What women love and hate about men at the same time

Men can compartmentalize
To friends: My bf is incredible. Whatever's happening in his personal life never affects him professionally. And vice versa. I learn so much from him.

To him: Wtf! How can you just compartmentalize me like I'm an isolated part of your life? Why don't I ever affect you? How do you just go on with your day to day work without even bothering about how I'm feeling, while I stare at my phone waiting for you to call?

Men don't keep grudges.
To friends: Men are awesome. They fight and instantly make up.
To him: Don't be a sissy. You should really give it off to him.

Yes means Yes, No means No and I Don't Know means I Don't Know

Guy says Yes.

To him: You're sweet, you don't really mean that.
To friends: He's lying.

Guys says No.

To him: You're sweet, you don't really mean that.
To friends: He's lying.

Guy says I Don't Know.

To him: What are you hiding?
To friends: I'm sure he has a thing for that slut from his office.

Their feelings for Sachin Tendulkar
To friends: My bf is so cute. He literally had tears in his eyes when Sachin made his 200. Such a softy!

To him: You'll cry because someone, who can't possibly affect your life, achieved a milestone in their career? GODAWFULLAMENESS. Dravid retired. Boo-hoo get over it. Cricket is dead.

He bought you flowers, chocolates and teddys
To friends (before the break up): I'm overwhelmed! I never thought he had it in him. I can't believe he went through all this trouble. You should read what he wrote inside the card!

To friends (after the break up): I mean, after 6 years of being in a relationship he didn't know that I'm not the candy and flowers kind of a girl. The split was inevitable. #truestory

His feelings regarding shopping

He hates shopping

To him: I feel so alone, I need you to come with me. Pleeeeeease?

He loves shopping

To him: My God, you've tried seven T-shirts, pick two already! I still haven't bought any of what I needed. I'm sorry, did you just ask the Customer Service guy the benefits of the loyalty card? #truestory

They lech
To others: I hate it when men lech at us women. Where are the NGOs I say?
To self: I love it when men lech after me, makes me feel so sexy!

I completely understand why men have so much difficulty understanding women.

Ooh baby baby, it's a wild world

Rini here asked me to tell some stories from my childhood so I went digging into my past. Obviously a lot of stories are partially hearsay, you know like "Remember the time I was leaving for office and you peed on my formals?" Ehhhh...no, I don't. I didn't know peeing on clothes was a bad thing. At that age it was kinda involuntary, you know?

My dad keeps telling me how when I was born the nurses used to flock the nursery to gawk at me. I was the cutest little thing they had ever seen. My mom was going through some rough shit - her malaria and my low blood sugar, so she couldn't see me for about a day. And all the nurses used to gush and tell her "You have such a bonny baby!" which irritated her even more.

I don't know about bonny but given my short height, I'm certainly boni and given my plumpness, certainly not bony.

I was a cranky kid, not that I like to admit, but I wasn't the kind to mix up with everybody. I had my 2-3 specific people I would be chipkoed to all the time. But my mom was quite sick of carrying me around since I was a huge baby. True to my size, I was pretty loud and authoritative. (Which made me a nightmare during shopping)

One of the strangest stories I heard about myself was from the time I was five. (I went through a lot at five) My mom and I were at the Indian Central School in Baghdad to get me admitted to first grade and as my mom was talking to a teacher, I spotted a little girl being bullied by a bigger girl who was not letting her use the swing. Me being me, couldn't tolerate this injustice and walked up to the big girl and gave her an earful. The little girl got her wish as I walked away nonchalantly. Crusader Atrisa saved the day!

My mom took up a job with the same school and was teaching my class. Where everybody was wishing her "Good Morning, Ma'am", I was doing something "Ummmm good mmmming, mummy" Of course, my mom noticed, and boundaries were set. Bleh. Who calls their momzilla, "Ma'am"? Lame-O.

I was/am also quite the bukkhad. There's one famous story about how I hogged an entire dish filled with cashew nuts when my uncle first met my aunt. And we also had one party video documented where I could be seen with my entire 5 year old arm down a box of Pringles, which then emptied itself into my mouth.

Talking of my uncle and aunt, there is also their wedding video which shows me crawling under my aunt's wedding "throne" because my balloon took a little stroll inside. I've heard that story till my ears have bled.

