s just say that it’s an anatomical region that is a favourite hang out of male fruits flies.
The best part? The lucky (picky?) lil’ lady fruit flies reserve the right to refuse any suitor who do not perform all of the above and in the proper order. (No licking before serenading, no tapping before licking etc., etc.)
But back to humans…
And the question that trembles on our lips is - is it time?
Is it time to retire our Wonder bras? To pack up our Kissable Krimson lip glosses and stopper up our Chanel No.5’s? Is it really time to put away our secrets of lace and satin and silk, to undo the pouts in our lips and admonish our hips not to sway?
If it is, what a pity.
Because flirting is such a blast. We do it for the pure heck pleasure of it. It’s almost as good as shopping, often beats chocolate truffle cake by points. And some of us will tell you it’s even better than sex. (By the way, many a time, we aren’t all that interested in finding out whether you’re as much George-Clooney-meets-Akshaye-Khanna in bed as you look out of it.) And never mind those peacocks, we love dressing up and totting out our best gorgeous-creatures-made-for-love for all the world to see. Because nothing can describe the incredible rush of watching a man’s eyes mouthing the words, “Boy, you’re beautiful.”
Even if we are imagining it and you’re actually saying, “Yeah sure. There’s one seat vacant at the back.”

CrazyKiya Re....or Heroes I'd write Letters in Blood to

What would you say are the chances of women writing thousands of these letters to a short, stubby man with pimples and a haircut that looks as if it is from New Paramount Haircutting Saloon?

My point is this. We ladies are a picky lot. After all, there’s blood involved here. So, you may be the greatest superstar, an acting legend; your films may have raked in gadzillions, declared as immortal classics, your waxwork might be rubbing bottoms with Cary Grant’s at Madame Tussauds. But if you don’t make our hearts (and other regions too) throb, go boompity-boom and dhak-dhak, if the knees ain’t turning to delicious moony mush, if you don’t start a conflagration in our sweet, womanly jigars that would light a million beedis, if there isn’t a sudden and insane urge to rush into our boudoirs (yes, we all have one) and slip into something more comfortable at the mere sight of you, then sirjee, we ain’t wasting a drop - forget blood, not even drool.

Also, beefcake palls after the first two nibbles…

Now I’m not one of these khoon-bhari-khat (KBK) types.
(For one, e-mail doesn’t fell any trees. For another, I can’t stand the sight of blood.)
But if I were, there is only one man to top my list.
Vinod Khanna.
Even now, pushing sixty-two, on the wrong side of burly, thinning hair et al. They say that if he hadn’t suddenly taken “sanyas” in 1982 at the peak of his success, Amitabh Bachchan would’ve had serious competition for the post of Uberstar. Well, I for one am glad he did because otherwise, I’d be writing so many of dem damn letters - all the way from Reshma Aur Shera to Leela and Risk - that I’d have needed blood transfusions by now…

And his most gasp-‘n-reach-for-my-khoon-bhari-pen moment?

Well, I’m going to skip the obvious one - which is the kissing scene in Dayavan because according to me, there’s almost no one who can fill a uniform quite so, er shall we say, satisfactorily as Vinod Khanna. (I take a moment to compose myself and wait for knees to solidify.) So, for me, it’s Achanak (the entire film) and of course, the scene in Amar Akbar Anthony when he and Amitabh Bachchan meet for the first time. When Khanna starts unbuttoning his shirt and growls, “Dekhte hai tum main kitna dum!“? …..

Oh my goodness gracious me.
(I take 5 minutes to compose myself.) Did I say “uniform”? Make that dhoti, lungi, shorts jeans, tuxedo, bath towel, bandit jewellery, shorts, Rupa baniyan…. Oh, the heck with it. The man would make lace garters look like regulation jock wear. Not to mention orange caftans with rudraksh malas. On any other man - even Vincent Chase - you’ll bust your boob job laughing. On Vinod Khanna? I need a whole week off to compose myself…..
(Vinod Khanna’s other KBK films - Mere Apne, Hera Pheri, Mera Gaon Mera Desh, Shaque, Rihaee and Imthihan)

