Pyaar Ka Sahi Panchnama !!!

Jus' today morning, a colleague of mine who is slated to get married soon was talking to another male friend of his about the number of likes he got on a Facebook Status. The status said, " All girls are devils and my wife is the queen of all." What laugh you guys had on that!!
Another guy who is not slated to get married and does not even have a girlfriend has his own understanding of the female sodality. All females are alike. They are downright sweet in the beginning and after a while you get to see their true side (read devilish side).

A recent movie augmented this side of the male species. Everyone attributes the generalisation of the females to that one movie. The movie not only showcases the females in distaste but has stooped down to the level of showing all the females in a similar light.
Get over it Guys!! It was just a MOVIE!!!

You call, we answer and when we tell you we are busy, you throw us questions like: Really? (we can't be busy or what), why? (because I work too), what are you doing? (gossiping duh!!), when will you be free? (if you don't know then how am I supposed to), shall I call back in an hour? (how can I answer that right now). But ofcourse when we call you, you, first, are busy, we arent supposed to ask you 'when will you be free?' or if you had your lunch because that means we are being clingy. But guess what we call because we care.

You guys go to the market and enter one shop and buy everything you want. Don't you understand that you guys only wear t-shirts-jeans or shirts-jeans/trousers!! And one more thing, you know why do we spend so much time at the shopping malls because you certainly wouldn't like us dressed in a tee and jeans all the time. You like us dressed in skirts, shorts, capris, dresses, halters, spaghettis and much more. Shopping for all this requires time. You have standard sizes in the clothing you buy. Guess what, we don't!!

You know why do we mix and match stuff that you think is girly because again we care. Care about having your mates come over. Care about the way our rooms look like. Care about cleanliness. Care about you having to live in tasteful and organized environment. We do not do it only for ourselves.

You hate it when we ask you to cancel your plans with your guy friends but again guess what?? Our plans of going out with you have to be in sync with your plans because obviously us going out anywhere doesnt really have to be more than a shopping excursion or a gossiping session. But by the way, are yours about business dealings and new ventures that you plan to carry out in future??? And we thought it's about guzzling beers, listening to hard rock and gaping at leggy lasses!!! Sorry about that!!

We remember everything you say when we fight and drag that incident everywhere. Only if you wouldn't shut your mouth, ears,eyes and the room while talking about it the very first time we wouldn't do that. Solve the problem when it first arises.

You hate it when we talk about other guys. So what if he is worth the praise? So what if he deserves it? He can't be better than you. But we love it when you praise the other girls, adore you when you go on and on about your exes and damn we worship you when you fixate your eyes on a girl's cleavage and her worked out and shapely legs.

You hate it when we spend so much of time getting dressed. So why don't you date someone who can't spell perfume, who doesnt trim her hair, doesnt spend hours in the salon getting herself waxed to look all appealing to you, doesnt go through the painful threading sessions, has hands and feet that would perfectly depict life in a 'jungle', works full time, and yes who can still look attractive like that!! Why do you want us dressed up nicely and impeccably when it comes to meeting your friends and family? Why can't you take us in our trackpants and a tee? Trust me, we love that too!!

Ohh yeah, you hate tears, our tears to be precise. We hate it too. You can't see us crying but we have to go through the tortorous hours of consoling you and listening to you going on and on about your worthless and two faced boss. But we still do it because as I said we care about you.

Yes, we are hopelessly romantic and expect you to show some concern when it comes to matters of the heart. You do not like us playing mind games with you. We don't either. We spend time and energy in a relationship not because tomorrow you come to us and tell us that you have started liking someone else. You guys are afraid of commiting. Well, in that case why don't you learn to live on your own? Why do you still want a chick in your life?

Girls are a waste of time and money because 'sab ek jaisi hoti hain.'

Well you guys were kind enough to generalise the female fraternity. Lemme be cruel and let you know that all of us, the generalised females, do not universalize men. We still have belief in a lot of you and yes not only exceptions are always there but yes we do believe in happy endings.

Woman was taken out of man; not out of his head to top him, nor out of his feet to be trampled underfoot; but out of his side to be equal to him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be loved.

(P.S: I still love my favorite sex so it's a truce!!!)

That Doesn't Impress Me Much !!!

Let's start this one by looking around us. Across the desk, cubicle, room, department, city, state, country and even the farthest end. Look around! We all will find people, known or unknown to us, liked or disliked by us, loved or hated (too strong) by us, adored or pampered by us, some who we love to care about and a few with whom we want to share a part of us, plenty to hang out with, few we love to love and few we love to cry with, and fewer who are a part of us!!!

