Friday, August 31, 2007

The good guys

I had been arguing with a friend about man-woman dynamics for some time, when my friend threw up his arms in exasperation and claimed that it was not possible for him to retain his sanity and keep up with the generalizations about men and women I was throwing left, right and center at him. Which is when I decided to get my own forum for it.

So here’s a crib you’ll here often. Women saying that they can’t find the right guy.
And if you’re a guy on the other side of this crib, you might well wonder, 'what’s wrong with me?' Well don’t fall for this crib. Because it’s not true.

The truth is there are plenty of ‘right guys’. Just that they are not as exciting as the wrong ones. They like you. They have squeaky clean backgrounds, they are thoughtful and simple. And boring.

The wrong guys on the other hand are anything but that. They make you chase them. They make you think. They make you wait by the phone. They keep you guessing. They play hard to get. They make you come up with excuses and explanations for them, as far fetched as they can get. (This last one needs a separate blog post by itself).

They’re not ready to offer anything concrete and yet you’re willing to wait hoping you’d be the angel to transform them, make them see light.

So ladies smell the coffee (read the wrong guy) and give the steady, somewhat insipid, but definitely dependable good guy a fat chance.

p.s. I never heed my own good advice.

Monday, August 27, 2007

what women want...

If you're a guy

  • You HAVE to talk to them.

  • If you cannot do that then you'd HAVE to be willing to listen to them talk.

  • Don't be too good looking. (Isn't this good news?)

  • The darker the better (ok this could be on my list)

  • If you're a little different, and proud of it. A guy with a moustache for example.

  • Wear well fitting clothes. Dress reasonably well.

  • Have a life. This does not mean that you party till you have to be taken home.

  • Have a secret identity. (Try this: Law clerk by day, crime fighter by night. Even better if you are a crime fighter in costume.)

  • The C word - Commitment. Yes blokes, sad but true.

  • Be nice to the underdogs.

  • Open doors. (For everyone)

  • Be nice to their friends...parents...relatives...dogs...parrots.

  • Keep your promises. If you say you will call, do that. Nobody likes to be kept waiting.

  • And finally, hate to say this, but playing hard to get works like hell.

Saturday, August 25, 2007

love in all seasons

I just loved listening to this song today. No reason.




April come she will

When streams are ripe and swelled with rain;

May, she will stay,

Resting in my arms again.



June, she'll change her tune,

In restless walks she'll prowl the night;

July, she will fly

And give no warning to her flight.



August, die she must,

The autumn winds blow chilly and cold;

September I'll remember

A love once new has now grown old



Sunday, August 19, 2007

for the love of chaat

He served gol gappas with a fury that I couldn't keep up with. I am miserably slow. My friend however gobbled each without so much as battling an eyelid. As he looked at me with well deserved pity, my tiny plate filled up with 3 oblong pregnant gol gappas swimming in a sea of jeera water. I wrestled, my small mouth struggled to fit in the elliptical item. I thought there is no grace, no dignity in eating gol gappas. There was no way I could redeem myself in a lady-like manner, my sagittarian ungraceful self with two-left dancing feet would forever be revealed.

Saturday, August 18, 2007

why critics love bad movies

  • Because they need to pick a movie apart using some superlative adjectives
  • Since American Idol, various negative adjectives 'abysmal', 'horrendous', 'ghastly' have all got a new lease of life
  • Makes them feel good that they've superbly deconstructed a simplistically bad movie, it's easier than deconstructing what went right
  • Human nature- it's easier to criticise. That is why they became critics in the first place.
  • Everyone likes reading a good review of a bad movie. It's more entertaining.
  • Hate as an emotion, comes more naturally to us than any other. It also brings with it a lot more energy. It is healthier when directed to pen and paper.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

a family history of funny names

So my first name is Bangalore. (My only response to sniggers is that it's atleast a hi-tech city). My last name is Babu. That qualifies for an entry into the Terrible Name Oscars.
But inane names run in my family.

My paternal grandfather was a freedom-fighter and he was quite taken by the freedom fighters of his time. He named his eldest son(my father's eldest brother) Gopalakrishna Gokhale. And we're from Andhra. There's no connection with the Maharashtrian caste. So there are Gokhales from Maharashtra and there's an incongruous line of Gokhales who speak Telugu and who live in Chennai.

My grandfather named his second son Janakinath who was apparently a freedom fighter from Bengal. Again, an incongruous last name, but the seeds were sowed much before my time.

My father was spared of an inane name, but he inherited the Bangalore prefix and passed it along with the misnomer(Babu is meant for boys only, not girls) to me.

And I have lived with the trauma of a bad name ever since. My preschool teacher called me Sandhya Baby. Since then I have heard various contortions of all my names sometimes separately and at other times all together.

