Gibberish so Desultory

What girls want?

I'm a diehard party animal who attends atleast one party in two years. Almost a year ago when I attended the last party, a good-looking girl accompanied me. While we were enjoying the party together, I noticed she caused quite a few heads to turn. I managed to read the thoughts behind those 'turned' foreheads. They were all  wondering how lucky the girl was. Later, quite a few of my friends enquired about that girl. Needless to say they were all impressed. However, that silly girl was more bothered about the 'more beautiful' hair of another girl at the party. Whatever party it is, boys look at girls with 'varying' degrees of appreciation while girls look at other girls with 'superlative' degree of jealousy. In either case, no one looks at boys unless there is a queer in the crowd. English, in all its grandeur, has also not been very kind to men. Of all the adjectives that exist in English, ninety percent can be used to describe feminine beauty and ninety percent of the rest are derogatory. No wonder  men are hardly the subjects of poetry. Harking back to the party, I wonder what is it about girls that prevents them from seeing the good in themselves that boys so effortlessly see? They always seem to be on a lookout for things they lack rather than discover the things they have. If only they could look at themselves from the eyes of boys, they'd fall in love with themselves.

Fun with Failures

I am known to be an all-rounder. My school teachers acknowledged me as the most complete student who participated in everything under the sun, sans studies. I learnt invaluable lessons in teamwork at school when my team won the first prize in a group drawing competition. I had passed chalks and colours then. I also learnt early lessons in leadership when I became the President of the 'Rotary Club' in the school. Under my able leadership we had so many social service events that we missed the century by a mere hundred. I also participated in a city level athletics competition. In an 800m race, I crossed the finish line seconds before the other participants did. Yet, I wasn’t awarded the first prize. The rest of the participants were crossing the line for the second time. I have been a pretty good swimmer as well. I once came fourth in a swimming competition that had four participants. My penchant for learning new things has kept me in good stead. A friend once suggested that if I wanted to hold any beautiful girl's hands, I should either learn palmistry or learn to lie about it. I didn't know either of the two then. A couple of months later I held the first of the several soft, silky hands I've held so far. I am yet to learn palmistry. I always thought I was a pretty good student as well. I wrote all my exams pretty well; unfortunately, my marks would almost always beg to differ from my opinion. Needless to say, I'm a strong supporter of the spirit of participation over the philosophy of winning the event you participate in.

The Business of Marriage

I'm the most eligible bachelor in my family of five, consisting of, besides me, my parents, my younger sister and a younger brother, who is too young to marry. I'm an unhappy single and hence ready to mingle. I'm looking for a girl for company so we can both be unhappy together. Almost all my friends are of marriageable age now. If looks could kill, a friend of mine would end up at the gallows. I almost died of a heart attack the first time I saw him. He'd easily get the role of a starring ghost in a spooky movie without wearing any make-up. He may have had a bout of somnambulism when God was distributing looks but he has a heart of pure gold. He is by far the most perfect person I've ever come across. And yet, he can't find the girl of his life only because his face doesn't comply with the conventions of physical beauty our society has built for us. Wonder whether it is he who is abnormal or the world he lives in. Whether you like it or not, the truth is physical beauty matters. My circle of friends consists of doctors, engineers, chartered accountants and MBAs amongst many others. My doctor friends wouldn't want to marry anyone other than doctors. When it comes to spouses they think anyone other than doctors is not human. Some of my engineer friends also think on the same lines. They claim that their thought levels wouldn't match with those of an arts graduate. A slightly deeper investigation would reveal as to what primarily separates doctors and engineers from the rest. It's probably their analytical ability and I.Q. Beyond a certain limit, you don't need either for marriages to succeed. Academic qualification of a person is mistaken here for the proof of his character. How many of us have become the good persons that we are because of the education we've received? In our being good, it's not our education but our family values that play a much bigger role. Our family is where our roots lie. Marriage happens between two individuals but it bonds two families. That is why our Indian forefathers laid so much stress on finding better families. Somewhere in the deep recesses of our hearts there is a hidden desire to see the reactions of envy, pride and happiness on the faces of others when we introduce our spouses to them. Unfortunately, it is this overriding desire that guides our choices more than anything else. It is almost as if we're marrying that someone special for others.

From Bollywood to Cleaners

I've never traveled out of India. However, thanks to our Bollywood movies, I've had many vicarious experiences in cosmopoliteness. Come to think of it, so many of the Bollywood movies are conceptualized, planned, and shot outside India that the name Bollywood is as apt as the the label of 'Eternity' for celebrity marriages. They then make a big bang release in India only because the foreigners would've seen the whole melodrama unleashed on their streets and so wouldn't care a hoot to watch it again; more importantly pay for it. Their gain now becomes our loss. Probably the only gain of those movies is the eye candy of salubrious and clean locales. Talking about cleanliness, Bangalore was once known to be the cleanest city of India. My recent visit to Bangalore was an eye-opener of sorts. If what I saw were the cleanest then it would be a euphemism to say that Indian standards of cleanliness are abysmally low. Personally, I'm extremely finicky about cleanliness. For instance, I change my bed sheet after every epoch. The epoch may be anything from the bed sheet getting torn due to shameless overuse to someone fainting on smelling it or from someone complimenting me on my olfactory immunity against foul smell to the bed sheet changing colour; in case of the last eventuality my ingenuity inspires me to use it as a darker new bed sheet until one of the first three epochs materialize. The maid who finally washes the bedsheet is then forced to take a two-day sabbatical due to backache. Cleanliness is divine as long as it is the responsibility of others.

From POMS to US pranks

The Americans have been so prejudiced against the British that they tried their best to turn upside down every ritual originated or followed by the British. They thought that cricket was too boring and lengthy so they developed baseball. They thought soccer lacked the cruelty they wanted so went on to conceive "American Football". The right hand drive, so widely accepted in commonwealth countries, was changed to left hand drives for the same God forsaken reason. They even went on to the extent of reversing the process of "switching on" of the lights. I'm glad some processes have been irreversibly designed by nature.