Baal baal dekho, hazar baar dekho

When hair is everything, can shampoo be far behind?

I have scant memories and feelings for my first boyfriend but turn into mushy over-cooked porridge when I think of my first ever shampoo from the US. This was the first time someone had made me feel like a Mills and Boon heroine - sighing and perpetually weak at her knees.  After years of an arranged match with sanskari Halo Green Apple that smelt nothing like green apples, White Linen was like a breath of fresh hair. My knight in a bottle was tall, smelt so posh and big. Of course size matters! 

During my college years it was my most prized possession. Once when I got a whiff of its perfume from my brother’s crown I promptly sniffed out his stash of chocolates from their hiding place in Tora Bora and finished them all in one sitting.

Revenge had never tasted this sweet. 

How dare he contaminate my beloved with his touch! It is not often that a girl is blessed with a presence that repairs, rejuvenates,  restores her tresses to its browning glory. And when it does happen, she wants it all for herself and clutch it so tightly that it asphyxiates.

Tell me, is there a better feeling than your hair smelling like a French perfume while it feels like Dove! You want to stroke it like it were your pet. Toss it over your Head and Shoulders.  Sway it like a cow’s tail.  Wind it around your neck like a silk scarf. Twirl it seductively. I still can’t get women who have embraced reetha, amla, shikakai and other herbal wonders and are okay with their hair smelling like a compost!

How can you subject yourself to so much cruelty? I would like to escalate this to the higher ups. Why can’t jasmine, rose, sandalwood be as good for the hair as they are for the body! How dare you delegate onions, eggs, fenugreek, amla instead as elixir and make our follicles smell like a man’s armpit! 

One of the cardinal rules of femininity is that hair is meant to look WOW in its glossy glory and smell even better. Sadly, the journey to her sweetheart shampoo who is 7 times hydrating, uplifting and nourishing than anyone we’ve worked up a lather with is way tougher than a trek to Nanda Devi. It is paved with frustration, hairfall, dandruff, split-ends and frizz. 

Each time it’s the same story. Our curiosity is piqued when we hear so many friends rave about this hot new thing in the market and its stellar performance. Soon we start craving and fantasising about it’s velvety touch on our scalp. 

Period leave – Yay or Nay for Empowerment

I will conquer the world but only after I am done with my periods

A Mumbai based firm in their attempt to be more women friendly has granted first day period leave to all its women employees. Yay! This should start making men wish they had periods too - the mythical condition that makes perfectly normal women turn into raging monsters. This monthly ritual of shedding eggs is much like the short skirt – the most popular defence for rapists and their many sympathisers. Every time a woman creates a scene, screams her lungs out, gets into an argument because she’s tired of taking shit, it is promptly attributed to the big P or her sis PMS. Either this, or she is menopausal, or may not be getting enough sex.

So deep is this rot in the mindset, a Trump voter went on to say the reason why she’ll never vote for Hillary is because a woman should never be the President. Her hormones that play hide and seek make her so volatile that she can start wars, totally ignoring the fact that both the world wars were started by leaders who were men.

That the future of world peace depends on the mental health of our vagina is a huge responsibility to shoulder. Phew!

Despite menstruation taking the blame for all the ills that befall mankind, it’s funny to note how little men know about it. Or rather choose not to know about it. Never mind the fact that they had taken the same path as period blood to slide out into the world.

Ah, well!

Thankfully we have come a long way from the time when menstruation was thought to make women periodically dangerous. The reason why we were kept in isolation, away from public space and temples, lest we desecrate its holiness.

Period is no longer the condition that renders us bechaari and immobile. We can choose what we want to do – run, swim, scale mountains, barge our way into temples or even go to office, Hell, I can go to my neighbourhood chemist and walk out with a pack of sanitary napkins without its soulmate, the brown paper bag!

No one but us gets to tell us what we can or cannot do. So a Serena Williams wins the Australian Open when she was 8 weeks pregnant. A well into her fifth month Gal Gadot plays the warrior princess in Wonder Woman and slays.

We are no longer shy from talking about what we go through when we are menstruating. Something that was unthinkable for generations before us.

So forgive me if I feel confused when a period leave is hailed as a giant leap for womankind.

Yes, I get it. It is an acknowledgment of what we go through, the uneasiness, the cramps that come and go like electricity in Gurgaon. For some women it’s worse – fainting spells, vomiting, debilitating pain that brings life to a grinding halt. But the lack of a period leave has never stopped us from staying home when it was too much to bear, right?

If we are okay with taking a holiday earmarked as ‘period leave’, what’s stopping us from going to our boss from telling, look, I am about to get my periods, the pain is unbearable. I need to go back home. And if PL is the new normal, why not make provisions for pre-menstrual syndrome as well? Bar women from being part of key decision making, meeting high-value clients, closing business deals, because hey, it’s that time of the month when her mood swings faster than a movie star’s sexual orientation.

I will conquer the world but only after I am done with my periods?

An Idiots Guide to How to Compliment a Woman Without Offending Her

Courtesy Google images

Certain men seem to be under the impression that they are in charge of a woman’s self-worth, and not without reason. Since the time they sprouted facial hair, they have been told a woman squeezes herself in asthma inducing dresses, totters in high-heels and spends hours prettying herself only for his attention. As a true gentleman it is his duty to reward her for all her efforts by looking intently at her cleavage and mumble ‘you are hot’, while scratching his scrotum.

