Not a Big Deal !!!

For starters, I suck at bargaining. I just CAN'T bargain. To make matters worse, I grew up shopping with a mom and sister who somehow thought that bargaining was the national pastime of India. So I've spent many a days hearing newly opened shop owners explaining it to my mom that she couldn't have been a "regular patron for years". My sister has taken the practice to an all new level where she applies psychological techniques to choose her victims. "This guy is young. So I'll try the whole sweet 'hey, I'm buying this with my pocket money' angle" vs. "This guy is older and looks like a lesser scumbag and so I'll call him 'bhaiya' angle" - Sissy has tried to teach me.

Obviously, being a male and fairly expressionless nullifies the appropriateness of either of these approaches for me. So occasionally I just try to sound authoritative and say, "No way. That's way too much!" and wait for some kind of magical discount to be offered. Sometimes this makes the situation even more tricky coz the dealer backfires with "How much are you willing to pay?" Now, if you're like me, you'll have no freaking idea to what a good price for the item is. I am in Bangalore for the 2nd year now & come December i wanted to buy a Santa Claus hat . The night before Christmas, I was roaming around on the bike with my wife when I spotted this guy selling these hats on the road. So I stopped and asked him, "How much for a hat?"

"Hundred rupees," the guy said.

"That's way too much," I feigned an authoritative tone.

"Aap kitna dengey (How much will you pay)?" he fired back.

Ahaaa! Exactly what I hate. Suddenly the seller and all the other customers were looking at me. From an unsure customer I had become the star of the show and I had to perform. I knew I had to say something and I knew I had to say it fast.

"Seventy five rupees," I finally said, putting on a "been there done that" expression on my face.

"Ok! Take it," the guy said without blinking.

What? Obviously I got duped. Nobody would have sold off a hat without putting up a fight if my quote had been remotely competitive. But I had no idea what an intelligent guess would've been. I'd never bought a Santa Hat for myself. So how was I supposed to know? I couldn't have just fired back with, "Nope! Won't pay you seventy five. How abt fifty then?" Everybody around us who were already convinced that I was idiot would then think that I wore a matching mask of stupidity as well.

As you can see, I haven't forgotten the incident till date ( Yes, the incident happened yesterday & well today is today. The date has changed since yesterday & hence its grammatically & politically correct to say ' that i havent forgotten the incident todate ). What is more scary is that I haven't learned anything from it either.

Does any kind soul reading this have any "quick tips" on the "art of bargaining"?

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Profundity at Work

This came up in a conversation sometime last week at office and shows my deep insightful philosophical side :)

"I don't mind doing anything new as long as you don't ask me to do something I haven't done before."

The Questionary Number Paradox

Over the past few days I've been privy to some very amusing relationship tit bits and it has reaffirmed a long held opinion of mine - before marriage men have lots of relationships and women mostly have none ... or so they say.

Seriously, ask ANY unmarried man if he's had any relationships in the past. To us it's a vanity number. Ages back it was the moustache that defined the man, but now it's the number of women they can call their "girl friend". I've seen friends of mine mention "relationships" that lasted two group dinners and a refused telephone number exchange :) It's not too far fetched to imagine this conversation for a man:

Man: Will you be my lover?
Woman: Nah!
Man: Will you at least sleep with me?
Woman: Nah!
Man: Can we be just friends?
Woman: Nah!
Man: *I think she secretly likes me and is playing hard to get. Good. One more to my list. Now I have dated ten women.*

Hence men (and I've been accused of this too) flash back to stories abt their exes. Number One did this, Number Two didn't do this, Number Three might have done this ... :) That's us. Virility is no longer abt sperm count ... it's the ex count that puts the ex in sex for us :)

HOWEVER, women are very different. Chastity is the order of the day for the ladies. Ask a girl, "Were you and X dating?" "Dating? We barely knew each other *for ten years*" In my limited experience, women adopt a much milder tone when it comes to classifying past paramours. "Friends" takes the cake most of the times, often appended with a "good" to give a slightly elevated value; sometimes they say "we almost dated" and occasionally they'll gush out a "yeah! We dated briefly BUT IT WAS NOTHING SERIOUS".

