Bull run

While my pessimism as regards men, may know no bounds, she reminds me that some markets are always booming! Viva manhood and the spirit of madness, then!

(Click on pic to see full comic on a new page)

The wedding night

Heeheehee….got this picture off The Lady‘s post.

It reminded me of the time my friend got married. The pre-wedding days were a time of much mirth for the cronies of the bride and groom. But of course. We were such a bunch of wits.

For the wedding night, we decided ‘as good friends’, we’d make things as comfortable and easy as we could for the two newly-weds. Aside from the usual decoration of the ‘love-boudouir’ and planned pranks (alarm clocks hidden around the room set for a different hour), one guy came up with the novel idea of directions. So we decided, we’d plant directions all over the couple to make it easier for them.

For her, there’s be arrows pointing to all the erogenous zones…ears, waist, breasts, neck, back of the knees etc. For him, we concluded all arrows would point to right below his belt!

Errrm. Am afraid to say that we reduced the bride-to-be to tears. Which, hopefully her husband did not on the wedding night. With our without our directions.

Stubborn old maid

As with everything else, being pushed only makes me firmer in my place, even if I have an idea that I could change. This desperation connected with the marriage search is getting on my nerves again and once again I can feel my rebellious streak rising as I get ready to throw off the whole damn thing out. I can’t help it…it’s like being forced underwater and you can’t help struggling to get back to the surface to breathe air again.

Why should I be the one to willingly and ‘joyfully’ make the compromise?

What gives anyone the right to say that twenty-eight is too old and that I’ll get ‘left on the shelf’?

As I see it, I have a perfectly good life and I’d be insane to deliberately try and make it any less than it is by condemning myself to second-class citizen status for a man who demands much and appreciates so little. I have no chance of being happy in this situation or making anyone else happy either. And as for being left on the shelf, I’d much rather stay here than be carried away by a man who so obviously is less than me.

I seem to stand for a very tiny minority..if not all alone. Everywhere I see women making grave compromises to get into relationships with men who have very little respect for them to begin with and lose all of it the more the woman sacrifices. And alternately I keep slipping in the bogmire of insecure desperation of women who aren’t married and are getting frantic enough to stoop to such vileness as bitching, boyfriend-snatching and multi-man-managing. And finally of course the depression of women I won’t judge quite as harshly as they haven’t quite turned vamp as gotten resigned and succumbed to despair.

I’m not going to do that, by God I’m not. I’ve never been petty and I’m not going to turn that way now. It took a very, very bad experience for me to stop being needy and I’d be a fool to throw away the lessons and strength that came from there. And I’ve lived with my personal code of values through much weaker, more demanding times and not budged. I’ve never done anything that I need to be ashamed of and to date, I can look myself in the mirror with pride.

Enough of men have messed my life intentionally or otherwise. Now that I’ve found my freedom and my inner peace, damned if I’m going to let anyone take it away from me.

If that makes me a stubborn old maid, so be it.

Needle in the haystack

So the mommies starts to murmer on marriage again. Thus far I’ve managed to avoid the issue for awhile after having survived a torrent of eligible bachelors (EB) awhile back. Steadied it to a light drizzle and then just a few drips (hmph, all men are!). But now, the Magic Mummy radar senses a break in daughter’s otherwise jam-packed schedule and jumps in promptly to fill it up with more EBs.

(Click to see full comic on a new page)

I sigh and lay down my wearied defenses and set out to interview prospects again. All the while ruminating on a thought that struck me in the shower last week (don’t all brilliant ideas come to you then? I also get some when I’m brushing my teeth in the morning).

We all know that an average girl child’s brain is injected with the marriage virus very early on in life and everything else we do in life from our choice of career, our grades, our dressing, personality, friends, social calendar are all supposed to be in preparation of the big M word. Why do men get married? Let’s see:

1. Because they are in love (HAHAHAHA…alright I’ll shut my cynical self up a bit)
2. Because they seek companionship (I don’t really believe it but I’m bored with the ‘man-hater’ title)
3. Because they want free and regular sex (dare deny that one, anyone?)
4. Because they want a housemaid/cook/nurse-for-ageing-parents (phooey to the US-returned types)
5. Because their family wants them to get married (Yes, mama!)
6. Because their ex- broke up with them and they want to show her up (with all due apologies to the women that are being now made miserable by my ex-es)
7. Because….errr…umm….

Now let’s look at them. 1 and 2 are really rare and when those exist, the man has quickly turned around and married her in his early 20s itself. 3 and 4 are most common of all and if you don’t believe me, ask ANY woman who is being subjected to the marriage market….we’ve all met a few specimens. 5 and 6 get to be more and more hard to avoid as the years pass…both make their life’s major decisions based on someone else’s whims and words.