What puzzles him is, instead of rolling over with gratitude and bounding towards him with her tongue hanging out, she has the temerity to walk in the opposite direction.

Ungrateful bitch!

Seriously, do these creatures even know what they want? He can recount countless instances where he tried to appreciate her legs in those teeny-weeny shorts and dresses she wears by leering at them. Once he even dropped a few drops of drool on her thighs. The confused muddle-head shrieked in horror and slapped him hard instead!

Of course he was butt hurt. He immediately put on Attaullah Khan's classic, achha silaa diya tune mere pyaar ka and asked himself again and again, tears rolling down his cheeks - isn’t this the sole purpose of wearing cleavage revealing, thigh baring and curve flaunting dresses?

He ran to the nearest temple, hung from the bell and demanded to know from God in his most pain-stricken voice, why are women like this? God as usual gave him the silent treatment.

Do you think even God is a woman? Hey Bhagwan!

Not the one to give up so easily and also because his virginity depended on it, he tried to take the sophisticated path. It was a busy weekend when he spotted a very shapely posterior at the pub. He walked up to it and said – Girl, are you polio? Coz you’re making my legs weak. She laughed like a hyena and rolled her eyes like windshield wipers. Goddammit! He then went to the dance floor and stared soulfully at the women dancing. He almost dropped his pitcher of beer when he saw a mature type lady smile at him. He immediately ran up to her and started doing his Dharmendra type moves. To show his thoughtful side, he even offered to drop her home, even though she was in no mood to go back. When she refused, he asked all the other ladies at the pub if he could drop them safely at home, because zamana is so kharab, I tell you!

Shaandaar is 28, still a virgin. And has very little time left to lose it. His Mom is busy looking for a girl who doesn’t go to malls to be his bride.

What baffles Shaandaar is these girls who treat him like he’s some sort of infection, do khi khi with other boys. They are not even half as good-looking as he is. What do they have that he doesn’t? He has biceps, triceps, fair and handsome looks, his Dad gifted Audi, couple of kothis in Gurgaon and Ma kaa andha pyaar.

Behind Every Successful woman are a Dozen Men Admiring Her Behind

Helpful tips on how to deal with sexual predators at office without having to kick his balls

Image courtesy - Google images

Hello Beti,

Congrats on landing your dream job. You must be soaring in the sky like an out of control kite. Allow me to fill you with dread and some unsolicited advice. Before I begin my monologue, let’s make it very clear - relinquishing your sanskaari position at home (the silent, supporting daughter-wife-mother behind a “man”) was a BAD IDEA. What made you think could step out of the house and become successful in your own right! Must have been those silly quotes that pop up like zits every Women’s Day.

Cool that you slogged your ass off to ace all your exams, made the company reject scores of candidates to hire you and are finally who and what you want to be. You also may have convinced yourself that you are capable, smart, intelligent and determined to achieve any goal you have set for yourself. But that guy in the corner cubicle giving you that creepy smile would rather have lauki ki sabzi every day of his life than accept this fact. For him you are just a piece of meat regardless of what you do and how many obstacles you scale to reach for that glass ceiling.

Don’t blame him. He has been on a diet of sexist WhatsApp forwards themed around shaadi-is-every-man’s-barbadi for so long, he has convinced himself of his bechara status. Never mind the clean house and warm meals that await him every evening. He’s too much of a decent guy to let go of his oppressive marriage and deprive his Missus of her many back-breaking duties and a listless life. Office is his only chance of fun on the side – yet another gyaan he has got from boss-secretary jokes where the secretary’s sole duty is to pleasure her boss.

So, it’s hardly a surprise that he is a firm believer of equality and harasses all women equally.

Correction. He fancies himself as a hopeless admirer of comely charms. When he finds a woman irresistible, he makes her aware of his sincere feelings through many thoughtful gestures like pinching her butt, sharing porn clips and suggesting they do a quickie to ease the unbearable tension between his legs.

A woman confident in her own skin is the beauty industry’s biggest nightmare

Courtesy - Google images

The beauty industry capitalizes on our insecurities because we let them.

My monthly visit to the salon plays like a typical saas-bahu saga that blares on telly every evening. The pedicure guy takes one look at my feet and starts weeping. With sad strains of violin playing in the background he looks up at me with sorrowful eyes and croaks – yeh kyaa haal banaya hai? I look shamefully at my calloused feet and croak back – that’s why I have come to you, you dickhead! If I am in a mood to severely disappoint many more, I get a hair-spa and sometimes a facial. The hair-spa guy runs his fingers through my hair, shakes his head in slow motion and before he can open his mouth I say no, I will not go for the ‘schizophrenia soaked in rare oils mined from Russia and then ground to fine paste with hibiscus and tiger testicles’ package. He looks heartbroken but I keep shaking my head like an autowallah who says no before you even say ‘bhaiyya?’ A lot depends on my no. If I let the facial lady have her way, she’ll will pull off the outer layer of my facial skin to reveal baby soft bleeding skin. She looks appalled when I tell her with a smug smile, I’m perfectly happy with my tanned skin and won’t do a thing to change it. Yet she tries to change my mind, every single time.

