Just "Friends", Eh?

I refuse to believe in the existence of a purely platonic friendship between a guy and a girl. It just cannot exist. At least not from the guy's side. Unless he's totally and unequivocally gay!

If you're a girl reading this and going - "Aw, c'mon! You've got to be kidding me here! I've known Paul since we were both in diapers and I'm positive he doesn't think of me that way at all!"

Well, there are only two things I can say. Either you're bald with a hunchback and a broken nose; or HE'S GAY!!

The key point is that a friendship between a guy and a girl is viewed differently by both of them. The best way to put it would be as follows [I remember coming across this on someone's blog, but I don't remember whose] - the girl sees the guy as a 'friend' first and then as a 'guy', whereas the guy sees the girl as a 'girl' first and then as a 'friend'.

So, to a girl, a close male friend differs little from an equally close female friend. But to a guy these two things are quite different. This explains why guys are more willing to open up emotionally to a female friend than they are to a guy buddy.

Now, to get back to my main point - I'm NOT saying that every guy wants to sleep with every girl he knows. I'm just saying that he doesn't view her in a totally platonic way. There must necessarily exist a modicum of 'unplatonic-ness' from his side. Exactly how much of it is present is largely dependent on the situation and the people involved. But it is there.

Another point that I'd like to state is that I am not speaking solely for myself. What I am saying holds for all straight guys out there. Any guy who denies it, is just doing so because he is afraid to admit that it is true.

Whether or not the same feeling of unplatonicness is also present from the girl's side, is not something that I would be most qualified to comment on. I would expect it to be true of the girl too, but I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't. Girls are just different that way.

It's important to realize that there is nothing wrong in this. It's just the way guys are, and girls will just have to live with it.

Cheers!

The Six Rupee Theory

Ah, yes! Guess my previous post has finally done it - the rains have stopped! I always knew I was special, but now I'm starting to scare even myself! [Let's just hope I didn't jinx everything by saying this and it starts raining again!]


Well, having received two requests to put up a post on the "Six Rupee" Theory [and having already lost the few shreds of credibility I may have had with my female readers], I'll do so here.


[I'd just like to state though, that it's not so much of a 'theory' as an 'algorithm']

Like most other interesting theories in my life its genesis lies in the hallowed confines of a Barista's Coffee Shop. One night, Kunal [Sawardekar], Dani and I were sitting in the Barista on Law College Road, with scant little on our minds and even less in our pockets. [In case you're thinking "Yup, just another Saturday night!", you'd be right!]

After a few minutes, I manage to unearth a handful of coins from my bag and endeavor to teach them how to play Nim [while keeping a wary eye out for any of the Barista staff who might decide to evict us in favor of some other more profitable customers]. After only few games, by which time I was quite convinced that neither Kunal nor Dani had it in them to make a career out of playing Nim, we began to look for some other form of entertainment.

I returned all the coins to their rightful corners of my bag, save for six shiny, new one-rupee coins, which I left out on the table. I looked up at Dani and said, "Hey, here's something you can try out. Why don't you take these six one-rupee coins, all stacked up like this, and go over to that girl sitting alone at that table over there. Then place the stack on the table in front of her and ask her whether she'll sleep with you for six rupees!"

Dani gives me a funny look.

So I continue, "Don't get your hopes up, she'll probably say no. So in that case you pull away your stack of six coins and replace it with a crisp, new Rs 10 note. Now ask her whether she'll sleep with you for ten bucks!"

Dani's look gets even funnier. Kunal's lips have the hint of a smile on them, appreciative of my genius, no doubt.

"Ah", I conclude. "But if by some chance she happens to say yes at first, then snatch away the six coins and say, 'Hey, if you'll sleep with me for six rupees, then surely you won't mind sleeping with me for nothing!'"

Short Skirts and Other Joys

I think it's time to stop pondering about the important questions like "Why are we here?", or "Is there intelligent life out there?", and worry about the really important question of "When is it going to stop bloody raining?"

Days of incessant rains have turned the city into a veritable rainforest and I can't remember the last time I woke up to bright sunshine. I would never have thought I would actually say this, but why can't we just have a few days of that infernal Indian summer sun please? Guess there's some truth in that old aphorism after all - "You don't know what you got until it's gone!"


I was watching some action from the Sunfeast Open 2005 on TV today. I have to admit I have started to become a bit of a tennis fan in the past few months. The fact the players like Sharapova and Dementieva make it so pleasing on the eye has, of course, helped a great deal.