Where does that leave us then? With men who are certainly not interested in marriage and only feed us the lines hoping to impress us and get a little fun in the process. Or the No.s 3, 4, 5 and 6 and they’re hardly prime cuts as far as marriage prospects go, never mind their degrees and dollars.

(Click to see full comic on a new page)

Oh and there’s always the specimen that doesn’t even know why he’s getting married. But then again, “I don’t know” is an answer I hear frequently. Oh men of intelligence and higher understanding, where art thou? *Sigh* And at the end of it, all I’ll have is a shiny needle.

The mummy returns

Even after my own parents throw up their hands in despair at my marital status (or the lack of it) and stop bugging me, there are others who will persist, good intentions intact. The results are sometimes howl-a-rious. See here:

Surrogate momma: What happened to that boy in Bangalore?

Me: Who, Dee? He’s still in Bangalore.

Surrogate momma: You should marry him!

Me: NOoooo!!!!

Surrogate momma: I think you like him!

Me: I do! That’s why we are friends.

Surrogate momma: So tell him that you like him!

Me: Why? He already knows.

Surrogate momma: No, you tell him “I like you”. Then he’ll say “I love you” back. And then you can get married!

Oh dear, who will tell her that saying “I like you” to a man is likely to have the exact opposite effect and send him running miles away from you. And what’s more….that he probably thinks that the very mention of the word ‘marriage’ is adequate basis for certification to an institution (the asylum type, not the marriage type!)

Then there’s always my dear friend-turned-mother-hen (Mother Goose, silly goose?) whose number one goal in life these days is to land a husband. Which objective she pursues with single-minded dedication. Except she does it by trying to convince me (?) to get married. First thing in the morning she buzzes…

Mother Hen: So, why don’t you call X?

Me: Now? Why?

Mother Hen: Why not? Yeh kal kal karte karte train nikal jaayegi!

Me: No, I managed to get it on time. That’s how I got here.

Mother Hen: No stupid woman. You better hook the guy or you’ll lose him.

Me: Darling, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but we broke up ages ago.

Mother Hen: So? You know how men are!

Me: I do?

Mother Hen: Yeah, full of themselves, never willing to admit they were wrong. So you go back and call him!

Me: And say what?

Mother Hen: That you want to meet.

Me: But I don’t want to meet!

Mother Hen: Settle down, woman. It’s high time. You’ll be much happier.

Me: I am happy right now. We should go man-hunting for you.

Mother Hen: I think I’m not the settling down type.

Me: Then why do you want to get married?

Mother Hen: So I have someone I can come home to.

Me: What’s wrong with your TV?

Mother Hen: That’s not enough.

Me: Oh for…! Why don’t you call Y then?

Mother Hen: No way! I don’t want to go back to him.

Me: My point, precisely.

Mother Hen: Arre, but thats different. I think X is perfect.

Me: Then you get married to him!

Mother Hen: Me? No way, can’t stand him!

Presumably this is the ‘It’s a crummy job but someone’s gotta do it so go hook him!’ school of thought. I steal quietly away to my boring-but-blissfully single existance away from mummies and their bandages for my supposedly ailing heart.

The upside of marriage

So I was talking to this friend of mine who is travelling. In between our usual banter, I noticed his unfortunate tendency to slip into allusions to sex. My innocent (!) request for chocolates was termed kinky! I concluded that he was sex-starved and hastened to advise him to,

Get back and get it SOON!

But no sooner had the words left my mouth did I realise that it was easier said than done….lady love after all wasn’t his travelling companion. So deeply dejected, I concluded that,

At least one time marriage is better than being single is when you get to travel AND have sex – any time you like, free of cost, without guides/travelogues/middle men and legally!

Happily ever after – 2

Sometimes I think the only reason women have a problem at all, is because of the fairytales that are fed to us as children, all ending predictably in

..and they lived happily ever after.

So who knows what “happily ever after” really means? I’m just finding out. Nope, I haven’t run off and gotten secretly hitched (not as yet). But after the rush of husband-hunting and weddings, I’m getting a earful of what the other side of ‘wedded bliss’ really looks like.

So friends, forgive me my transgressions while I take a sneak peek into your versions of ‘happily ever after’ (and for those who take offence….no more entertaining snippets from my love-life for you!!!)

Bringing up the lead, is my wicked friend Sensorcaine. Please note that reactions to her announcement of getting hitched were met by varied reactions from her friends…..one guffawed, another checked her calendar to see if it was April and I fell off my chair (literally). All of us tried (in vain) to tell the angelic-faced sweet man about the creature he was marrying. Ah, but men never listen…not even the sweet ones. Now, four years later…here’s Mrs. and Mr.Sensorcaine in their state of ‘Nappily ever after’.