It’s a bit of a dilemma for me. On one hand I am constantly being told by my Facebook friends who I haven’t met about my gorgeousness. Then there are Twitter majnus who insist I’m the hottest thing to have happened since global-warming. And I believe every single one of them. So, you can imagine my consternation when I am told everything about me is sub-standard.

What, are you kidding me!

I get it, it is the salon’s job to make me feel miserable about myself. But it is my right to ask them to fuck off. Especially when I’m told they only way to beauty nirvana is a treatment that costs a king’s ransom.

The beauty industry, has built its fortune equating youth with beauty, slimness with desirability and dark skin tone that banishes you to a future as hopeless as Abhishekh Bachchan’s career. We are told, ageing is the gravest crime we can commit. Though Mr Pahlaj Nihalani who is dead against ladies indulging in unlady like fantasies may disagree. Therefore we must spend hours staring at the mirror, searching for fine lines, crow’s feet, dark spots and then arrest them immediately by mummifying ourselves with anti-ageing lotions, potions and serums. It works mostly, the guilt I mean. Many of us start believing in the magical powers of fairness in a tube, eternal youth in a pretty little jar and salon perfect hair in a plastic bottle.

An Open Letter from the Short Skirt to Upholders of Women’s Morality

Image courtesy - DragoArt.com

Mitron,

Of late you’ve accused me of so many sexual crimes I have yet to commit, I’m contemplating suicide so that I can be reborn as a petticoat. I get it, my lack of length makes you deranged and you end up doing bad bad things. But must you always transfer the blame for your misdeeds on me, you nincompoops?

There was a time I used to fancy myself as just a skirt, hanging in front of a girl, asking her to love me. Fall in love she did, hook, hemline and zipper. Our love was as perfect as described in Hallmark cards and as deep as a Bengali boudi’s neckline. I fancied myself as the wind beneath her legs, goading her to own her body and embrace her sexuality. She often whispered to me how liberated I made her feel. I hugged her tight, fluttered around her waist, as she set out to conquer the world, looking like a million bucks. It was a smooth ride for us till some dick-head with no control of his dick pounced on her and then conveniently claimed it was me that beckoned him. At first I dismissed as a joke. A single male of the species with limited intelligence refusing to take responsibility for his pawing ways. I was so wrong. Before I could say STFU, it became a chorus with repeat performances year after year. It cut across demographic barriers uniting men and men alike, hell bent on absolving the molestor, the rapist, the sexual aggressor who needed to resort to violence to feel like a man. I have borne the burden of their blame for so long, my shoulders are stooping lower than these men’s self-esteem. These days I feel like Ganga whose sole purpose in life is to wash off the sins of these paapis.

Hey Ram, beam me up, will ya?

After much introspection I have arrived at this conclusion; my biggest crime is being born a skirt. And I am never allowed to forget that. I was told that the only way I can hope to lead a long unfruitful life is by covering myself with layers of plastic and shutting myself in the cupboard and wait for death. In the meantime, I was free to do whatever others wanted me to do. The rules set for my impeccable conduct by upholders of my morality read longer than the terms and conditions that no one reads but clicks on ‘I agree’ anyway. Interestingly, the rules apply only to me and not the ones who set them. While my male ‘counterpant’ is encouraged to be whatever he wants to be – loose character or a tight assed aggressive prick who demands, raises his voice, pushes, shoves, to climb the ladder of success, dare I do the same, I am promptly labelled as a bitch.

Wrapped or Unwrapped, Women Will be Rapped Either Way

Image Courtesy - www.independent.co.uk

Till a few days back I was madly applauding the ban on Burkini imposed by France on its beaches in the Riviera. Since I fancy myself as more of a doer than a talker, I quickly started compiling a rather long list of unwearables that our junta insists on turning into beachwear that should be banned. For too long I have been traumatised by the sight of portly men flaunting their hairy selves in striped kachhas, snug boxers and demure women taking a dip in the ocean in their saris that promptly turn into parachutes. In fact, on my last visit to Hardwar which was a few decades back, I saw so many ladies bathing in just their petticoats tied over their ample bosoms that I exclaimed ‘Hey Ram’ and died. Haunted, I never went back for another pilgrimage.

Unfortunately my burkini ban euphoria did not last long. The ban was suspended by France's highest administrative court that’ll rather uphold fundamental freedoms than let the government go by its whims. Tcchh…had it been India, these men in wigs would have been charged with sedition and declared anti-nationals. Don’t they know it’s the state that gets to decide what should offend us? It’s pretty simple - what offends them should offend us and if that offends you, GO TO HELL, YOU SCUMBAGS! Oh, and the state also gets to decide what and where hell is.

After I was done with outraging, I changed sides since I prefer remaining on the right side of political correctness. The world is a stage and of what use are my acting skills if I can’t flip my emotions like an omelette on a pan. So, right now I am busy yayying for the French courts for acting in favour of liberty and equality. Why should only men get to decide that we are better off when covered up! Also, if women feel they should be free to expose without inviting judgement, they should also be free to slip into a garment that the world had no idea about till a ban was imposed on it. So, if certain femmes want to wear bikinis at hill stations, I will support their right even it means freezing to death. Don’t Delhi women dress in tiny summery dresses in biting winters and live to tell the tale? Or prefer death by sweating in black tights under a black dress in searing summers to save themselves from the ogle fest every time they step out?