How did we meet these people? Destiny? Fate? Luck? Karma? Kismat? Circumstances? Or mere good fortune? Whatever it was, it sure leaves us with a lot of memories, a few good ones and a fewer bad ones, some we love to cherish, some we try to forget, plenty of them make us cry and a handful of them love to make us cry and happy at the same time. But do we ever realise what is common amongst all the people who we meet in our entire lifetime? A few of us do and a few of us just cherish having those people in our lives.

Just like you all, I too have met a lot of people in my delightful and difficult journey of life. The commonality amongst all of them: they never ceased to leave the First Impressions. All of them came with them, not leaving even a single one out, giving my twisted mind no time for repose. Some were charming, some were total jerks, a few of them were just too right and the other few just too wrong, rare ones who I love to love, plenty of them who never leave my side, a negligible amount of them bring out the murderous side in me and a sgnificant number of them form a part of my being.

Amongst those people who I cherish having in my life, there is a friend of mine who I hated on the first sight. He looked like a bandit from 'Aaj ka gundaraaj' movie, wearing a black thread around his neck, a thick bracelet on his left wrist and dressed in clothes which would even give 'The Gangster' a run for his money. I just hated him. That's the thing about first impressions. We either hate them or love them, there is no midway. And now?? He has not only been there for me but I can blindly trust him. He is the sweetest friend who I will always love to have in my life.

With each person who is a part of our life, we all love to play our roles too well with them and the best part is that at most times we get away with them. Most people who I love to call my friends or who I can rely on or who have the guts to say anything on my face, which I like tolerating are the ones who left a very bad first impression. A guy who I met randomly tops the list. I hated him when he first spoke to me. I mean he did not even know me properly to make that kind of statements. And now I wish I could just go hug him and tell him how much of an unspoken and unasked change he has brought in my life.

Never be afraid to let yourself down because if you do not let yourself down, someone else will. That hurts more. Never loath yourself for leaving a bad first impression (unless ofcourse its an interview) because first impressions usually do not last. Do not play your role too well, let your guard down and for once stop being finicky about saying the right things because it's only when you say the wrong things, you take the first step towards being youself.

Someone once said, "You can create a good impression on yourself by being right, but for creating a good impression on others there's nothing to beat being totally and catastrophically wrong."

(P.S: Sabu, you are one hell of a guy and Mr X, you are the turning and high point in my life !! Thank you both for being there.)

Miscalculated Rejuvenator !!!

Eavesdropping on the conversation, checking in on your partner's tweets/comments every 10 minutes (or maybe less), demanding a daily agenda from him/her, deciding on what he/she should wear, lecturing him/her on his/her possessions, keeping a detailed account of his/her minutes and seconds as well, vying to get his/her attention all the time and getting a detailed list of all his/her calls each month.

Scary?? I am sure it is. But true to the core. A lot of us would have come across such relationships: ours or the ones our friends have. People talk about personal space in a relationship but when we give way to a relation in our life, aren't we ourselves reducing the circumference of the personal space? Though the above mentioned account will make anyone scream for help, but what exactly is it that makes people stoop down (for the lack of better word) to such nightmarish attempts? When does insecurity starts to take place in a relation that should be about commitment and bonding? In an attempt to be possessive, most people end up intensifying the distance between two people, giving way to a lot of unwanted personal space.

I personally know of a person who was in a relationship with a girl for over three years. But when it came to dating other females for fun, it did not seem to bother him at all. From dating for fun to sleeping around, from showering his girlfriend with all possible love to not attending her calls for as long as a week, from being scared of commitment to professing his undying love for all the females that he was dating, from being there all the time to nowhere in sight, INFIDELITY was the name of the game!!

I do not know how many of you have seen Unfaithful but I am sure most us have seen Murder. Even after having a nearly perfect partner, what is it in people that steers them towards merely a looker? Why is the care and affection taken for granted? Why is it that people are always on a lookout for 'something better'?
There will always be a time in a relationship where there will be other things that will take over love, but that is just phase and it needs to be rekindled.

Remember melting into sheer gooey chocolate, being able to hear the blood sing in your veins, having your heart leap into your throat? That lightness of step and body? That thrill? The tingling of your fingernails? All this and more at just the sight of your loved one! When time seems to fly and hours become seconds? When you live for the next meeting, and, when the sound of the loved one's voice feels like drops of rain on parched desert sand.