Okay, I won’t be cynical. There’s always the Barbie and Ken couple who’ve settled down to a nice home in the suburbs. He works hard, she cooks, cleans and bakes hard (no, soft spongy cakes actually). They cootchie-coo and wear colour co-ordinated black tee and kurti to the Roger Waters concert. Oh and they bought each other matching iPods as wedding gifts. Sappily ever after does happen after all.

And of course there’s also the newly-weds at office. There’s been a spate of weddings among my colleagues, all within a month of each other. As they all troop back, tanned from the beach-resort-honeymoons, laden with jewellery (women) and a few extra kilos (eat, beta!), my cynical self wonders just how long the blissful smiles are going to last. For the timebeing however, we are greeted by their bleary-eyed, blushing faces in the mornings with an occasional sigh from the married-longer ones. The mood right now is definitely ‘Chappily ever after’

Then there’s my dear high-strung/Ice maiden friend who’s succumbed to the matrimonial overtures of Mr.FastTrack. At the wedding he told me, “Her life’s going to go spinning like she doesn’t know. Life with me, tends to be that way.” Ah, my poor friend. I couldn’t tell him a perfect match would mean an equally volatile temperament, could I? We don’t rat on our friends, we shield our eyes and watch for the fireworks resulting from Snappily ever after.

Then again, who can tell how the adventures of an otherwise demure, sweet girl will turn out? I give you…‘Mad-cappily ever after’

Suffice to say, I’m just glad everyone isn’t ending up like my poor classmate who found her husband cheating on her 2 months into the marriage. Instead of settling for Crappily ever after, she turned to divorce. Better for the guy too, methinx, remembering a certain Ms.Bobbit.

Happily ever after

A friend and occasional blogger tells us about an arbit conversation that she had with her husband on the breeding habits of towels. Khee khee khee.

“What are all the towels doing behind the door?” I asked him.
“Breeding,” came the prompt reply.
“Breeding?” Quite used to getting such answers by now, I thought quickly, “I see, but how do they breed when there’s only one towel to begin with?”

Then this morning P on our daily morning update call says that her new husband (oh, stop laughing when I say that…they’ve been married 2 months, doesn’t that make him a ‘new’ husband and her, a ‘new’ wife?)..coming back, she informs me that new husband isn’t well and has been ordered (by her) to stay in bed today.

Ah, over-working?

I cluck sympathetically

No, over-eating.

She says firmly.

So is this what “happily ever after” looks like?

A serious look at things

I set up this blog with posts that were supposed to be serious observations on gender equations and stereotypes. I seem to have gotten side-tracked into frivolous male-bashing and women’s magazine-style posts. I’m glad these have been entertaining to those of you who’ve read so far, but I’m afraid I’m digressing. I’m not a performing monkey and my thoughts are not meant to provoke party discussions.

Yesterday I watched ‘Namaste London’. There’s a scene in the movie where the heroine, bulldozed into an arranged marriage ritual, deliberately dresses and behaves ‘down’ so that the guy rejects her. I couldn’t only identify with that, I actually remembered that, having done something not so different myself once. The same girl, a little later, meets a guy who tries to analyse the sugar consumption of the family to determine their compatibility. Did that scene seem completely OTT trying to be funny to anyone? Not to me, I’ve lived through that experience as well. The guy in question, on our first (and only!) meeting wanted to know what my “agenda for this discussion” was. He was mortally offended when informed that I didn’t have one and took great effort to remind me that I was an MBA and hence should have learnt to put my education to use in my life.

It just isn’t funny anymore. So much so-called liberation later, a woman in 2007 still has to manipulate the situation so that the rejection happens from the guy’s side. The mouthpiece still lies very much at the man’s end even if the reins of power (from behind the scenes) can lie with a woman.

How many of you women have asked a man out? And men, how many of you have been asked out by a woman…and actually accepted…and gone on to have something concrete with her? I asked a guy out many years back. We had common friends, kept meeting at parties and it was obvious he was interested. So I suggested a time and place. We did go out, though he seemed rather quiet (and not at all like his erstwhile loquacious self). He didn’t ask me out again and a common friend later told me that I had ‘scared him off’. I’ve never asked a man out after that. When I spot a guy who interests me, I make him ask me out. It isn’t all that difficult, in fact its often so easy its boring even. But what irritates me is that the archaic ritual of a man making the first move still holds true.

Do I come across as a man-hater still? I can’t hate an entire section of the population. What I do hate is being chained down. It would seem like all my education and effort…they’ve all been attempts to groom me to be a ‘good catch’ in the marriage market. So instead of pursuing my longtime dream of studying art, I ended up with a very respectable MBA degree and a job that sounds good enough. But hasn’t anyone realised….you give a human being opportunity, then you’re giving them the desire to take it as well. Give a person a voice and you’ve given him (or her) the need to speak too. Its possible that I may have been willing to set aside whatever I was doing to build my life around a man, had I just continued along in my natural path. But now, having been forcibly pulled into doing something I didn’t even want, realising that I could do pretty well at it and having tasted the heady lure of economic independence and freedom, is it fair to expect me to be able to give it up?