To sum it up, I propose the questionary number paradox - if every single man has dated ten single women and every single woman has never dated a single man then something is wrong ... hmmm!

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I wonder, ponder & finally surrender :

In most of my fights with my wife I always had the last word ... and it was normally "Sorry!"

Bone of contention !!!

Please explain this to me - what's so cute abt dogs???? I don't dislike dogs (even though they seem to bear some dislike towards me and have expressed it in terms of emotions ranging from barking to using me as a lamp post). However, I do turn a mild shade of envious green every now and then courtesy the barking specie.

Today, on my way back from lunch outside, I noticed a little crowd around a pillar. A little brown dog was tied to it and a wide range of people had gathered around the pillar to exchange "Wow!", "Ooooooooh!", "Awwwwwee! Shoooooo shueeet!" and the likes. This is not the first time that I saw such a scene but it was probably the first time that I took time out to evaluate the whole situation ... and, well, I failed to fathom any bit of it. I tried to imagine myself tied to a pillar, on all four limbs, with a leash around my neck, maybe even with very little clothing on, and also imagined the kind of reaction that I'd evoke in all likelihood.

"Oh! finally they chained him. Good!" I can imagine bystanders saying.
"They should have done it a lot earlier." Another one would add in.
"He looks a lot thinner with his shirt on!!"

Seriously. I can't imagine anybody stopping and offering me food. I can't imagine anybody using sugary superlatives for me. I can't imagine anybody asking the person standing next to me how old I was or whether they owned me. (On a separate note, have you noticed how everybody assumes that the person standing closest to the dog is the owner? i have often contemplated just standing next to a tied dog and claiming its ownership, just to strike random conversations.) Bottomline, I don't have an iota of doubt that a tied and underfed me would evoke very little sympathy and love from people.

So what else could it be? Is it the fact that they are furry?? Do people like to see naked furry creatures. I instantly imagined Anil Kapoor, all naked, tied to a lamp post. Naaaaaa! I wouldn't be very thrilled to see that and correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think too many others would either. For that matter, I'll pay NOT to see that.

So what else could it be? Do we find their wet nose endearing? Then how come when I have a cold, people shy away from me? How come no one that I know of would find me cute if I tried to smell my own buttock? Dogs (and almost all other pets) never brush their teeth and one of the first things that women do when they spot a dog, is go right in front of their mouth and do the whole "Uuuuuju bujjjuuuu" garble act. These are the same women who ask you early in the morning when you sweetly offer them breakfast ( or for that matter before sleeping in the night) - "Have you brushed your teeth? Have you brushed your teeth? Have you ..."

And to make matters really bad, the other day I saw two dog owners taking their dogs out on a walk. While the two men exchanged pleasantries abt how the weekend was going to be spent, the two canines vigorously tried to engage in acts of sexual pleasure. Acts that would scandalize any man, woman, child or Samit Basu's Eric Seagull. And yet, the two men were highly amused by this and commented on how this was soo funny. Correct me if I'm wrong here. Many Indian kids are a lot more sexually frustrated compared to domesticated dogs. Have you ever seen two such kids on the road with their respective parents, trying to grope each other, with their parents saying - "Oh! Mrs. Kapur, it's so funny to see them kiss and fondle. We should do this every more often!"

I give up!

A Cut to the Chase !!!

"Haircuts!! Oh haircuts! What a pain in the rear side you art." I think Billy Shakespeare said that in some classic play. Ooops. It wasn't the bard. I think I just said that line instead. Seriously. Oh dear haircuts, what a scene maker you are!