Infidelity might seem like fun in the beginning but it does take an emotional toll on a person. What with leaving your partner for the other person, which one can't be too sure about. Such a relationship might offer stimulation and excitement but not without a price. The reasons for cheating on a partner might differ but it sure isn't a license to cheat. Romance is deception and we all live in that dream world of deception. Most of us would want that to be intact rather than coming face to face with our worst fears.

A very famous author once said: Never tell a loved one of an infidelity: you would be badly rewarded for your troubles. Although one dislikes being deceived, one likes even less to be undeceived.

(P.S: If you marry a man/woman who cheats on his/her wife/husband, You'll be married to a man/woman who cheats on his/her wife/husband!!)

Virginity: A curse or virtue???

During one of the preliminary rounds for the coveted title of Miss Fresher's, I was asked a question which I am sure most unmarried, Indian girls are still uncomfortable answering: Are you a Virgin and why? Not caring that it was an awesomely cute guy asking me this question, I said 'Dearth of good guys around'. And voila, I was selected for the semi finals though I was surprised at my own answer at that time.


The other day I was again having this conversation with a friend who is slated to get married in December and who is not a virgin. She was scared of her fiance getting to know about it. Happiness on one side and jitters of 'not being a virgin' on one side. I just asked her would it bother you if your fiance is not a virgin? She said it doesnt even bother her in the least. To this, I instantly replied, "what a hypocritic society we are living in?"


In a society of live-ins and open relationships, and a society where the divorce rates are higher than the marriage rates itself, we people are quick to label other people around us. By laying stress on virginity, aren't we devaluing the other women? Its like saying virginity surpasses love and commitment.


Some men may seek virgins because they want them as trophies, or desire purity while for others, it might be just an assurance to their own selves of being the only guy in the girl's life. We all want to and love to imitate westerners when it comes to dressing up or down for that matter, the fake accent that people carry, flaunting the names of cuisines of which one has no knowledge about, advocating liberal values and adapting to the so called modern society. But when it comes to women and their virginity, we are quick to label them as 's***s' who supposedly 'do it' before marriage.


The temptation to take the plunge becomes tough to resist, in a day and age when sex comes naturally in relationships of the heart. And modern day go-getters should have no qualms in accepting that their partners may have gone the whole way in their past affairs. But, despite some broad minded couples, there are still those who relate virginity to morality. For them the bond of the unbroken hymen still scores over the bond of love and commitment.


When you embark on a new journey of life, all that should matter to you is the present and the future. The gruelling task of chastising your non virgin partner should not even form a part of the life that you want to venture out on. Its best to let the bygones be bygones because the past baggage not only ruins the relationships, it also puts an end to the attempt of trying to give meaning to your new relationship. What should matter to you is the loyalty and commitment of the partner towards the current relationship and not making a hue and cry over an already dead relationship. 


Voltaire once said that, "It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue."

(P.S: Oops, did I forget to talk about hymen reconstruction?)

Of Guidance, Love and Affection!!!

From teaching me how to dress up to holding my hands and schooling me on table manners, from running morning marathons to endless basketball practice sessions, from lining up for meals to attending prep sessions, from endless gossiping sessions to being fed the most delicious plum 'chutney' and choco walnut cakes, from 'ragda' sessions to being taken for dinner at the 'gyani's', from teaching me patience to guiding me towards the right path....from being teachers to being my parents. I only wish I could thank you enough for what you have done for me.

I still remember appearing for the written admission test and not clearing it. And I also remember that I was hell bent on getting admitted to Pinegrove School. What I did next even surprised me. A 13 year old teenager who could not even speak english and who used to shiver at the very thought of facing strangers called up the headmaster of the school. And Heady the best part is you remember it. An Army person, strict to the core, personality to die for, command that could put anyone to shame, what was I thinking?

My parents were out of town and that was an opportunity enough for me to sneak out of my room and give this dictator a call. How can he not admit me? He admitted my sister and I am better than my sister in all the aspects or so I was told. It is said that each one of us comes across a life changing moment in our life and for me this was it and I still did not know of it. No one in her sane mind would have done what I did. After introducing myself, and asking him with a straight face as to why I was denied admission to his school, I asked him to cancel my sister's admission and admit me in her place. After all, it was just a matter of an year. If she was that brilliant, she could appear next year and still get admitted. After talking to him for about 20-25 minutes, I kept the phone and went back to my room and slept. My parents called me to their room in the night when they returned. Hell!! They surely got a call from the headmaster and I am so dead.