Here's an interesting observation. Eighty years ago, all women played tennis in long skirts. Then, as the decades progressed, the skirt hems kept rising. A few years ago, most female players competed in skirts that were so short that they would only fit the very loosest definitions of the word. Another popular outfit was the equally short one-piece attire introduced by the Williams' sisters. Under these short skirts, the players wore a pair of even shorter tight pants. Why have the whole formality of wearing the skirt in the first place then? Why not just wear the pants?

Finally, commonsense has prevailed. A fair number of the players at this year's U.S Open showed up on court in shorts and an even larger percentage have done so at the ongoing Sunfeast Open. Can't say that I'm complaining. Wonder what's next for women's tennis in the fashion department?

Of Anonymous Mail [and Sunny Hail!]

A few days ago I posted this. The post has since been the recipient of some of the most ludicrously hilarious comments I have ever come across by an anonymous commenter. Please do read them, if you haven't already.

Much as I have always prided myself as a writer, I think I can finally admit I have met my match. The sheer writing flair of our anonymous writer leaves me speechless. His/her open mind and subtle understanding of sarcasm are of a pedigree that I haven't come across before.

Let's also not forget how caring and understanding this person is. He/she seems to be oh-so-concerned about my being able to find a girl for myself! He/she also seems to care so much about my future working prospects and how I might be able to save myself from being fired! I must say, I'm very touched. Thank you!

Well, I suppose I should also thank my anonymous writer for the fact that his/her first-rate writing has enabled this post to generate 28 comments [at last count, but I expect the number to grow] much more than any of my other posts. As an under skilled, and rather unsuccessful blogger, I'll take all the hits I can get!

Ah yes, and then to top it off, the self-modesty of it all - instead of signing his/her name and grabbing a share of the spotlight, he/she humbly chooses to sign 'Anonymous'! Words fail me here. I bow down.

IIT-VIT Day!

It's here again! The grand Annual IIT-VIT Day! A traditional, ritualistic celebration that dates back all of two years!

The story has been etched forever in the memories of all those who were fortunate to witness the event. For the rest, I shall attempt to describe it below -



Saturday, 20th September 2003.

Other than a slight drizzle in the air, there was little to distinguish this from just about any other late September evening. There were few harbingers of the excitement that lay ahead.

A few of my friends had decided to join forces and celebrate their birthdays together at a nightclub. The location that had been chosen was Crystal Ball [now The Leather Lounge] and I had arrived a tad early as usual. Punctuality has its drawbacks and I began to make small talk with the few other early birds while waiting for the crème de la crème of the party to arrive.

A half-hour later just as the party was kicking into a higher gear, I happened to look up and spot him. I couldn't help it. He stuck out like a burr. I recognized him as being from my class in college. His gaze wandered around in search of familiar faces but there weren't many on offer that night. He drifted toward me.

He went by the rather erudite moniker of IIT. Now IIT [standing for Indian Institute of Technology] is the foremost institution for pursuit of engineering degrees in this country. They are located in several cities, the nearest one being at Powai in Bombay.

The manner in which he had come to acquire this appellation is pretty interesting in itself. Apparently, the previous year when he had been a freshman in college, a teacher had asked the students on the first day of college what they had done in their vacations. While most other students mentioned activities like traveling or learning a foreign language, this youngster said that he had studied for the IIT Entrance Exam. His pedagogical image was further enhanced in the eyes of his classmates when he went on to answer with consummate ease, every question posed by that teacher in that lecture on topics ranging from Schrödinger's Equations to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. From that day onward his name was forgotten - he was simply known as IIT.


"What are you doing here?" I asked him.

"Roya invited Paresh," he replied. "And he told him to get me along too."

He was hesitant to ask for a drink so I offered to get one for him. I was unaware at the time that he had never touched alcohol before. That, and the fact that the liquor wasn't mine caused me to fix his drink a little too strongly.

After downing this first drink, his prudence seemed to evaporate and he had few qualms about walking up to the bar and getting a second drink for himself. And then a third.

By then, he seemed to have found a sympathetic ear in the form of Roya and one other guy and was pouring out his life's woes to them. He claimed his girlfriend of many summers, Shilpa, had just broken up with him. Apparently, while he had come to Poona to study, she had gone to Bombay, where she had fallen in love with some other guy. Well, she could go to hell for all he cared, or so he claimed. His plaintive tale was liberally spiced up with some of the choicest of expletives.