Needless to say, this landmark judgement has come as a huge relief to a certain section of men who have always believed that an ideal woman should dress in a shroud to live a long uneventful life. Women who dress in flimsy, fashionable clothing deliberately provoke men into harassing them, who sometimes insert rods inside their vaginas and butcher their bodies for fun. So it is only natural that men protect themselves by banning women from their sight. Look what happened at Haji Ali. Women with breasts were deliberately bending over while praying, forcing men into having unholy thoughts and distracting them from their destined path of greatness.

What I don’t get is, if men are so fascinated by breasts, why don’t they try growing a pair of their own!

Had Dipa Karmakar attempted the death defying Produnova vault in a demure salwar-kameez and not that shameful one piece garment, she would have felt more comfortable winning a bronze. Had PV Sindhu smashed her way to the Badminton finals in a sari, and not that tiny skirt, she would have done our rich Indian culture proud. Does Sakshi know that by flaunting those amazing biceps, she has closed doors on lucrative matrimonial offers! Who will marry her now? Worse still, who will risk arguing with her? Tell tell!

So please instead of shooing off devout Muslim women in their Burkinis from beaches, let them feel comfortable covered from head to toe!

OMG, beta, you’ve become darker and uglier!

Growing up as a girl is tough. We have to fend off leery advances from unknown men in public spaces even though we don't fully understand what's going on. We are expected to be paragons of virtue because someone somewhere decided without even consulting us that women are meant to be the pride of the family. On top of that we have to face a battalion of aunties who constantly judge us as if we are part of a beauty pageant. God forbid if you're not fair and lovely, you are constantly reminded of it, as if it was your damn fault! They could be fat, ugly themselves but that doesn’t stop those aunties from passing snarky comments about your appearance.

Interestingly the boys are spared this agony. They could be gangly, pimply, with a hook nose, yet they were handsome princes according to their Moms. We had no such luck.

As you would have guessed by now, I was thin, dark, gawky and not conventionally “good looking” as a child through her teens. I hated the shape of my nose. My brother would often make sketches to illustrate what exactly was wrong with it. I wish I had thinner lips and would often experiment with ‘pursed lips’ look hoping it would make me look pretty. Everyone around me seemed prettier. Unfortunately I was not even spectacularly good in academics to make up for my lack of comely charms.

I had a mirror at home. I knew exactly how I looked and tried not to be too bothered about it. In fact I was a pretty happy child. It seemed it bothered others a lot. I had no dearth of concerned aunts who’d fret about how tanned I had become and how beautiful my Mom was and then glance at me in meaningful silence. Since this was a yearly ritual, I tried my best to turn into carbon. People often ask me where and how I got my sense of humour. Well, it’s time to reveal it all. I developed it at a very young age as a defence tactic. I used it to counter hurt. When on a sunny lazy vacation afternoon an aunt told me that I’d get married only because I had beautiful feet, I told her I’ll ask a burqa to adopt me and make sure the world wouldn’t have to see the rest of me. She of course didn’t get the joke.

As a gawky adolescent still hungry for approval from strangers, I believed every single one of them. Each snarky comment disguised as concern stung like hell. But I made sure I never gave anyone the satisfaction of knowing that they had managed to dent my self-esteem. Sometimes I felt there was a contest going on amongst Moms, each trying convince others that their child was the best thing to have happened to humanity by putting the rest of us down. As usual, we kids were caught in the crossfire. So, when a colleague of my Mom would rue about my lack of height, ma would enrol me for swimming or make me hang from a cold iron rod first thing in the morning, hoping I’d stretch like chewing gum. I spent most of my time at the pool chatting with hot didis lamenting about their voluptuous thighs. I refused to hang like a baboon from that rod after the first day.

Hello beautiful, you sent me out of control!

Also published here  

Courtesy - www.mensxp.com

Indians often take flak for being among the least friendly. This disturbs me deeply because it’s far from being true. Granted, most of us would rather stare intently at our phone than make polite talk when in close proximity with strangers. If an unfamiliar person smiles at us, we immediately start speculating about their mental health. It’s more a genetic thing. Somebody forgot to tell us smiling is not taxable. Pushing, jostling and snarling come naturally to us. When we are driving, our middle finger is permanently raised and our cuss vocabulary will make even hardened criminals turn a deep shade of beetroot red. But in no way does it reflect our lack of friendliness. Okay, maybe not all of us are walking embodiments of congeniality. But our men more than make up for it with their friendly overtures towards the opposite sex.


Ask any woman and she will vouch for it. The time she made eye contact with her colleague as she laughed at his joke – and he promptly started making plans for their weekend getaway. Or the slightly tipsy woman at the pub who smiled at the wall and now it won’t stop pestering her for her number. Or the man she met at the party, enjoyed talking to him, even shared her number and now he texts her, ‘Sweeties, I miss you, lets meat!’ 55 times a day. Grrr!

Interestingly the not so single men she encounters are invariably the sweet ole chap victimised by the shrewish wife. By some strange miraculous coincidence ALL of them claim to be married to a woman who does not understand them at all. He’s just a lonely hardware looking for a software upgrade. Tch tch..