And coming a very close second to the Sexy Sanyasi (thank you Devyani, for this and so many other delightful handles) is Jackie Shroff.
Even now; fifty, silly pudding-basin hair-weave et al.
And I don’t care how many of you jeered, “wooden! Wooden!”. And it’s not what you are thinking though how many men do we know who can make a bandhini dupatta look as macho as …well, as Vinod Khanna in an orange caftan?
You see, it’s like those liqueur filled chocs. What separates mere beefcake from a prime cut of KBK is a soft, delicious, heady centre that makes every woman feel that she is this maddeningly irresistible goddess-sex-kitten-houri….. and reach feverishly for her trusty blood-dipped-nib. And we always know. With just one bite…er, I mean one look into the fella’s eyes and by the feeling of a 60-piece orchestra playing somewhere our nether lumbar regions.
And our Jaggu Dada has that stuff by bucketfuls. Just watch him in Parinda, Gardish, Aina, Kaash, Saudagar (to name only a few) and even as the utterly ch-se-chunky-hunky “Chunnilal” in Devdas, even though he ch-se-hammed it to the hilt.
But the highest point of our Shroff‘s KBT-ness was (and is) as the swoon-a-licious “Raj Kamal” in Rangeela and what on earth was that Urmila thinking?! I mean, Aamir was cute but if I wanted cute, I’d get myself a Care Bear.
That’s just Jackie on screen. Off screen? The man should ring a warning bell or something five minutes before walking into the room. Because when he does, there isn‘t be a dry female ...er saliva gland inside a 10 mile-radius.
Sigh.
Now I know I said “list”, but I’ll have to stop here because after Vinod Khanna and Jackie Shroff, I‘m almost clean out of blood and what’s left I have to save for the man who really did get KBK’s by the sackfuls. Sada Jatin-Kaka a.k.a Rajesh Khanna. Pimply, yes. Stubby, short body, yes. Haircut from New Paramount Haircutting Saloon, most definitely. Guru kurtas, retch-yetch-yes. But the eyes, oh the eyes. Look into them and you feel you are drowning into a tub…no make that a jacuzzi full of that soft, delicious, heady stuff that makes you feel that you are this maddeningly…..you get my drift. Baharon ke Sapne, Aradhana, Khamoshi, Kati Patang, Amar Prem, Mere Jeevan Saathi, Daag, Aap ki Kasam, …. so please don’t ask me to pick the most KBK of this lot because ….
Oh wait a minute.
There is one - Aavishkaar. For weeks, nay months afterwards, there was nothing I wanted more than be “Mansi”, married to “Amar” and live in a house outside which a lamp glowed this message of conjugal bliss - “Ghar Mansi Amar ka”.
And I can’t think why I didn’t dash off a KBT…

The Importance of Being a Mindblowing Mahiyah…

This is a question for the ladies. (Though of course, there might be some gentlemen who would like to be included as well, if yer know wot I mean.)
When was the last time you watched a member of the Indian cricket team and felt a gusty (lusty?) sigh escape from your lips as a large, purple, throbbing….(no, sorry boys, but it’s not what you are thinking) thought blurb balloon over your head with just one word in neon lights.
“Hottie!”
No, don’t answer just as yet because here’s question number 2.
When was the last time you spotted the aforementioned member (sorry again, fellas but not what you’re thinking) and wanted to tear out your kurti/hair/Wonder Bra in ecstatic handfuls and then faint dead away because you could not for another minute stand how utterly, devastatingly, to-die-for cute he was? Or because you couldn’t bear the delicious shivers of God-alone-knows-what doing the rumba-salsa-watusi up and down your spine (and whatuchmacallits) whenever he smiled that slow, lazy, doozie smile?
Don’t answer anyway because I know the answer.
You can’t remember. Nor can I.
But do not despair because the long, dark night is over. And as dawn gently breaks over the barren acres of the cutie-pie-less cricketing green, a single brave, blade of hope sprouts…

I have to admit though that the first time I noticed him was because of his name. It reminded me of a song, an old favourite….
“English people sleeping in the sun to get a tan,
Pouring oil upon their faces like a frying pan,
Funny thing about it is they all go rosy red,
Next day when the peeling starts they're crying in their beds.
Oh to be in England
Now that spring is here,
Oh to be in England, drinking English beer.”