I got myself another drink and wondered whether Roya had ever spent such a maudlin birthday before.


Sometime later I spot IIT again. This time his audience consists of a friend of mine named Taizoon who wasn't exactly the most sober person around either. Taizoon was one of the 3 guys celebrating his birthday that night and I doubted that the two of them had met before. I stand nearby and listen to the conversation.

After about 20 minutes of lachrymose hysterics from IIT, Taizoon still hasn't said a word. However, he seems to be listening with the patience of a disciple. Suddenly, he says, "Ok. Just tell me one thing - who the fuck are you and what the fuck are you doing at my party?"

IIT is a little taken aback by this unheralded outburst from someone who had been nothing but a patient listener for so long. He says, "I'm IIT."

Now Taizoon, not unnaturally, concludes that this bloke is trying to tell him that he studies in IIT and has come down from there. So he replies, "I'm VIT!"

The two of them then share a long bear hug and follow that up with a little jig around the dance floor with about 12 pairs of curious eyes on them!


IIT actually went home that night and wrote C programs for two of his college assignments, the first time he had ever done an assignment in his life!

For a week after that in college we would all greet each other with the standard "I'm IIT"-"I'm VIT" line and then do the hug. Last year we celebrated the first anniversary with a grand party and we plan to do the same this year too. If all goes well, it should be held this Saturday. Cheers!


[Ok, I know the whole story may not seem all that funny. Guess it was one those "you just had to be there" things. Or rather "you just had to be there and have some rum in you" things!]

What Does A Girl Want?

What does a girl look for in a guy? This question has left many an able man scratching his slightly balding scalp. Looks? Sense of humor? Caring attitude? Porsche parked in the garage? [All four certainly wouldn't be bad!]

Well, while looks certainly do count, they aren't everything. They aren't even the most important thing. I know more cases than I would care to describe of stunning, hot girls going out with guys who would make Richard Grimpen look like a hunk. There is, however, an existent lower limit. But as long as you don't sport a wig or possess a hunchback you shouldn't have much to worry about even if you don't look quite like George Clooney. *drool*

Sense of humor? Ha-ha! Very funny! If you think you're going to woo any lady into bed with your one-liners or 'knock-knock' jokes, think again! Thorough investigation into the matter has proved that the female species has very little or no understanding of humor. Let me elaborate -

A few days ago I was scouring the milk products aisle at the super market, looking for something fresh, when I happened to overhear the following conversation from the neighboring aisle.

Wise Guy: Hey!
Dumb Gal: Hi!
Wise Guy: How do you like your eggs? Boiled, fried, scrambled or fertilized?

There followed 0.123 seconds of peace [luckily I was wearing my super cool millisecond timing wrist watch that day!], after which there was the sound of shopping cart hitting balls and then of a heavy body falling on the ground.

Get my point? Stay well clear of humor. It's clearly wasted on girls.

Well then, you might say, how about a guy with a sensitive, caring attitude? Surely, he's got to be a hit with the ladies.

Wrong again! This one's a Catch-22 situation of the highest order. Be all virile and manly and she'll accuse of you of being too callous and uncaring. But yet, should you ever squeeze a tear out of your eye she'll immediately call you a wimp! The fine line between these two opposites is so fine that it is almost non-existent and certainly not worth the effort of trying to locate it.

I guess that settles it then. The Porsche is the only thing that really matters. Girls are attracted by the smell of money like moths to a flame. Like they say - size does matter! But it's the size of your bank account!

I remember the winner of the Mrs India contest a couple of years ago being congratulated by her husband after the event. He was a short bloke with a potbelly and a shiny pate sporting a rather dyspeptic expression on his countenance. In a nutshell, he was as ugly as his wife was beautiful. My initial surprise though, was soon quelled when I came to know that he owned a couple of companies!

I once met a girl in a bar, who had the looks of a Greek goddess but was surprisingly ungifted in the intellectual department. [Let's just say her bust size was probably more than her IQ!] No amount of charming, wooing, flirting or seducing on my part was having the slightest effect on her. After a while a man came along and slapped a 100$ bill down in front of her. I watched her follow him out of the bar [and probably into his Mercedes]!

Lesson learnt - next time you're in a bar, say - "I'm not really this tall, I'm just sitting on my wallet!" Don't worry - like I said earlier girls have no sense of humor. She'll think you're serious!