I admire (or maybe envy) women for their haircutting ease. They know exactly what they want. I was once accidentally allowed inside a women's beauty parlour where my sister had gone for a haircut and I was awestruck by the preciseness of her requirements. "A step cut ... till here (gesticulating a point below her shoulder) ... I'll also get highlights ... blah blah shade ... only this part out here (once again using extremely precise gesticulation) ..." Wow! I said to myself. Boy, does my lil sissy know what she wants. As a man I'm always at a loss of words when I enter the barber's shop. Let me elaborate.

See the biggest problem with men is that they are not very sure what they exactly want. Like I know I want my hair spiky. But I'm scared to tell my barber that. "I'd like to get a cut that helps me keep my hair spiky ..." "What kind of spikes?" he cuts me short. "What?? They have kinds of spikes? When did that happen?" Darn! There goes that adventure. So I give in to my standard "Cool. Just cut it short then" routine and he readily obliges.

Occasionally we know exactly what we want. It's that thing So and So actor did in So and So movie. I know. But then as member of the group of men who are always insecure abt revealing that they are aware of any kind of style, I too am embarrassed to ever make the statement "I want a cut like blah blah did in that cool movie." So once again I put my creativity into play and try to describe what exactly I think the cut is like and the result is disastrous more often than not. For example if I try to tell them that I want my jute like hair cut like Shahrukh Khan's in some movie (Oh come on all you men, you must have wanted some SRK hair style at some point), I end up saying "Well ... err ... I'd like to keep it ruffled but ... err a lil spiky as well ... like err ... well ... you know ... errr ... you know what, just make it short"!!!!

The funny part is that the barber's always try to help us out by having a chart of different hairstyles on their wall. This kinda seems to be a Universal trend intended to alleviate the aforementioned problems. You know what I'm talking abt, right? That strange collection of extremely happy looking guys in all sorts of hairdos. Personally speaking, I feel, that these models are normally friends or relatives of the Barber himself. Seriously! Do you think any professional model ever wants to be a hair style model whose only moment of fame is on walls of barber shops??? But that's a separate story! For now let's go back to my plight - have you seen these charts? They all seem to be from the seventies. They all have that one gleeful guy who sports the erstwhile Govinda look. Ahem! Ahem! Now I know I'm not that young ... but Govinda is still old enough to be my father (or at least my uncle)!!!

There are other things that men have to deal with abt hair cuts that women don't have to deal with I guess. For example the whole after the haircut show the back of your neck using a mirror routine. I've got myself haircuts in quite a few places around the World and they all do this. Just before they are done, they bring a mirror and hold it close to your neck and you are supposed to see the mirror in the other mirror and pass on some compliments or at least acknowledge a job well done by giving a gracious nod. No seriously. What's that whole routine for? Have you ever seen any guy who has said "No that's not what I wanted with the hair on my neck!!" Coz by the time they show you the mirror - the haircut is done. It's not like the hair that you can see during the cut and actively give suggestions abt. I must have seen a few thousand men go through this act and not even once have I seen anybody complain after this whole two-mirror routine. You know why? Coz we don't have a freakin frame of reference. What are we comparing this too? Do we really care? You must have heard men express their dissatisfaction abt the haircut in front ."No, I want it a lil shorter here" or "I want the side burns trimmed thinner" etc. But have you ever seen a man who said anything after the two-mirror routine? NO! Coz we do not care. I think the whole thing is a marketing gimmick. That way the barber always ends the cut with us feeling that we have nothing to complain abt.

Hmmmm!Such hair raising stories these are!!

My Homage to those who went unmentioned !!!

A lot of times when I'm talking to someone or when I'm traveling, I get these funny thoughts that I feel are blog-mention-worthy. Later when I sit down in the morning to put something on my blog I often wonder what those ideas were. At times all I remember is that some of them were very funny (to me) and amusing (to me again) but then the volatility of my memory prevents me from inflicting them (on you). Sometimes they come back at a later stage and express their grudge at not getting their deserving web space and I assure them that I'll pay them their dues. However, like all men I falter - my words alter - thoughts saunter.