After which the singer breaks into a delightful Anglo-Carnatic-gamaka refrain, which goes something like this.

“Dhani-dhani-dhani Dhoni-dhaani dhani-dhani-Dhoni-dhaani…”

So, every time the name cropped up – and it started to do so with increasing frequency because the chap seemed to be some sort of a rising star - that refrain would start to play inside my head and wouldn’t stop. So I thought to myself, who the heck is this Dhoni fellow…
(Blasphemous, you shriek. But I’ll have you know that small as our numbers may be, there are people in this country to whom the word “cricket” first means an kind of insect and then everything else.)

Anyway, I started looking out for “Dhani-dhani-dhani-Dhoni”, which wasn’t hard because he was all over the place. And I tell you, it wasn’t love at first sight.
You see, it was the hair, about which – Mushy’s remarks notwithstanding - I had very mixed feelings. Which were mostly “yuck” (those dirty-gold highlights always make me break into a rash) mixed with a few pinches of “okay-yuck-but-maybe-not-so-bad-and-anyway-it-grabs-your-attention”. But, even then, there was something about the fellow that was….
Dishy?
Cute?
I couldn’t put my finger on it because the hair really did come in the way.
Meanwhile, the dratted refrain continued to warble in my head.
“Dhani-dhani-dhani-Dhoni…”

Then, one hot summer’s night, it happened.
Not quite like the movie, but as far as I was concerned, what was draped so casually on that bar stool could give Clark Gable a run for his money, yumminess-ly speaking…
Oh dear, I’d better begin at the beginning, shouldn’t I?
The barstool was… no, not Saturday night at the Fire&Ice and no, I was not the gorgeous bar butterfly on the neighbouring stool that he couldn’t take his eyes off.
(In any case, I’ve heard the chap gets high on milk.)
It was on the sets of “India Questions”, Prannoy Roy’s show on NDTV on which the fellow was the guest and I was one of the thousands of potatoes watching the show from the comfort of my couch.
Roy’s introduction was gushing. There were comparisons to Sachin. (Just so that we are all on the same page, that would be Sachin, the cricketer, not the actor) There were grand references to the man changing the tide of the game. There was talk about a strike rate that would make even Adam Gilchrist blush.
Gilchrist who, I’m thinking. Isn’t he some Aussie batsman-type? And strike rate would be the number of times you hit the ball?
Just as I was sinking deep in vexed puzzlement and also wondering why the girls in the audience were simpering and fluttering excitedly as if Brad-Pitt-rolled-into-Matt-Damon (the latest Sexiest Man in the World) had just walked in, the camera slowly zoomed in on the Barstool….
To cut a long story short, lightning struck.
And the earth didn’t just move but for the next 45 minutes, it damn near did a cha-cha-cha to the 78-piece orchestra playing somewhere in the strawberry-cream-soaked distance.
It’s difficult to decide what is the sexiest thing about Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
Because he’s not the handsomest of men, nor does he have the greatest body (but more on that later), or the most money, power or any of the other blah-blah-blah that turn women on.

So, maybe it is how easy and comfortable he look in everything.
Success
Jeans (well-worn, workman blue and no-fuss, just the way I like it…)
Pressure
Dirty-goldilocks.
Female fans.
Acne scars. (Beats John Abraham’s by points.)
Jharkand-English accent. (I can’t decide which is cuter - the way he says “wut” for “what” or the way he peppers his sentences with “ki”.)
Or just in his skin.
Maybe it is that he sounds so real, such a regular guy, even when he’s dishing out those careful, politically correct answers at interviews.
Or that he likes bikes (he owns seven) and chocolates and ice cream. (Move over, all you metrosexual sissies. Mahisexual is here.) And subscribes to Gandhigiri – what else would you call looking Shoab Akhtar straight in the eye and giving him a big smile every time he tries to intimidate you on the field?
And talking of smiles, maybe it is that lazy, shy-cheeky, I-know-I’m-kinda-killer-cute grin that would melt Hitler on a bad moustache day.
Or maybe it’s that cool, clear, straight gaze which seems to unerringly home in on parts which other men don’t even know exist.