So now you know why the Indian woman is a tad grim-faced compared to her male counterpart. As a girl growing up, we felt the pinch of skewed sex ratio in crowded marketplaces, in the first bus we took, at the local tailoring outfit where our 13 year old self felt puzzled by the elderly darzi’s strange touch. Pretty soon we developed a snarl, a well-aimed shove with our elbow, a dead fish look to keep strange men’s unwanted advances under control. We discovered that the male has a strange manner of appreciating female beauty. When we walk on the road, we realise we are more effective than the traffic light at the intersection to make cars and scooters slow down. The helpful Samaritans they are, they offer us a ride not once but again and again. Dear Delhi police, I’m not sure why you’re wasting money on traffic lights, when all you need is a comely femme preferably in shorts, to bring traffic to a grinding halt. Some men become so consumed by passion that their grey cells trigger an avalanche of emotions and send furious signals to important body parts. Their hand reaches out for the motherboard, their genitals and they start scratching violently. Their mouth starts generating copious amounts of saliva which they respectfully direct at our feet. The vocal ones prefer making strange noises that closely resemble the mating call of chimpanzees. Good to know they are in no hurry to forget their ancestors! But this is also a highly evolved species that does not let a woman’s age, weight, skin colour, political leanings, dietary preferences, schooling, family background or the lack of it, hold them back. In fact they treat all of us with equal lust and are in turn treated by all of us with equal disgust.

Why I Don’t Get ‘let us inside the Shani temple’ Kind of Activism

Also published on Huffington Post India

Pic Courtesy - IndianExpress.com

The last few years I have come across an evolving brand of feminism - women who are so proud to be a feminist that they’ll flaunt it like their newly acquired Birkin. Mostly hashtag feminists, they’ll mount the high horse of morality and slay anyone who disagrees with them. And then there is this other set that treats it like leprosy and cannot stop telling anyone who’s willing to listen - I am not a feminist, yaa. Please, please, don’t stop loving me! Here, let me post yet another cleavage shot to prove my point.

Little wonder I feel like a borderline feminist. I don’t relate to either of them. I felt acutely embarrassed when I didn’t get women outraging about women who keep a Karvachauth fast to be able to remain a Mrs for the rest of their life. Had it been to protest against its blatant commercialisation, I would have happily joined in. I mean this is the time when salons, jewellery and sari stores do roaring business and women get to strut their stuff in embellishments bright enough to light up Times Square, right? But calling it a patriarchal conspiracy to keep women hungry and at the mercy of their husbands is a little too much to digest. If she can starve for an upcoming wedding, or to fit into her new skinnies, why not for a man and also get to make him feel guilty as hell!

If we expect men to respect the life choices we make, why can’t we respect another woman’s choice to starve for her husband’s long life! Remember, all good men are either married or gay and one of them happens to be your spouse.

Women are from the Kitchen, Men are from I-can’t

Also Published on Huffington Post India

www.nairaland.com

I love watching cooking shows on TV. For every Nigella who clogs a thousand arteries as she adds a mammoth cube of butter to the bubbling sauce, there’s a Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver, Vikas Khanna, Heston Blumenthal vying for our tastebud’s attention. In the world of star chefs with cult following, there are more men than women shining bright in the galaxy. Yet, in real life, men who cook (other than fixing Maggi) are as rare a sight as Modi in India. Imagine being invited over for dinner by your friends and you see the husband slogging away at the kitchen while the wife regales you with stories! In all probability your eyes will pop out in surprise, much like a champagne cork.

Of course there do exist men who love to cook for themselves and their family, but they are more an exception than the norm. I am lucky to be married to the exception. When I tell my friends he’s a fabulous cook and I get to have breakfast in bed on weekends, I get the ‘you must be kidding’ look from them. Interestingly, you’ll hardly hear any man say, he’s lucky to have a mom/sis/wife who cooks. It’s because cooking is still considered a woman’s job. In the age of equality where a woman is as busy as her partner, she may not have to see the inside of her kitchen too often thanks to her cook. But keeping the house clean and the family well-fed even if she’s fed up of it, is still her responsibility. Little wonder it’s the woman and not the man who gets into ‘deep depression’ if her hired helps ditches her for greener pastures.

Behind every successful woman is her hardworking bai.

Frankly I don’t blame men who can’t differentiate cumin powder from coriander and don’t know where the spoons are kept in the kitchen. I blame the women in their lives who insist on treating them like babies incapable of taking care of themselves. Why else would a wife who leaves for a month long vacation at her parents slog for weeks to cook and freeze meals for her dear husband? Why else would a man who’s on a work tour, buy new shirts instead of bothering to wash the used ones? Because all these years he’s gotten away with it!

Women have a perfectly logical excuse for this ineptness. His presence in the kitchen is more a headache than a help. If he cooks, he leaves the kitchen in a mess! A lot of women’s idea of bagging the ‘best wife of the millennium’ trophy is to make their husbands ‘the most inept man’ of the century. And they apply the same logic to their own kids as well. If I make my Twinkle cook a meal, I’ll become a terrible Mom. 