Saturday, August 11, 2007

the great list of "those whose asses i'd like to kick"

There is no chronological order to this, atleast yet, in my head.
  • The Bengali b#$%^ from Quality who insisted that I only talk in abbreviations, and who wouldn't look me in my direction when I talked, as if no sound came from me.
  • Another Bengali guy from Quality(what's with Bengalis in Quality, so nobody hires them for any real work now eh? No offence. :-) )
  • Some people (loud Delhiites) in traffic.
  • The leery Pantry boy in my previous organisation, actually leery pantry boys everywhere
  • The cocky Punjabi kid who tried to drive my car, after tricking my gullible driver
  • My gullible driver (?)
  • Tom Cruise for the couch incident (Seriously, those scientology folk would have excommunicated him if he wasn't a celebrity), though he did not harm me in any way personally. Unless undergoing mental trauma on being exposed to extreme stupidity counts.

I'll update this soon. The list is too small for a future ass-kicker to be taken seriously.

the veiled boast and where you go saturday night

Ever heard of the species of brags called the veiled boasts. This kind usually begins, "I don't mean to boast but.." followed by actual boast. Or it is let, in a subconscious manner, into the conversation and is akin to name dropping. Subtle stories of success, or good times mentioned in the most offhand manner. Another category of the veiled boast, is the seemingly self deprecating statement that is in reality a boast. This one goes like, "I hate going from party to party, but I have to" or "I'm freaked out, but my boss really likes my work..." (Who wants that right).

While on the topic of boasts, the saturday day night sojourn is also the object of the veiled boast category. Where you go and what you do on a saturday night is increasingly under greater scrutiny. All the couch potatoes are cursing the growing consumerism of the urban Indian. Whatever happened to the concept of relaxing without an agenda.

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Ordinary People

I met this 65 year old gentleman, who was working post-retirement for the love of the job. He joined as a manager, and is taking orders from "boys" who worked for him in his previous organisation of 40 years. I asked him if he did not think that was an issue. He resembles a venerable old owl, minus the scary eyes. In fact his eyes twinkle with the life of man half his age, his ears flap open, his bald head is circumferenced with whitish hair. And he said, it doesn't matter if you really love what you are doing. Are you a Bengali? I asked him. Yes, yes. He nodded. How did you know? People can't usually guess that, he added. I told him he had a slight accent and I could tell by the way he stretched certain words. Sharp, he said. Are you a Bengali too? No, I said. You have to really love your job, he concluded, to be unaffected by these things.

I hadn't met anybody like him. Life is interesting.

Snippets from my training session with people from a totally alien culture (that apparently annihilates grammar)

  • Don’t discuss the these things
  • We can tell you off the line
  • We want to extend our footprint on the PAN India
  • Why we are doing this, in the real life, we will not be doing this maalik
  • You are fresh, you don’t know what CR, BPMS, BCPDR, FMEA means. Everyone else knows.(So basically sod off, you’re not part of us unless you can speak this incoherent language)
  • I din got you
  • Boss, I can talk and sell. Now you tell me ki HoW I can use this e-CRM for my pro'ject

Sunday, August 5, 2007

the secret

Sounds like an English remake of a Japanese movie, right? Or is there one by the same name. Anyway, before I get off tangent (which is remarkably easy for me, I've found), I decided to capture my present state of happiness (or the closest state to self-sufficiency that I'm experiencing).
I realise I'm reasonably happy right now because
1) I started my day with a cup of filter coffee
2) I saved tens of cows, by not driving into them in the morning. Them cows need a farm, not the roads in Delhi.
3) My driving instructor is a good human being. Speaking of which, I am attracting a lot of good human beings in my immediate environment. My driver(different from my driving instructor) happens to be another one of those good human beings.
4)My parents are not pushing me to marry the next Telugu hunk with bushy moustache and a Green Card( what wouldn't a girl give to marry one of those Telugu dudes right..if only they advertised for "Maids masquerading as wives wanted for day time for raising my kids in the US" in matrimonial sites).
5) I'm learning how to play the guitar. My guitar took the shape of one of my old boyfriends and threatened to leave if I did not give it any attention. Ok ok, I made up the last part.(What's life without a little fabrication).
6) I dreamt I was running really fast. That might might be a good thing.
7) I have a lot of friends now. So flashback to the 8th grade, where kids wouldn't sit next to me.
(Ok, I might have been a little uncool, but that's still human rights violation.)
8) People seem to like me. I know that's a tenuous thing to base my good mood on, but what the heck.
So you get my drift. You should do the same exercise. It's entertaining to say the least. And when you're bummed out, you can replicate the good mood drivers. So the next time I'm bummed, I know what to do. Drive into a herd of cows.

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