There comes a moment in a relationship when in a sudden, searing flash, you have a startlingly clear idea of how completely hook-line-and-sinker you have fallen. (But of course Mahi and I are in a relationship – that Padukone babe is just to keep the paparazzi at bay.)
For me, since that Barstool, there have been two.
The first was when he took off his shirt just after winning the Twenty20 finals. No, it was not because he took it off to give it to that little boy and made the entire female half of the nation swoon into an ecstatic “Cho-chweet!”. (I did too, but mine was a more restrained “Awwww!”). It was also not because shirtless, he confirmed what was hinted at in that biceps-hugging T-shirt on Prannoy’s show - great body. (Eat your six-pack, Shahrukh!) It was because he looked so completely unselfconscious about it. As if it was the most natural thing in the world to do your victory lap with your shirt off in full view of a 100 million people. (Give or take a few million.)

The second was at the felicitation ceremony at Wankhede stadium
Everyone including Sharad Pawar had just done their number in aamchi English or Queen’s Marathi. (In most cases, you couldn’t tell the difference.)Then, up walks our dashing lad and when Harsha Bhogle starts to trot out his questions in shudh Angrezi, don’t you know old sock, he announces that since he is a Hindustani, he’d like to answer in Hindi.

Clean bowled.

The ultimate measure of my goner status is that I recently shelled out 199 whole rupees to get my year’s subscription to the Neo Sport channel on my Tata Sky. And life in now jhingalala. In case you’re scoffing, “Piffle!”, I’ll have you know that this is from a person who last watched cricket when “match fixing” was something that Bishen Singh Bedi did to his beard. To whom ODI is something which Britney Spears lost the custody of her sons for doing and who thinks that mostly, cricket is about as riveting as a documentary on the dating habits of an amoeba.
Finally, I thought it might be worth mentioning that there was another Indian wicket keeper who was also famous for his pizzazz, hair (our first Brylcreem model), high cute-pie quotient and love for bikes.
Farokh Engineer.
I tried to make something deeply significant and meaningful out of that but couldn’t. Except, I’d like to say this much.
Man cannot live by bread alone. At least, woman can’t. So, every now and then, we need to have a fella around us who fills us with the insatiable urge to break through security cordons, fling (would “throw” be a more wantonly appropriate choice, I’m wondering?) ourselves on him and kiss him madly, deeply, thirstily before we are dragged away and thrown back to our ho-humdrum lives. More so if we are constantly going to have our KSBKBT’s interrupted by our Bonny Babas in Blue peddling champi-sabun, chaddi-baniayan and danth-manjan. So, you’d better make them cute and the cuter the better and I have to say this.
As far as Mahi goes, I can’t complain.
Gotta go now. Have to figure out what exactly it is that a wicket keeper keeps. I mean, I don’t see him watering those wickets or feeding them biscuits or anything….

Chalat Musafir

"It is one of Indian Cinema's tragic ironies that a sensitive and poetic film like Teesri Kasam sank without a trace indirectly leading to its producer lyricist Shailendra's death due to stress of financial problems caused by the failure of the film. The irony is even more so as today the film is recognised as one of the the all-time great films of Indian Cinema."

Many, many years ago BCP (Before Couch Potato), the BBC World Service (radio) had a superb program show called Desert Island in which one Person of Consequence would put together a complation of music ( I think the list was limited to 10) that he or she would take with them if they happened to be marooned on a desert island
Teesri Kasam would definitely figure on my list. Sajanre Jhoot Mat Bolo, Sajanwa Bairi Ho Gaye Hamar, Duniya Bananewale all sung by Mukesk ....it's difficult to choose which makes my heart ache more.
But this delightful song, along with "Pan Khaye Saiyyan Hamaro" is one of the film's happier moments.

Chalat Musafir Moh Liyo Re
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