Death by Fashion

Image courtesy - Google images

Recently a Melbourne based woman collapsed in her skinnies because it had cut off the blood supply to her calf muscles. What took me by surprise was the flurry of headlines decrying the fad of skinny jeans being bad for health. It’s pretty obvious these ignorant fools haven’t had the pleasure of wriggling themselves in jeans two sizes too small and experienced its health benefits. It’s only after you’ve spent 20 minutes huffing and puffing, trying to stuff your curves inside these drainpipes designed for women sans a butt and thighs, that you experience its cardio benefits. Not only do you burn calories, you also get to spend the rest of the day standing because you feel stiff as a stick. Since your jeans have also managed the commendable feat of bringing your stomach closer to your heart, you also end up eating almost nothing.

Breathlessness is but a small price for looking breathtaking.

Most of us would rather die than be seen in loose and comfortable clothing. Just the other day when I draped myself in a sack and tied my hair in a tight bun for an Iftaar foodwalk at Jama Masjid, I refused to get myself clicked. And when someone did manage some candid clicks, I promptly disowned myself.

We are willing to brave back problems, bunions, fall flat on our faces as we totter on impossibly high heels. We’ll gladly walk half step at a time in pencil skirts, give up breathing in corset dresses, all for the sake of looking fabulous. So, when a woman lies sprawled on the floor, unable to move her legs because her skinnies sucked the life out of them, she has rightfully earned herself the label of a martyr and definitely not ‘aww, poor thing’!

If people can give up their lives fighting for justice and freedom, why can’t we give up comfort, maybe a limb or two, carbs, sugary treats, peace of mind for the sake of looking hip and fashionable? People die all the time, don’t they? Rather die trying to look gorgeous.

Women, who dress in skin-tight jeans in the searing heat and wear the skimpiest of outfits in freezing temperature, while ordinary mortals choose to shiver in layers of woollies, are the ones who have truly achieved Nirvana. It is they who have understood the concept of Maya and have readily discarded bodily comforts for the greater good of mankind.

Only an evolved soul will go through unimaginable pain getting rid of hair, layers of fat, frown lines and all that they have deemed ugly only because their beauty makes others happy. Yet, we choose to call them fashion victims!

Nightie too naughty, you must be kidding!

This post was also published on Huffington Post India 

Source - Google Images

In what is seen as yet another blow to women’s liberation movement in India, residents of Gothivili of Navi Mumbai imposed a Rs 500 fine on women wandering around in nighties. It’s better to be born a cow in India that can move around in the nude without a care in the world and yet get so much respect that even their shit is considered holy.

Only those who have experienced the untethered pleasure of wearing a nightie on a hot summery day can understand why it’s the preferred garment of so many women who don’t give a damn about what others think of their sartorial choices. Essentially a sack with armholes, it’s the female counterpart of the lungi that’s also a sack but is wrapped around the waist to let the climate in. The lungi does a splendid job of keeping men in heat cool as a cucumber. They say the secret of Gandhi’s Ahimsa movement lay in his dhoti. It’s another matter that the same dhoti turns Khaap taus into imbeciles who never tire of issuing diktats against crafty women for instigating gullible men to rape them.

The nightie as the name suggests was originally meant to be worn at night. But such are its magical abilities to rejuvenate the body after a hectic day - multitasking as the family’s alarm clock, motivational speech giver, conscience keeper and the database of her man’s past mistakes -that women refuse to get out of it. All it requires is a couple of washes to turn as soft and absorbent as a well-used dusting cloth. It’s a forgiving garment that doesn’t hold you back but let’s you spill out in all your paunchy glory.

It’s the closest a Sanskari woman can get to a dress. Since buying a nightie is a usually a choice between “grandma don’t give a shit” and “the porn star (available in blood orange, traffic light yellow and all shades of “ewww”)”, most women end up choosing the former so as to not offend others with the suggestion of a body underneath the garment. It is a known fact that men get agitated at the mere hint of boobs and butt and the grandma nightie does a perfect cover job of it. Coupled with a dupatta or a towel slung over the shoulders, nobody can even make out that you’re a woman.

Women in public spaces, Uber unsafe

This post was also published on Huffington Post India 

There’s something about Delhi December that brings out the beast in certain men. Especially at nightfall, when the air becomes chilly, the roads desolate, the city gets enveloped in fog, giving men with criminal intent a cloak of invisibility. In a country where everybody’s business is everybody else’s business, for some strange reason, when we see a fellow citizen in distress, we drive a little faster, look the other way with a ‘tennu-kee-mennu-kee’ nonchalance.

The Uber Cab incident was yet another glaring example of how unsafe our women are. Only this time the city happened to be Delhi. Too bad that a few chose to take ‘what else can you expect from the rape capital of India’ stance. The thing is, cities do not rape, people do. Not all men, but certain rotten specimens who use their out of control libido to teach women a lesson! Too bad that all Indian men, including the ones who go out of their way to make us feel safe and cherished get tarnished in the process.

We may go hoarse shouting from rooftops that modern women are independent beings who don’t need men to look out for them but the fact remains that a woman on her own is easy target unless she’s walking around with a Kalashnikov is her hand.

