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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.