Fickle ,thy name is woman!!!

Have never understood Shakespeare better...had never really felt the depth of Hamlet's anguish!!

Does caprice adorn the female brow alone or is it the human soul which is malignant??

Is a man capable of what a woman is? Or does the woman alone don the garb of irresolution with much tenacity ,such that she deserves the disgrace??
Does the dainty countenance belie the traitor ,back-stabber beneath it??
Yea...folly is human nature but does the woman ace it??

I for one can spend hours rummaging through the typified "he-said-she-said" nonsense which have accumulated from irrelevant,unimportant incidents .And then go onto exhibit the rightly presumptuous girl behavior--hashing,rehashing "what could have been said, how it could have been said".Gross unjust wastage of time,innit?? Nah!! not to a woman..have had the fortune of knowing scores who go through d dilemma daily.

And then there is the legendary temperament which is an attribute of the living but what leaves you flummoxed are the "Y's" which accompany audacious women-on-women behavior.

Yeah,yeah..go ahead make your life easier and blame it on PMS.

Though being a part of the clan for the past 26yrs now should have taught me better than to get zapped.And why would you concur is she more benignly evil, more oxymoronic...more jealous and more Woman...(pun intended)!! As they say she always has her revenge ready!

All the ruminations have reminded me of a poem i once recited not utterly aware of its claim but still admiring Kipling's work:

"Unprovoked and awful charges—even so the she-bear fights,

Speech that drips, corrodes, and poisons—even so the cobra bites,
Scientific vivisection of one nerve till it is raw

And the victim writhes in anguish—like the Jesuit with the squaw!

And Man knows it! Knows, moreover, that the Woman that God gave him
Must command but may not govern—shall enthral but not enslave him.
And She knows, because She warns him, and Her instincts never fail,
That the Female of Her Species is more deadly than the Male."

The female of the species is more deadly than the male!!!

Things i luv abt...

Fruit Beer at Dilli Haat

Chicken Momos at an astounding 20rupees a plate

Orange n fuschias being primary colors

Prettiest shoes starting at 15$

City centre chennai wd a view of d beach

Rann of Kutch n d white salt of d arabian

Phulkaris lined up in Patiala Bazaar

Khanna's malai kulfi

People thronging d roads n nosing into everybody's busy bizness

The scrummy roadside food...getting loosies n cursing the ungloved vendor...

I wudnt be indian if i dint like bolywud

Parking at all alignments

Home delivered groceries

Public transport at ur doorstep

Colaba causeway n medieval pubs

Diwali & the render-u-deaf crackers

Chunky silver jewellery at Janpath

Horse riding to the hilltops

Mithai, mithai..mithai....oh hw i miss India..

Mirage

When i opened my eyes , it was to languish in the drunken sleep,
the one that came when i knew i was complete...
i took time to relish the joy hitherto unknown,
to know i could yet be complete again....!!!!
it was then that i knew what treasures unbound,
what an inexplicable bliss was love!!

The molten fire burnished high in the horizon..
the sand melted into paradise,the oasis,
where rivulets of life cascaded...
It was the mirage..the illusion of happiness i opened my eyes to.
I felt around around for him ,telling myself...
i searched n searched...never for a moment believing
that forever was not to be mine...

it pierced the dead slumber,waking the voices of yore
the ones that ache for love unrequited.
it was one of them or was it the never before
it was a howl, a mute pain , a journey to bottomless chasms
it was where hell brought pleasures unknown
where misery came but froze in my eyes
where words came but breath did not...
it was then i knew how dear joy was..
it was there is those open spaces,
in that joy,in that pain, in that oasis
in that mirage,i died another death.......

---My rendition of Sassi Punnu

Ka-ching !!!

Money talkies.....!!!Ever wondered how much does the ching & bling rule the world???Apparently it runs it!! Its the universal lanuage of well-being,respect & power!!No not just dat, its also beauty,intelligence & guts personified ...

If you asked the neanderthal, those were the things you were born with.The former you could always buy. Aha, we are smarter now!!

So why do we strive so hard to emulate the out-of-bounds??What's all the ruckus about branding , is it a symbol of financial stability or a moniker for overflowing buck in our cashbuks??

Does that big rock on my ring-finger say i am loved & cared for??Does my bucket list read "Making it to the elite club" ??

Is it soo damn important to be rich n beautiful..??.. to strive for the stars??...phew!!!hasn't satisfaction become elusive...I admit in all honesty that am too like the saucer-eyed scrooge seeing green!! But what really makes me wonder, are our mental coffers bottomless or simply the financial ones??Is there a limit or a method to the madness??Or is it the same vicious circle as the one the greedy king Midas found himself in?? ..how much is much too much??