But does it mean we ask our girls to pursue their dreams from home because they might be sexually exploited at their workplaces? Do we stop sending our children to school out of fear of assault by sexual predators? Do we adopt a Khap like attitude and insist they be married off early to keep them safe? Of course, we don’t, yet all of us inadvertently end up telling our girls to stay within their limits. Despite telling our girls to conquer the world without fear stalking their minds, we refuse to leave them alone with manservants, male relatives, warn them against staying out late and if they do, make sure they have someone to chaperone them home. We teach our girls to live in fear or put up with consequences.

With a police to people ratio: 3 cops for every VIP but just 1 for 761 commoners, we have no option but to rely on God and our good fortune to be safe.

OMG, Look at that L-Ass

Women have come a long way from the days when the sight of a waddling posterior brought out the sniggers and a secret prayer to Goddess to never be that ass. If Nicki Minaj is to be believed, 'his Anaconda don’t want none unless you got buns hun’.

This comes as a big ray of hope for women who spent a sizeable chunk of their life surreptitiously looking behind their back, wondering if their buns were becoming too ripe for comfort. It is a known fact that a woman can’t pass by a glass window or any shining exterior and not turn it into a rear-view mirror. And why not? It’s the only way that the annoying thing that follows us everywhere we go, but visible to the rest of the world, shows its cheeky side to us!

Now that it’s official, having disproportionate assets is the new booty – oversized, fleshy buns instead of drooping with low self-esteem – and they are perking up, cocking a snook at conventions. But here lies the catch. Not every woman with a humongous butt has a great future behind her unless it’s perched behind an already successful diva who loves flashing her twins for the frenzied cameras. A booty that she has nurtured to perfection, pushing it beyond its boundaries and raising it to greater heights. Once she’s raised her butt like her own babies, lavishing it with care and attention, like any doting parent on Facebook, she becomes her twins’ number one fan and expects the rest of the world to fall for their charms.

Just like Kim Kardashian, famous for earning her millions doing nothing. 

Fifty Shades of Dust

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Each house is as cluttered, colourful, messy, freakishly organised as its inhabitants. More often than not, since it’s the female species that takes a psychotic interest in the colour management of the cushions with the carpets, expresses displeasure at the highest decibel level when she discovers a well hydrated toilet seat cover and is far from appreciative of various articles of clothing strewn around the house – let’s conclude for the time being that a home is more an extension of a woman’s personality than a man’s.

Men are a highly evolved species and they know exactly what they want. Unlike a woman, he has accepted that a clean house is a state of mind - all you have to do is close your eyes. He doesn’t break into tears when the maid doesn’t turn up for three days in a row and is perfectly at peace with the unwashed pile of pots and pans and grime stains on the kitchen slab.

It didn’t take him long to realize that the key to happiness is selective blindness.

Unfortunately for the woman, God didn’t just give her eyes but an X-ray vision that can spot dust under the table-lamp just as she’s about to sleep, under piles of books when she’s about to cuddle up with a book, on the blades of the fan facing the ceiling when she’s searching for the meaning of life. The sight of unwashed utensils gives her the sinking feeling. It's as if those smelly pans are not in the sink but on her chest, making it difficult for her to breathe.Try throwing crumpled wrappers and papers on her floors and she'll come charging at you like a bull.


She may be dog-tired, ready to drop off dead, but she’ll ask for a 30-minute grace so she can tidy up the house before she can die. It’s a curse she has to live with. If she’s about to leave for a vacation, she makes sure she leaves behind an immaculately clean house, in case robbers decide to drop in. 


She knows everything we see will turn to dust and has quietly accepted that everything she sees will have dust.

Shut Her Up Before She Starts Getting Ideas

Everyone loves a strong independent woman as long as she doesn’t mind following the rules laid out for her good conduct. It’s like the matrimonial ad, where the handsome, fair, MBA seeks a convent educated, working but homely wife. A smart, attractive working woman earning a handsome salary but seeks permission from her family before she goes and shops for a handbag.

That’s what good upbringing is all about – to listen, obey, and accept whatever comes her way without a whimper of protest. So, when the fresh from college intern joins office, it’s a given that she’ll quietly accept the extra attention her boss lavishes on her. Since she has been made to believe that she’s responsible for everyone’s happiness, she should melt with gratitude when Gupta Uncle’s son stalks her.

She’s sweet, lovely and beautiful as long as she doesn’t turn a man down. All hell breaks loose if she suddenly develops a mind of her own and puts her foot down on her boss’s when his wandering hands land on her lap. He’s shocked that the chit of a girl had the audacity to turn down his affections and makes sure that the ungrateful girl is suitably punished. Look what happens to women who file a sexual harassment case. Her character and her past are dissected and her intentions painted as suspect. After all, no girl from a respectable family will raise a stink until she has ulterior motives. Women from good families do not get raped and if they do, they certainly don’t go to a police station to file an FIR. Instead they swallow the humiliation, trauma and anger to protect their family’s honour.

Why just blame the boss? What about the woman who finds out her husband has been having an affair! In many cases, her first reaction is to blame the other woman for ensnaring a happily married man with her manufactured charms. Badly brought up children, an unkempt house, an unhappy husband are all a woman’s fault.