My family and friends tell me that my expectations are too high and that’s the reason I’m not married as yet. Maybe so. But really, can a marriage survive for long without respect? And how am I supposed to respect a person who can only be happy as long as I make him the center of my universe and bury my ambitions, my dreams and my individuality? Can such a person be expected to be strong enough to carry the burden of my happiness? I think not. A person who is weak enough to feel threatened by my successes will never be able to be happy in my company, let alone make me happy. That’s not man-hating, it is simply an objective, if not weary, observation of men and women today.

In defence of my objectivity, I must say that I also have some sharp, if not unpleasant observations to make about women today. Women are dangerous to say the very least. Most of us may still be bound by social restrictions but none of us carry the chains of emotional bondage anymore. A few women like me might be impatient enough, wanting total equality now and here but most women are wise enough to see the situation for what it is and manipulate it accordingly to their advantage. You can call me a cynic but I’m not the one spewing venom about gold-diggers, bitchy bosses and the loss of respect for the marriage instution. The definition of a successful woman today continues to be the same as it has been for generations. She isn’t the richest or the one with the most impressive job. She is the one who keeps her world together. Boyfriend, husband, parents, in-laws, friends, colleagues (junior, peer and superior)….she seems to be adapting to everyone and yet, they’re all twisted about her little finger. This is the power of womenhood unleashed in its most potent form, not tempered with the sweetness of love, not restrained by the holds of values, not bounded by the committments of emotional attachment. Every single ‘successful woman’ I’ve known is inherently cold-blooded and power-hungry. The ones who have held onto even a shrapnel of emotion, bear it as a weakness. After all, the world still calls a woman with a personality of her own…some very unsavoury names.

Still, I want to believe that the world is changing (albeit too slowly for my impatient self!). This post was reassuring. Maybe men and women will respect each other enough some day not to play games with each other. I only hope I’m around to see it.

Single by choice

Last year, I wrote (though very little) with IFSHA’s blog. I’m recyclying those posts here before I start for 2007.

See cross-posted here.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

These days, one word that appears to dominate life at every step, hanging over like a noose and watching like a big eye in the sky is…..MARRIAGE. Nearly all my close friends are enjoying matrimonial bliss. “So why not you?” I hear my mother’s plaintive cry.

“Because…” and I stumble right there. Well…I don’t have a justification for my singlehood. Come to think of it, it isn’t a crime that I need to justify, is it? I am not married because I am single. That’s that.

I’m not single because I can’t get a man
I’m not single because I have something against marriage
I’m not single because I’m too busy

I’m single by choice. Yes, it is an option.

Matrimony is a thriving market and in a ritual-ridden culture like ours, the stakes are pretty high. Think wedding halls, think jewelers, think fashion designers, think interior decorators, wedding planners, temples and churches and what-nots, priests and singers and garland makers….to be specific there is one particular road in Chennai that is hailed by the locals as being the place to go when you get married since it provides every possible thing that you could need for a wedding. I assume that comes with a fine-print caveat that says

“Brides and grooms not included with package”.

Now it seems to me like the whole world is plotting to pull me into this set-up. After all, seen from the above point of view, I must be another valuable piece of raw material that they just can’t wait to get their hands on to polish and package and present as a finished product with the tagline of “New Bride”.

I’m not cynical about the process. I’m not even against the instituation of marriage. After all, my parents (among other couples I know) have been happily married for 28 years. As I see it, I have a good life. A caring family, lots of good friends, a good job, interests and hobbies, a social life and no major problems. A spouse will do one of two things to this. He will either take away some part of it…..with inevitable loss of freedom, additional responsibilities, financial worries and adjustments major and minor to attitudes, religious beliefs and behavior. Or perhaps it will be an ideal situation and he will be someone who won’t feel the need to control or change any aspect of my life. That’s the best case.

People tell me that there could be a man who actually makes my life better. Personally I can’t see that happening, but in the far chance that it does….that’s a lottery ticket. I’ve never been lucky that way and I’m not about to start hoping now.

In the words of the then bad girl Rizzo from Grease,

There are worse things I could do
I could stay home every night
Wait around for Mr.Right
Take cold showers everyday
And throw my life away
For a dream that won’t come true

Well….maybe it will. But a woman can have lots of dreams. A good husband could be just the icing on the cake of a perfect life. I’ll work on getting my cake ready. Plain sponge cake tastes just as good as gooey chocolate cake.

Its going to be a long way to when people can accept singledom as a perfectly natural state of being rather than an aberration to society.