The relentless media lobbying ensures that needs & desires spell synonymous.And capitalising human emotions is now every marketing guru's forte..No doubt ,whether its selling happiness via Mastercard or a baby Surdy selling Maruti. ,its always a win-win for the economist.Playing poker via EQ...damn..we are so easily lured!!

From how i see it... as long as the have & have-nots rule the people-judging game,the mad rush for the material would never end!!No ones to blame ,the almighty dollar exerts a huge centripetal.
Soo would you rather be a man-magnet or money magnet??..no,don't answer...let the earth spin,the sun rise & nature take its course. And lets simply rewrite the vows--for richer & more richer......till the alimony sets in..!!!

Take me home...

When the golden rust falls of the leaves,

when the balmy breeze turns into an aria...

when the pale gold washes the heaven,

when the world is painted a Van Gogh

I reminisce,i ponder,m lost.

The grains in the hour-glass have halted...

Footsteps on the red earth

I can't remember when it was last..

when it was...i had been closer to me..

The flames kindling on the red hearth beckon,

the chromes, the ochres & browns are home..

This is it,i tell myself,yet again.

this is it,my panacea,my elixir,my abode!!!

Fashion for all!!

Well , it was never for the ugly betties but how much of it is plain ludicrous.I mean how do they expect the runaway to trickle down into our wardrobes without encountering aesthetic-suicide!!

We all had our eyes on the Spring-summer Maxi or the hitch hiker's Mini ,but when it comes down to the real street fashion how many of us can really pull it off??

Pulling it off the rack & into our shopping carts ,we can all manage,but at the risk of sporting a Bridget Jones or should i say a Tyra banks(in the blue jumpsuit on the right)...??Who are we kidding??Meanwhile if those overly-puffed up sleeves were supposed to balance the mutton-leg show,it fails miserably!!

Why are the most adorable of clothes, not in a desperate-to-be-decent length???Why do all beautiful dresses end up at an upward of 30" , barely mid thigh!!!

The ancient Chinese prescription of feet-bound women translated into an erotic gait & literally meant less independence for the fairer sex.Hobnobbing through life with your feet in mummy bandages ...wonder if fashion today is any different??Not when we adopt these-- a fusion of a sky-rocketing stiletto & the gladiator...

The trend of the oversize!!Alas ..this cyan clutch is so damn

beautiful..the color is absolutely sinful..but since it

suffers from gigantism..will have to give this one up...I am usually an overtly confident person but frankly it would take me eons to muster up enough fashion -petulance to carry this one off.

Now why would you screw a beautiful Fendi clutch,the chick in white is walking down with that one.Simply can't make out if its an over-priced file folder or a tool-kit!!

The silhouette of this kinda clutch invariably remains the same--the flattened-out rectangle & the purpose--an evening bag,then why the ginormous dimensions??

The carry-all!!(c below)This one i have to own up of indulging in.Well like most females ,got blinded by one asset(color in my case) & was totally side-tracked from the practicality.But i managed to put it to good use..it went onto become be my weekender or vacation bag..So more often than not its graced by Pringle-debris & melting Musketeers..besides other things.Its good for a lot of junk in the trunk but one you can forget about foraying through.I have to admit,the practicality aside its a damn heavy load to carry ,why not carry a knapsack instead??

But for the fashion-addict ,what does one possibly need over the course of a day which one absolutely can't live without?? A bag of diapers ..a laptop perhaps...or groceries maybe....Katieee..why did you do this??

P.S. "The Foundation for Chiropractic Progress " quotes these popular purses cause postural imbalance which may have dire consequences for spinal discs ,nervous systems besides back pains & headaches...now who has the last laugh!!

The Harem.This one i have been dying to try but the Vanity sizing wouldn't help.I am not a zero-zero or a 2 or a 4 for that matter...i am sure most of us don't fit into these blip nature-defying stats!!

So do i or not..run the risk of accentuating what i already have ample of .. or am i to understand that this is just another way of celebrating the bootylicious..

In some cultures,the churidar/salwar aka the harem would call for covering up but no more!!...Maximum girth is a highly practical clothing solution for a day of hard work but if you were to pair up these with a minimum 4-incher (the to-die-for runaway look), the teetering about would so totally kill the purpose..don't u think..

The war of the Knock-offs.In the US,selling a knock-off is illegal,in the UK even sporting one is...and in India,well there is hardly any original!!The counterfeit goods bizness has had a glamorous spin & even the likes of Piper Palin do not shy away from brandishing a fake LV.

Like the one in the image to the right is a class knock-off!!

Yeah it would kill me to carry a 1500$ bag if the rest of my outfit screams retail..so i would bide my time & hope to reach there someday...till then to all LV's ,MJ's,Mulberry's...Adios!!