OMG, It's Cleavage Mahabharata

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All hell broke loose when Kaurava Times of India (KATTI), Bharat’s most defiled Daily decided to do a cheer-haran of Draupadi Padukone’s cleavage. Given she’s in the entertainment business that requires an actress to reveal her proportionate assets and acting skills with equal zeal, it’s a given that her assets are public property, meant to be leered at by all. Men and women have equal rights to gaze at them including KATTI that has the right to flaunt it on her behalf.

Just like the guy in the Metro who thinks it is his birth right to take candid shots of that girl’s cleavage that pops out when she bends down to pick up her book. In fact, every woman who flaunts her curves in a fitted dress and dares to reveal her legs is giving an open invite to men to come and pay their respects. Walk around town in an attire that displays even a hint of your cleavage and you’ll have a dozen pair of eyes boring through your dress, willing it to fall apart.

Didn’t our history of repeat offences teach you that anything’s that’s not covered invites appreciation of the lowest kind? 

So, when Draupadi wears an outfit that reveals more than just her face, she should expect KATTI to run an OMG slideshow of her cleavage. And if she objects to it, it’s obviously well-timed to garner more publicity for her Fanny.

Why Nice Guys Come Last

The end of innocence is when you realize that your knight in shining armour was more fiction than reality. Where friendzoned is a stigma worse than a woman running after you with a Rakhi. Where men make you feel guilty for not falling in love with them.

Miss Tee talks about heartbreak and douchebags.

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Disclaimer: This is not a generalization, but rather an observation borne of some years of life experience, a few of which were spent in the dating circuit.

If I lost a brain cell for every time I’ve heard “nice guys always come last”, I’d be Rahul Gandhi. From whiny posts about the Friendzone to vitriolic rage in the YouTube comments section, females of the human species are frequently made to feel guilty for all the nice guys they reject in favour of apparent douchebags.

Let me clear up something before I’m accused of being a feminazi, or worse, an empowered woman who doesn’t need the validation of a man to live: douche-y people can come from all backgrounds, ethnicities, cultures and yes, genders. There may actually be guys out there who are genuinely nice, and got dumped for someone they perceived as undeserving. However, from overwhelming evidence based on personal experience, I have found the Nice Guy Hypothesis to be faulty. You may think you know a story, but you only know how it ends. So let me start at the beginning.

I grew up, like many girls, on a steady diet of fairy tales and in my naiveté, I “dated” my first boyfriend when I was in middle school. He was the archetypal “nice guy”. Expressive, attentive, given to great displays of generosity. He called every night and even got me flowers on Valentine’s Day. It ended with quite a bang, with yours-truly being declared a “slut” for breaking up with a guy who used guilt as a relationship tactic. I was shamed; a “bitch” that did not deserve him. I felt something was warped in this whole incident, but it took years of perspective to truly understand my first mistake.

Law A: Nice guys, under close observation, are not as nice as they think

Sure, he drove you home, he talked to you till the sun came up, he bought you a promise ring. But how “nice” is he if he threatens to kill you for daring to break up with him? And that’s the problem, right there. The most terrible people raise the most hue and cry when they think they are wronged.

Why Is The Fair Sex So Unfair?

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Ever since man stood straight and ventured out of his cave, he has accused the fairer sex of being unfair. He claims she’s unfair by insisting on being so complicated. He wonders, if she has so many buttons he can push that make her fly off the handle or make her blush and mumble inanities, where the fuck is the instruction manual? He claims he became bald pulling his hair in frustration, wondering why her eyes became moist on their most romantic night and why she laughed so hard when he dropped the gravy all over the couch that she loves adorning with silly cushions and rugs. He was going to join in her laughter but stopped when he saw the maniacal glint in her eyes.

He thinks he’s manly, while she accuses him of behaving like a baby in constant need of her care. But that doesn’t stop her from mothering and fussing over his ‘bad habits’. What she thinks is mothering, he sees it as smothering. What he sees as protective, she sees as suffocating.

She never tires of complaining of his bad memory. But pray, why should he bother remembering when she has maintained a database of all his so called misdeeds. A database with unlimited storage that has no delete button but has an instant recall feature, which incidentally is very handy to leave him speechless in the midst of a heated argument! Just as he’s settling on the couch with Dorritos and beer to watch the most awaited match of the year, she chooses to recall in that annoying quivering voice of hers that fateful day, 17 August 2001, when he was glued to the TV while she was coughing away to glory. She has the memory of an elephant but when he tells her she’s looking like one in that new dress of hers, she springs upon him like a panther.

It’s as if they were born to disagree.

It wasn’t always like this. Once upon a time she was coy and had that ‘you-are-my-hero’ look in her eyes. She didn’t care that the toilet seat was wet, the drain clogged with his hair and the toothpaste cap was always missing. She used to call him the best husband in the world till she started comparing notes with her friends. Damn it, is it my fault that Latika’s husband insists on making the morning tea and gets flowers for her every Thursday? You can’t stop cursing Amish who serenades his girlfriend with poetry! But when you decide to turn the tables on her and gush about Smita’s gorgeous mane and Amisha’s sumptuous Mutton pasanda, she gives you the injured look that gives you no choice but to apologise profusely for your insensitivity.

It takes you some time to discover that while she never says no to your helpful advice and suggestions, she still goes ahead and does it her way. But if you decide to go against her wishes, she’ll sulk and make you feel guilty.