So apparently I went great lengths to obtain food. My mom would take me out for golgappas and I would happily have more paani and then loudly make sounds like I'm dying of its spiciness till my mom would offer me a Pepsi. I was a clever kid!

A little dumb too. Once when I was like 8, I was singing in my room. Suddenly something hit me and I decide to share it with my family. I walked up to the dining table where everyone was having their dinner and I proudly announced "I think I sing like Anuradha Paudwal!" My entire family was in splits. Frankly, it was quite insulting. I thought Anuradha Paudwal was quite the shit, man!

I'll share two of my deepest darkest secrets with you. My name is pretty uncommon, rather difficult to remember, so I hated it and always wished I had another. My pick of names? Anita, Sheila, Mohini, Sohini. Also, when I used to play Miss Universe-Miss Universe with my cousins/friends, I used to be Suzanne from Germany. Yeeeaaahh. That's why kids don't name themselves. 

Also, I slept with my Barbies till 8th grade. I changed their clothes as per the time of day too. That was till my baby brother tore their heads off and chewed on their feet :S

This definitely needs a To Be Continued.

How Ridley Scott got my brain working for a 5 Metro station ride

So I just came back from watching Prometheus and certain scenes in the movie got me thinking about evolution.

Did you see how the 2000 year old humans present at that queer planet were so much bigger than the present day humans? Odd, isn't it? We all understand humans evolve over a period of time, good or bad irrespective, it's just a matter of how one perceives it.

So let's assume that humans, 2000 years ago, though had started agriculture, were hunters to an extent. So their bodies needed to be bigger and stronger. As we evolved, our bodies became smaller as we no longer needed to be of that built, neither have the kind of strength they did. Given how we've grown so accustomed to technology, lead a sedentary lifestyle and rely so little on hunting (directly), and given the depletion of natural resources, our guide to survival and natural evolution would result in our bodies becoming smaller.

When our bodies become smaller and weaker, hunting will go down to an extent. This might result in us relying more on vegetables, resulting in us becoming primarily a vegetarian society. On the other hand, let's assume that technology allows us to hunt a lot more with little human intervention.

If we do become a vegetarian society, two things will happen. The vegetation will go down as humans and animals both rely on the greens. Given that the number of animals have gone up, there could be a chance that herbivorous animals become carnivorous for survival and consume other animals and also humans, who will already be dying due to lack of vegetation. This is when human's survival tactics kick in and they start hunting again resulting in a gradual decrease of animals and lesser reliance on vegetation. Us becoming hunters again means we get bigger and stronger.

If we allow technology to hunt for us, the number of animals will go down considerably. Eventually we would have to rely on vegetation. And we become a vegetarian society.

Of course, here I'm not assuming that humans found a way to live on other planets. Also, I'm in no way a biologist and things written here might as well be the purest form of fiction :P

Did I ever tell you my and Darwin's birthday is on the same date? :) Also Lincoln. Maybe I'll write one political piece too. 

This post is too boring to be given a creative title

Ever since school I've had this strange fascination with World War II. I've read a considerable amount on it, atleast considerable in my context...some I remember, some I forget, but the essence of it remains the same. I am, till date, trying to find the answer to the question - How was it possible that a human being had such grave inconsideration for another human's life? To think that the value of one human's life is more than the other. The killing of 6 million Jews (the most popular death count) at the hands of Germans, calculated cold-blooded murder, mass murders orchestrated by highly educated men, PhDs playing Gods, innocent people treated like unsold & rotting commodities lying in a warehouse demanding careless disposal.

For years I've wanted to visit Auschwitz in Poland, home to the largest and the most gruesome concentration camps of all, and people always ask me if I feel ok. Why would I want to visit a place with such a terrifying history? I've often wondered about it myself. I came to one conclusion - we are fascinated by destruction. From the Colosseum to Monalisa's crooked smile, we're obsessed with the imperfect, the ruins, the morally or the financially bankrupt. There's a war and bam! there's a museum. A massive ship drowns in its first voyage and we give a tribute to it by making the most successful motion picture ever. Financial institutions crash and umm...ok we all got affected by it. There is something very raw and magnetic about downfalls. Nothing pristine and pure makes us feel more alive than seeing quiet mayhem. The story is so much more richer when you can't see what once was, because something was too perfect to exist, it was an aberration to real life. The reason why I was glued to youtube videos when last year's earthquake + tsunami happened in Japan. Often I imagine deaths or destruction around me. Earthquakes, houses crumbling to the ground, flyovers falling, airplanes nosediving. I can't explain it.

