More on Mars and Venus

Oh, east is east and west is west;
And never the twain shall meet

-Rudyard Kipling

Some time ago, I was talking to a female friend of mine. You can be sure she was a good friend; having lived and been a pal in the last three cities I’ve lived in. Here, she was ranting about her job, her boss and her boss’ boss.

I reckoned that things couldn’t be that bad on their own. There could have been reasons. Perhaps the situation in her office was tense; perhaps her boss was some kind of duress; perhaps she was somewhat wrong…

I made the mistake of mentioning that possibility to her. She resisted. I persisted. She resisted some more; I persisted even more, thinking I was on the right trail. Perhaps I will be able to make her see the reason, the rationale which would put her on the right track.

And then she blew her lid. “Damn it!” she cried out aloud. “Instead of me, you’re taking sides with HIM? How dare you? Are you my friend or his??”

I learnt an object lesson on that day. When a woman tells you about her problems, you’re NOT supposed to be rational and offer a solution. You’re supposed to listen and offer her sympathies. And if you fail, the results can be unpredictable and/or unpleasant!

This brings us to one of the fundamental difference between men and women. While men are geared more towards the rational end of the spectrum, women are more inclined to be at the emotional end. Note that it’s the entire spectrum and the orientation I’m talking about. It doesn’t mean every man or women can be compartmentalized accordingly. But it does mean that one should try to understand the differences and respect them.

It was possibly this point which was troubling another friend of mine (this time, male). Having been in and out of relationships which lasted, on an average, two months, he used to wonder- “Why are girls so…so unreasonable? Why can’t they be normal? You see, all I’m looking for is a girl who would be rational”

It wasn’t possible for me to say anything. People apply self reference criteria all the time, judging every person, every thought and every emotion according to the perspective they think to be the right one. In case of men and women, both fail to see what the other person is geared towards. This was the problem this friend of mine was facing; he failed to see that a woman was bound to be emotional. A completely rational, reasonable woman driven only by a relentless self pursuit and indulgence- won’t just be far from ideal- she’ll be destructive!

Women also make similar mistakes. Just ask a girl what kind of guy she wants and she would answer something similar to the following- “…a guy who calls me beautiful instead of hot, who will lie under the stars and listen to my heartbeat, or will stay awake just to watch me sleep. One who would constantly remind me of how much he cares and how lucky he is to have me...”

Excuse me! Exactly what kind of a wimp is this guy going to be? Or are we indeed talking about polygamy, because fulfilling these criteria would obviously take more than one man!

Again this is not to say that there cannot be saints like the one described here, but just that it’s not normal or natural for men to be like that. Obviously, though, there will be exceptions. For example, some of most ‘successful’ (a really bad pun intended!) men I’ve known were adept at pretending to be the ‘You-make-me-want-to-be-a-better-man’ types. Women have always been a sucker for words, not the sort which convey true and/accurate information but those which make them dream and stir up emotional cords. As the dialogue goes in the movie What Women Want, “If Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, and you can speak Venusian, the world can be yours!”

Epilogue: The male friend of mine is about to tie the knot- to someone he deemed ‘logical’ enough. As for me, well, life’s always teaching something new!

Who's that guy...!

A penny for your thoughts. (I know nobody else bothers paying you for that but anyway...). I suggest you remain broad minded and keep all your options open. Accept all the statements described hereon provisionally, analyse objectively and then arrive at a conclusion.

Here we go. How do you imagine this guy is going to be?

1. He has an IQ of 140.
2. He is supposed be earning anywhere between $115k to $230k
3. Is right brained- subjective, creative, intuitive and holistic.
4. Attracts artsy people- those free spirited artists with great imaginations...
5. Is a true romantic- "can make his partner feel complete, shows uncontrollable love and fills his partner with euphoria every time he touches"
6. As a date, he is mature, in the prime of his life, cherishes his friends, ready to try out long term relationship if he wants, and experienced. His dates should be prepared for some scintillating conversations with the occasional wild time out!
7. Resembles Jai in Sholay and Aslam in Rang De Basanti.
8. Can become an MTV Roadie, if he so desires...
9. Gets voted by his friends and peers as amongst the most generous, most talkative, hottest and best companion on a deserted island!
10. And as per his, ahem, sexual personality, he is The Tentacled Monster (now that's really original!)

Who could be this superman?

SRK?

Naah. Too narcissist. Too much into the open to be really mysterious and seductive...

Hrithik?

Nopes. Too polite. Lacks attitude. Has some talent but nothing to be compared to this illustrious and colourful personality...

Vishwanathan Anand?

No way. Very intelligent, no doubt. But lacks the flair...

Who else?
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It had to be....................................ME!!!

I get this description of mine on Facebook. The IQ because I managed to solve 28 MBA entrance styled question out of 30 in about 15 minutes. The salary because of having two professional degrees, having read more than 5 books in the past year and believing in solving problems! About the rest, the less said the better.

Noted author Robert Greene contends that ordinary life is harsh and people are crying out to be led out of their ennui. They want fantasies, dreams, enigma, contradictions, irrationalities and magic.

And what better place to find it than Facebook?

Long live the web 2.0!!
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Epilogue
Anyone who said the Internet couldn't become an alternative to the 'real' world must never have had a taste of these web 2.0 innovations. First there was orkut. People retrieved the whereabouts of their friends, made new friends, made new girlfriends/boyfriends, even found a wife/husband, joined communities, scrapped each other tirelessly and saw themselves get completely hooked to it.

Everything seemed so perfect for orkut in India that it never even bothered to bring about any new improvement, be it security or newer features. Perhaps it was so depressed by its failure in making inroads in the US and Europe that it failed to notice that what a strong hold it had over a potential clientele of one billion people.

