Episode 12: Clash over supermodels

He says:

I'm tired of people saying supermodel women are dumb.

Come on, women think men, who have a sense of humour, rule. Does that mean every man with no sense of humour is a loser? I think models with great bodies rock.

They are certainly among the most intelligent women ever created. They are management gurus really.

Models really do their SWOT analysis pretty early in life. SWOT, if you are not a model or a management person, means a detailed review of your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

Strengths: Their basic natural resources. What God blessed them with and what they can possibly boost up with man-made technology with a little investment? They know the short cut to success: showbiz, which has very basic eligibility criteria. Their basic intelligence tells them they can put the rest of it (the intelligence, that is) to better use, in real life projects that have to do with the actual application of beauty.
Formula one: Beauty plus attitude equals sexy.

Weaknesses: They know that whatever they do, they are going to be considered `bimbos' because they are so hot. So they decide to ignore what other women and loser-men think. And capitalise on their weakness too. They play dumb.
Because, formula two goes: beauty plus dumbness, for any man, is cute.

Opportunities: Training that does not cost as much as your management degree would. They just need a cat around and follow its footsteps. This walk comes in handy, because it not only helps you climb the corporate ladder in the long run because beauty pageants are called personality contests and winning one does make you an official authority on Mother Teresa and a messiah of social consciousness. So even after retirement as a model, the catwalk would help in climbing up the corporate escalator.
Formula three: Beauty, plus purpose and personality, means project leader/marketing head.

Threats: Other women. And THAT, they can deal with. Because, the competition is really not that much and the world, is surely, more than enough for all of them to rule.
Formula four: Beauty plus beauty, is, a joy forever.

She says:

I'm tired of people saying that supermodels are dumb.
But for completely different reasons.

I don't think women with great bodies `rock.' As for male models, they're not even tempting. Which woman wants to share her hair products and under eye creams. Or be elbowed out of her mirror-space every morning and evening. Besides, there's something distinctly eerie about a man who uses more makeup than you do.

But supermodels. You have got to hand it to them. They do a pretty good job of working on what they've got. Though, of course, only a man could say it's done with `a little investment.'

I hate to break this to you guys, but those girls on the cover of glossy magazines didn't just tumble into the photo studio straight from... um... management class. Their hair's been coloured, straightened, tinted, glossed, styled and sprayed. Their pouts are often perfected in expensive clinics. Their teeth are whitened, their noses tweaked. They have personal trainers, beauticians, masseurs, shoppers...

Not that it matters, really. It's tough work, and if it pays off, it's worth it. Otherwise, you're just a pretty girl standing in line with a whole lot of other pretty girls at some lecherous B-grade producer's office. Especially if you're not the brightest lipstick in the make-up tray, and therefore can't plot, plan and claw your way to the top. (The only way you can catwalk up a ladder is if you are actually a cat.)

Not surprisingly, real women don't hate models. So that spirited defence of them and their management skills is really quite unnecessary.

We think they're nice to look at too. And they make brilliant clothes hangers. And we'd be the first to complain if men started running around trees with each other in soggy songs and dance scenes in the movies.

But — and I think I speak for a large number of women — we wouldn't want to be them.

It's means too much hard work. And too few chocolate covered doughnuts.

Because, beauty plus beauty isn't really that much fun.

Episode 11: Women are ladies, Men are boys?

He says:

Men have always been simple people with simpler needs and basic instincts. (Thought bubble: Sharon Stone cross-legged pose *slurp slurp*)

Think about it. His evolution has been about simple discoveries: fire, food, land, etc. And basic inventions: bulb, burger, computer, etc.

And how did it all happen? Because he simply refused to grow up, he always kept the kid in him alive. The kid who never stopped asking questions, the kid always up to mischief, the kid who broke rules, defied convention. The kid who believed that the only truth was that he knew little. Though they might pretend it, men always know that they do not know it all.

Which is why men exhibit child-like excitement every time they discover something. They don't lose touch with their innocence when they give in to impulse. They lie out of fear of losing what they really like. They fight for what they want and don't stop at anything.