So this post is dedicated to all those blog posts that I wanted to make but forgot. Interestingly enough, the idea for this post struck me yesterday afternoon and I remembered it till now - see, I'm indeed learning from my mistakes.

"Ghadi ghadi drama karta hai sala," a thought whispers in my head. I know it's a line taken from the Big B classic Sholay. However, I don't protest!

Out-dated..... or should i call Out-witted !!!

I have been reading a few blogs lately which have been written by friends from the opposite sex.... while most of them are die-hard feminists, one of them out smarts them all. Recently she wrote a post in which she lists out top ten ways in which men can spoil a date. I must confess that she does a great job in capturing the male behavior. But alas you get to see just one side of the story. Think abt what's going on in the male mind. Agreed that as long as the woman in front is a woman, the man will be pretty happy. But the woman sure CAN make things difficult for the male specie. So here it goes. Top five ways in which women can spoil a date for a man. (why five and not ten you ask? Well simple, coz I write excruciatingly loooong posts and want to spare you the trouble).

1. She makes you wait and wait and wait and wait ... And it's not just the wait. It's the way they build up the whole wait that bugs men the most. The feeling that the wait it almost over and ... and ... and ... more wait. So you drive all the way to the other end of the city to pick her up and she told you that she'll be ready at 6:30 pm SHARP. You ring the bell and she opens it hastily and says "Give me JUST ONE MORE MINUTE!" And then she disappears. The seconds hand of your watch makes a twenty second round of the circumference and still she doesn't come back. Ten minutes later she comes and says, "I'm soooo sorry. My friend called me up just before you came and her ..." You cut her short with the contrived smile and say "No problem. Take your time." And she does. She disappears again and returns fifteen minutes later looking exactly the way she did when she opened the door first. Please freakin explain it to me what feat was accomplished in this time period. Anyway, that was techniqo UNO in which women can spoil a date even before it starts.

2. Spend an hour deciding what she wants to eat. Men always know what they want to eat. We don't think twice and we DON'T mix food varieties. Our answer is always "Chinese" or "Indian" or "Pizza" or whatever - but it is always one word. For all you know we even have a restaurant in our mind and if the guy is like me - he even has the menu chalked out. But then we are gentlemen and we ask the fairer sex what they want and there begins round two of the wait. "You know what I feel like eating? I'm in a very Pizza-ish mood ... but I also want to have this amaaaaaaaaaazingggggg chocolate ice cream they sell in this shop on the other side of the city ... Actually you know what'll be great? My friend went to SOME Japanese restaurant where the sushi was great ..." Yup! Date spoiling technique Deux.

3. Have another appointment for the same evening. Ladies - this is a simple dating rule - when you go out on a date you JUST go out on a date. Don't start with, "I have to be back home in two hours. Coz my friend's sister is getting married and her fiancee ..." That aint fair o fairer sex. When a man goes out with a woman he hopes at the bottom of his heart that something exciting will happen at the end of the night. And for that he is willing to wait for years if need be. Ask your male date if he is willing to accompany you to the other end of the country and say that with a wink and he WILL accompany you there - with nothing but a faint hope in his heart. That's how desperate my specie is. So please return the favor by keeping the date "other engagement free"!

4. Eating the other person's food. This is another female classic. As I mentioned earlier - men have their menu all chalked out in their mind and they stick to it. Women on the other hand, always experiment with their food and then fall back on the man's plate for the safe meal. Who the fudge asked you to order "Apple with chicken broth in the first place?" And now that you have ordered it - suffer with it. Don't eye my Sweet and Sour Chicken dish please. And it always begins with, "Can I take a small bite from your dish?" You smile and say "Yes" and she obliges and the bite is instantly followed by "Wwwwwoooow! This is sooooo good. Do you mind if I take another bite?" And if that was not enough, they then add salt to the wound by gracefully offering you their discarded dish. Aaaaaarghhh!

