So I just read this article by [Redacted] Guy (yes, that’s what he calls himself) about the ten things he wishes his dates wouldn’t do while out with him. He asks for suggestions, so here are mine. Considering it’s a long list (List! List! My favorite word again!), I put it up as a post. [...]

I hate it when writers pull stunts like that, making a book sound like something else in its title. I only bought it because the blurb described it as the male ‘Sex And The City’.

I wasn’t a pretty child. Oily skin, stringy hair, gangly long limbs. Then puberty came along, and like a fairy godmother, bestowed me with a complete makeover. Suddenly I had the passport into BabeLand.
That was an eon ago, long enough anyway to make me wonder whether the fairy godmother was really a wicked witch in [...]

I was watching ‘Wake Up Sid’ yesterday (ah, the joys of being master of your own time…a Monday afternoon movie with a friend!) when this thought occurred to me. I’ve complained long and hard about the Indian man being a perpetual mama’s boy. I also believe that this ingrained emasculated dependency comes from scores and [...]

This post was written a few months ago. While it may be said that I was in an anti-man phase then (and have presumably recovered now), I find the thought behind this post still holds true in my head.
~O~O~O~O~O~O~
It was a hectic week. Sunday lunch at my favorite restaurant, a midnight birthday party, a movie, [...]

The Knife comes up against a different kind of gender stereotype and defies it in his own way.
One opinion voiced in the article was that men cook by rules, follow recipes to the step… wouldn’t know that you can dilute coconut milk powder in water if there is no coconut milk and so on. The [...]

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More idea-toons here.

You may want to feel needed,
But that’s no reason to make me feel needy.
It doesn’t say much about your masculinity,
if it feels threatened by my independence.
I’d rather be alone
than with someone who needs to change me
I’d rather be alone
than be someone other than myself.

A woman plays a bunch of roles, doesn’t she? My job defies description.
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Well, what else is a woman to do??!
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I recently saw a movie about relationships and love. In one scene, a man and a woman meet in a department store and strike up a conversation over the cash register which continues till they walk out. Standing on the sidewalk, they talk, like any two strangers who’ve just met, of things that interest the other [...]

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More Idea-toons here

I’m reading a book called Rubbish Boyfriends. But hang on, that’s not all that’s responsible for this mood o’ mine. I’ve been talking (and talking and talking) to the following women:
A has been steadily (as opposed to happily) married to a ‘Who says we get it right the first time?’ pedigree-carrier.
B is married to the [...]

Some pictures of shy, demure, wallflower moi surfaced online. Nope, not paparazzi style ones, just a couple of shots from a tweet-party I went to recently. Result: I got called ‘cute’ by a Twerson (khee khee, tell me I’m funny!). Nobody calls me cute. I’m stopped in my tracks (briefly) and then decide to share my [...]

Message from Friend-Man,
I got a tattoo!
I call back and yelp,
Tattoo!! Seriously?
After much detailed description (and a few conversational blind alleys regarding location and image and colour), he admits that it’s a temporary one, ending with,
I’d never get a permanant tattoo!
To which I retort,
Yeah. It needs committment. And the willingness to bear pain. Not a man’s [...]

Any man, at any time can be Prince Charming.
And Prince Charming can turn into an ogre any time.
(Why the hell are men so moody?)
Of course, if you’re a Shrek fan, hold the converse to be true.

I need love, love, love
To ease my mind
I need to find, find, find
Someone to call mine
But mama said
You can’t hurry love
You just have to wait

- ‘You can’t hurry love’ Phil Collins
But mama also says (someone else’s mama, my mum and I don’t discuss such things)…a married friend’s mama says,
Don’t expect any kind of sense for [...]

Now this is a post that was in the making before I decided (for the umpteenth time) to commit blog-i-cide. And my blog-i-cide (I lurrrve that word, it’s an IdeaSmith original!) phase was over a year back so this is really a senior citizen of a post. I thought I’d burst when I found it, still [...]

I remember reading a review of Honeymoon Travels which described KK Menon’s character as thus:
He isn’t quite a male chauvinist, just an Indian man.
I didn’t quite get that at the time. Then I saw the movie and thought I understood a bit of what the reviewer was trying to say. KK Menon’s Partho is a [...]

They were in the same class. In my class.
She was the quintessential behenji in a hip crowd. Plaited hair, salwar-kameez and a sharp brain. In accordance to her curd-rice genes, she took copious notes, had a near-perfect attendance record and consistently high grades. She told me once that her ambition was to become like ‘one [...]