The American Life

I can't say enuff abt it,so i will limit it to one hard-boiled fact a time. One thing that most of us might agree with is-the undeniably synonymous link- The West & its shaky morals.So much so that if i were to play Word association ,the one word that stands for America would be --SEX!!!

The obsession is baffling , the exposure is in-your-face ,the language is well,we are all too aware of the "sex-ridden American slang" .That's one thing we have all adopted ,classifying us into the hip and the not-so-hip cliques.

Its funny how the most powerful & progressive nations of the world has limited its cultural identity to the bedroom alone.What would you say if Pamela Anderson was to go down in your country's history as a milestone??And if you were to mark down an iconic annal ,how does the Hugh Hefner era sound??With a multi -billionaire porn industry,one of the biggest in the country, do u need to guess the mental fodder most Americans mulch on??

And the saddest part is how early-on the fever catches ,its pathetic hearing a child name her grown-up ambition as being a prostitute.Mind you,this came straight from the mouth of an 8-yr old Indian-bred American.Apparently being a high-school virgin is some kinda stigma!!

The state of Nevada legalizes prostitution, consequences- glorified brothels dehumanizing women in general.Recounting one such incident of down-the-drain morals ,was a father who accompanied his very own daughter to the Moonlite Bunny Ranch(legalized brothel), wishing to pursue her dream of "Being a Ho".This so-called-father also bikini waxes his daughter , man...does the whole institution of "the Family" defeat u ??

I have begun to believe that Sex is a religion in America.It has perpetrated the music which is incomplete without a sexual innuendo,reality TV can boast of nuthing else,dancing only translates into making out on the dance floor!!!You will be amazed how the concept of a woman- as a wife,mother,sister ,nurturer is lost on these people.She is smothered being the harlot,skank & an object of lust. What is downright degrading is a culture which allows anyone to march up to u & in all blatancy spell your sexual appeal ,hardly flattering.And this, is considered genteel mannerism.

The preoccupation with fornication is plain suffocating ,its in the undertones of all humour ,in the guileless banter ,in the hungry wolfish stares of the Martians & Venusians alike.A night on the town is like a visit to the watering hole where the predator & prey foreplay over martinis & lagers.

Sex in America is compulsive,over-rated & apparently the only thing that exist b/w a man and a woman.The X & Y mutations have gone horribly wrong somewhere.Phew,phew...

The color of skin

No,no i am not talking about racism.I am only talking of "the melanin-content" that so dyes your epidermis either glorifying it into the much desired "blond-n-blue" or the banished "black-n-kink" or simply the "brown-n-dirty".

The latter is the one i have come across most in relation to my own race.I am not a traveller so cannot speak for all nations of the world,neither for all colorings.But what i can say for sure is that The Superficial cannot be ignored.Beauty might not be skin deep but the nano-seconds the human brain takes to make first impressions hardly leaves room for much else.So what is it that makes the fairer more desirable than the darker?? I believe it couldn't just be the color alone!!

Over the course of history,the fairer pure bloods enjoyed advantages over their eclipsed cousins & the economic differences might have contributed to the upkeep,general appearance & grooming.But in this day & age when the blood lines have mitigated & "Keeping up with the Joneses" is every body's mantra .why not we care to keep up the appearances.

Money uplifts the materialistic but just maybe it still eludes the physical.

If you look deeper,the color of the skin isn't d defining factor but the color of your Whites is!! Taming your mane is..the crisp line of your trousers is...& god forbid if your sensors are not attuned to your own BO...yikes...!!!

And while the fairer cousin being blessed with a pale complexion & manageable hair can always pull off the tousled-fresh-outta bed look , the blacks,browns & the monochromes have to walk the extra mile.While the not-so-waxed arms of a darker race might earn looks which scream "Unkempt" ,the fairer one might just get away with a wax-virgin bush courtesy the blond hair.

So well the world is an unfair place & all of us don't have it easy.But the last thing we can do is to adopt a I'm-comfortable-in-my-skin stance. Or to adopt i-can-carry-off-that dingy attire attitude or I give a damn if my socks don't match or my shoe is splitting at the seam.

Believe it or not ,the impressions are racial & the award of being Sloppy goes to our very own brethren,alas!!So here on i vow, never to be identified with people who even if Brown don't bother to see the lop-sided disconnection of pleated work trousers & sports shoes ,who refuse to get the "my-birthday-present" hair cut ,who most of all are foreign to steam ironing.Why not after being the above-average IQ & an enviably college-educated race ,we not bother about that extra nip & tuck.For that's all that's needed to invite appreciative glances & be judged for more den just our brains & dexterity......Happy makeovers!!