D-A-N-I

DISCLAIMER: I cannot vouch for the veracity of anything in this post except that there exists a bloke named Siddharth Dani.

My longevous and inopportune hiatus from the blog world has certainly been anything but a dull and boring time for me in real life. Adventures have been arriving in plentiful abundance; and a good deal of them have featured one particular individual. A 'Machiavellian blighter', if you may, who could certainly rival the inaptly named Gandhi who features quite regularly on this blog!

His name is Siddharth Dani - and I feel like I owe him at least one blog post after all the cheer and merriment he has unselfishly [and more often than not - unintentionally] brought into our otherwise lackluster and mundane lives.

Dani [as us fortunate few get to call him] resembles Uncle Fester [of The Adams' Family fame] in appearance and Jon Arbuckle [think Garfield] in action.

Dani has exactly 5 stages in his relationship with any girl -

1. He loves her
2. He asks her out
3. She turns him down
4. He claims he was never interested in her in the first place
5. We pull his leg about it!

When it comes to things that he loves [at last count there were 3 of them - girls, motorsport and food!], few people can effuse more enthusiasm than Dani. I called him up a few minutes ago to ask him whether he wanted to come out.

"Can't," he says. "There's an F1 race on right now. This is just too exciting! It's absolutely awesome! I can't believe this!"

Now I'm anything but an F1 fan and the only thing that might excite me in a race [other than a streaker, of course] is a major pile-up involving as many cars as possible. Seeing Dani's febrile lyricism I, not unnaturally, assumed one of the above had occurred. So I asked him, "What happened? Crash?"

"No. The race hasn't even started as yet."

He had apparently worked himself up into a state of feverish ecstasy even before the actual race had started! I can't imagine how excited he'd get if Alonso were to overtake Raikkonen on the final corner or something like that!

The other topic of interest for Dani is girls. His success ratio in this field tends toward the negative though not through the lack of effort. For when it comes to ensnaring innocent young maidens Dani's mind hath no rival. Medieval noblemen would regale their dinner guests with tales of Dani's attempt to woo a particular damsel - and the fiasco that would most certainly have followed.

Let me offer the following as an example -


Inspite of his complete lack of success with the fairer sex - and probably the reason for it - Dani has one of the finest tastes when it comes to picking them. His eyes scan the crop with the keenness of a hawk selecting none but the finest as likely candidates to bear his progeny. About 4 months ago, he had his eyes set on a particularly lissome lass from our college named Siddhi. Siddhi happened to be in her freshman[woman?] year at the time and some three years junior to him.


Scene:

Drawing Hall 1. Siddhi is inside completing one of her sheets. The scheming Dani and even more scheming me are outside deliberating upon what action should be taken.

Me: Why don't you go inside and talk to her? Just make sure you don't ask her out.
Dani: Sounds like a good idea. But do you really think I should go?
Me: Sure sure. Just don't do anything to scare her off.

He disappears into the hall and reappears a minute later looking rather sullen. It didn't require all of my super-genius mental faculty to decipher that all wasn't right.

I asked him what had transpired inside. Here's what I was able to piece together from what he told me.

Dani: Hi.
Siddhi: Hi.
Dani: Graphics, huh? Submissions on? Need any help with that?
Siddhi: No.
Dani: I find you very interesting. Would you like to spend more time together?
Siddhi: No.

When you consider the fact that she had her drafter and compass within close reach, it is indeed a small miracle that he escaped out of there unscathed.

Dani, on the other hand was unable to comprehend how the lethal combination of his dashing good looks, his cavalier approach and the fact that the first five letters of their names match, weren't enough to charm the whiskers off her.



All said and done though, Dani's quite a guy. A cheerful easygoing bloke, a dependable chap and a good sport. One of those fun guys whom you would always want around. Cheers mate!

Next week - Salil!

Season Two Begins

After a three month long, self-imposed sabbatical it gives me immense pleasure to annunciate in the words of my lesser known namesake [albeit in a different tense] - "I am back!"

Numerous requests from fans and followers of the blog had done little other than heighten my already towering ego. However, when it got to the point where I received a call from a heart-broken girl at 3.12 in the morning sobbing and pleading with me to resume blogging even my normally petrous heart softened a wee bit.

I doubt Season 2 will be as good as its predecessor. I'm an extremely hard act to follow. But watch this space because it will certainly be worth it!