My boarding number is 94 and I had to join on the 28th of March and my sister was going with me. What??? Whoa!!! I was the happiest person. I mean I convinced him to admit me. Really???

My first day at school was no dream. As I had joined a little late, the results for the first units had been declared and there were some students who had failed. So what?? It happens all the time in day schools. But not here !!!

It was your b'day Naveen and I still remember you walking upto me and offering me that dairy milk chocolate with that coy and dimpled smile of yours. However, what I did not know was that you were about to become my friend for life.

Anyways, the students who failed got a treatment which I would not disclose here which made my dreams of living in a boarding school shatter. Untrue!! This was just the beginning of a wonderful life, My Wonderful Life!!!

Convincing Heady for trips and activities, endless gossiping sessions at Mrs Samiksha's office post dinner, Mr Patial's teachings on spirituality, guys hitting on Miss Babita, Mr Richard's English sessions, Mrs Bhatt's care, Mrs Batta's guavas and apples at her place, Mr Sandeep's IQ and his ability to talk on any topic, Mr Solomon's meetings for the Deodar House and his never ending motivation, Mrs Solomon's english lessons in the evenings, Mrs Dewan's hugging me tight when I was homesick, Mrs Deepika's overnight stays to make us feel comfortable, Mr Ranjan's pulling my ears to teach me Maths, Mr Chauhan's science lectures, everything here had a meaning to it.

From shivering and stammering while speaking in english to attaining first position in debate competitions, from not knowing how to tie my hair to guiding people on hairstyling, from not being able to write my parents a letter on saturdays to writing for papers, from being discouraged most of the time to encouraging my own students, from being incompetent to being told by people that this female can take on any person present in the room, you certainly did wonders to this girl from a small town.

Though my entire life would not be enough to thank you people for making me who I am and standing by my side whenever I have needed you, it feels good to have a day where I can thank you with all my heart and tell you that you are not only the best teachers of the world but are the angels who were sent to me by God to make me realise the importance of people in my life and my life itself.

HAPPY TEACHER's DAY !!!

Truly Yours !!!

A couple of days back, I travelled with this very sweet friend of mine and he always makes me think about one thing or the other. Such is his presence. Even if he speaks a sentence he will speak it with such passion that you start to think about the underlying issue, no matter what.

So what did we speak about???

Recently I had a very small tiff with a self claimed 'good friend' of mine. She loves to call herself an egoistic person. I say do it. But what happens when everyone around you starts to do the same? Coming back to where I started. This tiff with her got me thinking about FRIENDS!! What is it with this word that the world goes on and on about it? What are the boundaries for a friend? Is it OK to be jealous of your own friend? Is it considered 'cool' to brag about your own self all the time giving you pages full of advice? How much of your life do you discuss with your so called friend for life? How much of hurt is tolerable? Is it fine for them to judge you at all times? To be precise, where do you draw the line, if any?

I do not claim to have multitude of friends but I am so proud of the ones who I have. When people are asked, "What gives meaning to your life?" friendship figures at the top of the list. Yet the dynamics of friendship have remained mysterious and unquantifiable. Like romantic love, friendships are thought to "just happen."

I do not know how right I am in saying that the primary factor that binds all the relationships is trust and respect, which is again the toughest to maintain. I asked a couple of my friends to describe what they think about friendship and the answers were not really surprising. For some it meant sharing, caring, everlasting and blessing; for some it meant a part of them, extended family and the likes. Similar emotions flow through a lot of people when they talk about their friends.

For a person like me who is often a failure at keeping up with most friends, reciprocity is the key. I think we all are alike. We all put in efforts where we have the support of the second person and this seems to work in all relationships. If closeness forms the basis of friendship, it stands to reason that your best friend would be someone with whom you enjoy supersized intimacy. I have been friends with a few people for as long as 13 years now and the bond that we share has only grown stronger even if we do not talk for as long as a year. 

We are all aware of or even have in our lives, self proclaimed friends, egoistic friends, friends who have identity crisis, troubled friends, always there with you friends, funny friends, smart friends and all the other variety which I can't lay mind on. And for a lot us they are the siblings that God forgot to gave us. Whatever the case, like all relationships, this too works both sided. It is always better to let go off the 'Toxic' friends rather than letting them be the emotional vampires - draining all your energy reserves.

Just be yourself. It doesn't matter if you are not good enough for someone else.

(P.S: This ones for you Krits, Anni, Sabu, Navtej, Naveen.....You guys are my support system.)