5. Keep the cell phones off - will ya? I don't know abt other guys but if I'm out with a woman, the only calls I receive are from other cuter women :) What's this with the annoying best friend calling every fifteen minutes into a date. Here you are talking about how you love Apple with chicken broth when her phone rings. She says the customary "One sec!" and then continues for ten minutes and at the end you get a 2 second summary. "It was my best friend. They are going for a movie." What?????? That's what you guys discussed for ten minutes. What was she doing? Telling you the story of that freakin movie or what?

Evidently there are other things that can go wrong. But men are easy to please. Even if you have messed up the whole evening you can make up for it by leaning towards him at the end of the evening and just when he thinks it's a dream come true - your best friend will call you coz her movie just got over :)

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Musings : Sometimes during romantic feuds with my wife, I wish that love was deaf and dumb and not blind.

On Making Blogs Popular

A few friends of mine informed me that they liked my blog - giving vanity an ego boost. This makes me wonder with a zillion blogs available how does one increase the visibility of a blog. I remember an anecdote my teacher used to tell me using G. B. Shaw's name as the protagonist's. Apparently Shaw would go to various publishers and enquire about "Bernard Shaw's latest book". The simple scheme worked for Shaw and the rest was history.

A close friend of mine, has a fairly well visited blog and his secret lies in the fact that he creates a collage of interesting news snippets for his blog. This initially attracted a lot Google hits and now he has a fairly dedicated user base.

There are other blogs which deal with specific issues and therefore have a dedicated user base. This makes me wonder how to make my blog more visible. More importantly - do I want to make my blog more read? The answer is yes - for a blog like mine, which does not take a stance nor discusses issues of social/technical/gastronomic/farcical importance the only reason for writing is to be read. Why else would I publish stray thoughts on the web instead of storing them in a local Word file of my computer. "Elementary, my dear Watson" - the answer is to be seen and read by all and sundry. Even though I offer nothing in form or content, my mind hopes to gather a "reader-base".

Will it or won't it - that's the question only time will answer !!!

Hmm... As they say 'Patience is a virtue'

Shhhhhhhhhhhhh ... shhh!!!

Oh a million thanks to the kind woman who recommended the subject of this post. The "famous silent treatment" that women have forever ushered on the male specie. The weapon that can penetrate hearts that even generous bottles of free alcohol couldn't. The weapon that my grand mom used effectively and passed on to my mom. The same weapon that my sister uses on her boyfriend now and my mom secretly smiles, revelling in how the student has caught up with the master. If the bard was here today he would've said "Oh what a million words could not attain, a moment of silence did ..." Ladies and gents ... my one fiftieth of a dollar on one of womankind's most lethal strengths ...

No trick of the book is as deceptive as this one. All you have to do is keep mum!! Say nothing. It's that simple. Ideally all of us should be able to do it, right? This is when the buzzer rings and the red bulb flashes. Wronggggg!!!! The Silent Treatment is a master's art. One which is subtlety at its best. There are so many parameters and nuances - how long do you keep quiet, when do you start, how do you make the man realize that it's the silent treatment he is being subjected to and not just a peaceful day, what do you say to finally break the silence ... get it? What seems like a simple two step process (keep quiet, speak) is actually more complicated than tying your shoe laces with your arms tied behind your back.

For starters, silence will not buy you the reaction of remorse you want to see in your man. Because just silence will reveal it instantly that you are upset and the man will start with his acts of seeking (or is it pleading) forgiveness pronto. The silent treatment is like coffee - real pleasure requires prolonged simmering. So the trick is to not be completely silent but instead, be decreasingly vocal.

"Wanna go out for dinner?" the man would ask.

"No," you reply. Not a word more. Don't explain anything. Make him wonder if it's actually the beginning of the silent treatment or if it's just a terse reply.

"Wanna go for a movie?" he'll ask you soon, to reaffirm his fears.

"No," you reply again.

That's when the man gets freaked out. He's almost sure that he is being served the mother of all doses but he still has a spec of doubt.

"Are you angry?" he'll ask. Now you will be able to sense the urgency in his tone.