Then came Facebook and along with it, all its two-a-penny applications, some of which have already been described with glee earlier in this post! Facebook gave an entirely new dimension to social networking by opening its space to private application developers. A brilliant and original idea after all, its billion dollar valuation has also played its part in bringing more people on board.

All this has woken Orkut, and thus Google up and now it’s fighting desperately hard to stay in the race. It has tightened security measures, addressed privacy measures (The creator Orkut Buyukkokten and others would never have thought about strangers going to girls and asking for ‘lovship’ and ‘frandship’) and has also allowed Facebook like applications to be added on their profiles.

But what works in this game is the viewership a site already enjoys. I have so many friends on orkut that it actually forces me to come to reply to scraps or wish others on their birthdays. Plus, profile surfing is still the easiest and the best, allowing for socialising. On the other hand, Facebook seems to be suffering from overkill.

Who is going to prevail? Well, let’s wait and watch!

Aamir- an original experiment!

No Hindi movie in recent memory had a screenplay and visuals like that of Aamir, a movie with debutant director Raj Kumar Gupta and debutant lead actor Rajeev Khandelval, along with the debutant music composer and cinematographer.

Also, for the first ever time the dingy by lanes in the dirtiest parts of the dreamy film city (or filth city) Bombay have been captured on the big screen. If Bluffmaster captured Mumbai in all its splendour, Aamir catches the city off guard, showing things no one ever dared to think about, let alone show.

Imagery is central to the entire idea of the movie Aamir. Once when the protagonist bumps into a pole right in the middle of the narrow lane in which he was chasing his bag snatchers, the poster towards the left announces "a gift for you". Similarly there is a TV visual in Aamir's room in the lodge which is showing a familiar discovery/animal planet video of a leopard chasing its prey, and the one where the mafia don is casually playing with a monkey faced puppet while talking on phone, prodding and knocking the toy whenever it gets stuck.

Another interesting theme is the portrait shots of quaint characters on the street and in the surroundings. Normally such visuals are reserved for the climax or some central (normally disturbing) incident in a movie. Over here, the entire film is peppered with such portraitures.

Amidst all these settings and scenarios is the taut, tough story that grips you almost from the word go and never lets it hold slacken even once. People may ask, why catch a stranger for that job, why not some expert hand? Well I guess that strangers entail lesser risks of getting caught. Even if Aamir would have been captured, it would have been him only who faced the music. By the time the authorities figure out, the mafia don would be conveniently out of the country, having eliminated as much evidence as possible.

One thing to be noticed is that barring Aamir and his family, barely anyone else has a name. Everyone is unknown; the area alien, the voices threatening and the looks menacing.

Rajeev Khandelval surely impresses in his maiden effort (I don't watch TV serials so haven’t seen him there). However, his role, due to the tautness of the screenplay, is uni-dimensional. It will take him a few more movies to fully figure out his potential and/or limitations.

To sum it, the movie is not so much about terrorism or anything else as it is about the choices a common man has to make under extraordinarily tragic circumstances. The little lump in throat may remind the viewer of a similar feeling at the end of Rang De Basanti.

P.S. Yours truly had been to similar places (namely, Nagpada) in Mumbai during his medical rep (!!) training in the previous job stint. But I must say people were very courteous and cooperative compared to many other areas, as my job also involved asking trade related questions.

P.P.S. - Would Shah Rukh consider that Aamir Khan has stolen a march above him? ;-)

Down with love...

The two words "arranged marriage" bring about different reactions-from a nonchalant shrug to a downright chill down the spine. Much of it is geography related, with one being more likely to come across blushing faces (both female AND male) in smaller towns/villages and tears welling up in eyes (again BOTH male and female) in metros. In western countries it will be immediately dismissed as an ancient relic, an anachronism, an intolerable cruelty to the youth and attack on concepts of choice and individual freedom and what not.

I happen to have encountered one such situation during an official meeting where being in front of a foreigner apparently smirking at this distinctly 3rd world concept released a good amount of patriotic hormones in me and coaxed out a riposte! The guy said- during one of those getting-to-know-each-other parts of the meeting- that he believed some of the marriages were still arranged in India. I retorted-"Not some of them. Most of them!"

I proceeded by explaining (this was a 50+ guy with two teenaged children) that in a marriage, a vision and a clear mission or mandate is necessary, just like a corporate start up. Arranged marriages, by their very set up provide these two vital inputs and that is how they work. QED!

So far so good for the patriot bit, but some corner of my heart really cries aloud when it comes to this topic. Many a times I feel that we Indians actually do not believe in the concept of love. We just do not understand what love is. Our movies rarely, if ever, portray romantic love in its truest sense and most of the people seem to be having a notion which is either way too idealized or practically non-existent.

Perhaps this by itself explains the success of arranged marriages-which are based on the premise of sex being more important than something so trivial called love. The Indian rationale is that since flesh is weak, hence whosoever you are sleeping with will naturally become important to you by some mean or the other.

There are other constructs of the society as well which facilitate this line of thought. There is a strict control on the intermingling of sexes which means that for most of the people, their marriage is also their first real relationship. It also ensures that people normally do not have the social/interpersonal skills required to philander away. In order to have a one night stand, one first needs to ask the stranger across the table for a coffee!

Of course, there are other aspects also, other than this brutal one, which make arranged marriages the success they have been. Parents and relatives provide a tremendous support group. With so many people going nudge, nudge-wink, wink at you, it will be difficult not to think about how it is all going to be!

So possibly our fears are not unfounded. Love indeed is an over rated concept and it’s actually sex which makes the world go around, not love!