Clean is out, out of the bed look is in. Nobody wants to learn more about a sweet beautiful girl, everyone's attracted to the damaged one with tons of baggage. We get attracted to stuff we don't understand. Make a simple park a labyrinth and suddenly it's got more visitors. We don't understand happiness or relaxation. We constantly chase more responsibilities and attract pain, killing ourselves molecule by molecule just to feel alive. (Isn't it ironic, doncha think?)

I don't understand Hitler. I don't wish to understand his interpretation of Nietzsche but I can't help being baffled either. I can't imagine anybody being so strong headed that they not only not understand or have anybody put some sense into them, they also brainwash others. Tons of movies and documentaries have still not answered my question. How did an entire nation get swayed by the beliefs of one man?

What if I'm wrong? Will I magically agree with his reasoning the moment I step into Auschwitz? What if I'm claiming a moral high ground for the heck of it? I want to go there to discover how I might behave when I'm at the centre of where the basic grain of humanity was exploited day after day after day for years. Will I cry? Why will I cry? Or will I feel nothing? Do I want to go there just to check if I've become cold? Is this sadism? No, I'm not a Jew sympathizer, neither am I an "Aryan" hater. It's not about the literal. It's mostly never about the literal.

Neither here, nor there

I just can't seem to write songs that don't sound lame :)

*******

Neither here, nor there

I've been waiting but I don't know what for

You disappear, in a blink

but you come back for a little comfort in my home

every now and then

you assure me this can't go on, it is over

and I hope that you will take a stand 

but you're neither here, nor there

so I'm neither here, nor there

This time ask me to stay forever or let me go

I can't base my own life as per your whims and your fancies

No love is lost, but we're lost in this spiral of confusion

you're taking us both down

you're taking us both down

You can be anything you want 

as long as it's not hurting me and my pride

And I lay my love on the line 

but it isn't fair for you to walk all over it

and every now and then

you assure me this can't go on, it is over

and I hope that you will take a stand 

but you're neither here, nor there

so I'm neither here, nor there

This time ask me to stay forever or let me go

I can't base my own life as per your whims and your fancies

No love is lost, but we're lost in this spiral of confusion

you're taking us both down

you're taking us both down

I can't remember anything before you

and I don't want to find myself in a life without you in it

but I have to be strong, you need to right the wrongs

you're right, we can't go on living this way

we're neither here, nor there

you'll take us both down

down down down

Blahness

I've not been blogging or facebooking a lot lately. I just can't relate to a lot of stuff that I've been seeing. And even if I can relate it to it just all makes my life seems trivial, like it has been reduced to a cliché, it's all too generic, too mainstream.

I mean, am I still whining about a broken heart and sharing Thought Catalog articles on Things I've Learned From Getting Dumped and saying "Oh my God, this is so true!!!" when others are getting married and setting up households? They must really laugh at me and thank their lucky stars that they're so way past all this childish stuff, thinking "Oh! We did the same. Now that we're married those things sound almost laughable" People are making babies...BABIES...or Baby whatever, and here I am still crying in front of my parents about a few bad weeks at work.Why am I stuck on 22 at 27? What are my age appropriate things? If Ira Dubey is worried about aging in her late 20s, should I buy an Olay Total Effects too?

And then I've joined so many brand pages on facebook, my entire newsfeed looks like brands are my only friends. If it's not that, then people are boasting about various stuff. And I wish I had atleast that. All I do online is check out all these shopping websites and drool over shoes and bags and realizing what a long way I've come from the time I was a 14 year old tomboy whose mom insisted her to wear makeup.

That's all I have to say. I'm really not enjoying this phase of my life. If I wasn't a generally extra-cheerful person, I'd be quite depressed. I wonder if the word Blahness has been introduced in the English dictionary.