Don't say NO this time. Just nod your head. Maybe add "No, I'm fine."

This is when the man officially freaks out. See the reason why the silent treatment is so effective is because men never know what the woman is so angry for. It's the suspense that drives us nuts. Now all men know they screw up. More times than they should. So there is the guilty moments playing medley in their mind. However, they are just not sure which one blew his lady up.

"Is it because I called up your friend?" "Is it because I did not wash the dishes after eating?" "Is it because I called your mom fat and dad fatter? WHAT IS IT? Tell me. Tell me." They go berserk in no time.

And that is amazing for the ladies. Without saying anything they figure out all the things they should've been angry for - and that just adds on to their aggression.

At this point ladies, turn up the volume of the act. Gesticulation is thrown in. Start twitching your lips. Do the fake "I'm abt to cry and my eyes are almost red" eye motion. Maybe even sniff and breathe a few sighs. That'll scare the crap out of the man. Coz as I mentioned, the beauty of the Silent Treatment is that men have no clue how severe their blunder is and how long the ordeal will continue. It's like watching a Hindi soap on TV - ever week you think that the drama has reached it's peak but things still go on for fourteen years!!!!

And finally the outburst. Don't mess that up ladies. Then you have a great movie with a lame climax. Don't just blurt out "You forgot our five month three day anniversary" and spoil the classic moment. Either shout out loud or shed a few tears when you finally speak - but whatever you do pose the crime back to him as a question - "You don't know why I'm angry? Right? Ask yourself ..." Yes, this will just blow up your man. Then he knows that he is standing in the face of a canon - just waiting for you to blow it up!! And then .... go for the kill.

Sorry men. The silent treatment does NOT work on the ladies. They just think it's blissful silence. Also if done for long enough they don't serve you dinner and just say "If you were hungry, you should have just asked for food."

So face it - we might score one up on them by peeing while standing - but when it comes to winning the battle with minimum words - they say(?) it best!!!

Offering Free Choice (shipping and handling extra)

The girl next to me in the counter looked pretty agitated. "I don't care what you meant. All I know is that I was sitting alone and studying for my finals and my boy friend was out with some other girl partying," she spurted into the cell phone in a semi-weepy tone. I couldn't hear what the boy friend said but there was a brief period of silence and then the girl spoke again. "I simply don't care. DO WHAT YOU FEEL LIKE!" ... and a post was born.

The classic "DO WHAT YOU FEEL LIKE!". Almost legendary. One of the biggest weapons in an angry dame's armory. What the line actually means is "YOU BETTER DO WHAT 'I FEEL LIKE' BUT I WONT TELL THAT COZ THEN YOU'LL SAY THAT I'M BOSSY. INSTEAD I'LL EMOTIONALLY BLACKMAIL YOU AND MAKE YOU FEEL TERRIBLY GUILTY FOR WHATEVER IT IS THAT YOU WANT TO DO SO THAT ULTIMATELY YOU DO WHAT I WANT U TO DO."

Yes! rarely has the true meaning of a sentence been so different from its original form. Just ask yourself, have you ever heard this conversation take place:

Boy: Hey do you mind if I go out with the guys for a drink?

Girl: Not at all (with a huge glee). You should do what you feel like. After all that's what a true relationship is, right? Actually you know what, you should go out with the guys every week.

Naaay! That doesn't happen. It's more like:

Boy: Hey do you mind if I go out with the guys for a drink?

Girl: Do what you feel like (and a classic sulk). But remember that when Reena wanted me to go shopping with her last week, I didn't. Just because I didn't want to leave you alone. So do whatever you feel like doing. After all it's your (said with a huge stress on the word) choice.

As I was thinking all this I heard the weepy tone turn to feigned coyness. "Ok then. Just don't tell me later that you did this for me. See you at nine then." She hung up the phone and smiled a contented smile.

I knew that the guy did exactly what (s)he felt like.

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Baffling ? - They say "let the best man win" but then why is it that it's not the "best man" that marries the girl?