They do not want to be in control of everything. They do not want responsibility. They like to sit back and let women mother them.

Men know that for the sake of balance and maintaining equilibrium on the planet, it's essential for them to let the heart rule. Because, women have taken sole proprietorship of using their head.

Besides, most women believe they know it all. They believe they are grown up, lady-like and take upon themselves the responsibility of raising a child as a mother or a man as his wife.

It's almost like it is their purpose in life to manage their homes, their lives, their families and take upon themselves the responsibility and reputation of being "practical" and "mature".

Women simply love to believe that they are in control of their life. They like to believe they are grown up.

So men simply let them believe so. Anything that makes her happy. Because unless she's happy, how would he get his basic needs fulfilled?

She says:

Men just don't grow up.

When they're fifteen, attaching a tin to a cat's tail is their idea of a sophisticated joke. When they're in their twenties, they are convinced that water pistols even scores in ways debates cannot. When they're in their thirties, they battle their children for play stations. Fifty? Sixty? Seventy? They still find gross sexist jokes hilarious. And at eighty, only a man will marry a twenty year old, and steadfastly believe that women are more attracted to wrinkles than yachts.

And then they wonder why women think they're juvenile.

Why do women marry and date men older than them? Because men take so much longer to mature emotionally and intellectually. Date a man who's twenty-five, and be prepared for bursts of kleptomania "because we thought it would be kind of funny if we stole that no parking sign," random fist fights "oh yeah? You think your girlfriend is prettier than mine? Eat dirt," and stupid spends, "Dude, I got, like, this totally cool new phone. Only, I can't afford to eat for about a month now."

So men invented fire? If women weren't around to make use of the flames, they would have still been sniggering and pushing each other into the coals with `childlike excitement'. "Snort, snort, now it's your turn to roast." Luckily, their wives and girlfriends realised that the big, hairy thing in the fire needed to be replaced with real food, so dinner could be made.

Makes you wonder how far civilisation would have progressed without women.

Of course men like sitting back and letting women take charge. It makes their own lives so much easier. The thing is, women don't mind taking over.

After all, women have allowed men to run the world till now. And just look at the mess their inner-children have created!

Sometimes, you just have to use your head.

Episode 10: What's "one of the guys"?

She says:

If you have a sense of humour, you're one of the guys.
If you don't fall into a dead faint when you see a rat, you're one of the guys.
If you like whooping it up on Saturday night with 'the gang', you're one of the guys.

What's with this 'one of the guys' nonsense anyway? It makes you wonder whether every man's idea of the perfect girl involves visions in frilly pink who smile demurely — and that too only when there's an exciting breakthrough, like Lakme coming up with a new lipstick colour — about three times a day. (The rest of the time, they are probably expected to look wide-eyed and virtuous). Girls who swoon delicately every time a frog croaks. Whose idea of a wild party involves Earl Grey tea and cucumber sandwiches spread with low fat butter.

I don't know whether this is good news or bad, but sorry guys, women like this just don't exist. And perhaps they never did. I, for one, can't think of a single woman who's the embodiment of all those dreadfully feminine 'virtues' that all of us are supposed to possess.
Because none of the women I know bake cakes and waft on a haze of vanilla all day. They just pick up their snazzy cell phones and order them.

None of them sit picturesquely and bat their eyelashes adoringly at the men, called in to wrestle with plumbing/ laptops/ cars. When they need to get something fixed, they either call a plumber/ geek friend/ mechanic, or pull out manuals and fix it themselves.

And none of them are "gentle, compassionate, introverted, submissive and yielding" — the terms commonly used to describe feminity. Honestly, think of the women you know, and try matching them with all those adjectives. (After you stop laughing, maybe you could drink a glass of water to cure your hiccups before you return to this column.)

The bottom line is, women, like men, are are a bunch of very different people. They don't have a pack of similar virtues, and thank goodness for that. After all, where would you be without your women friends who slap you on the back and tell you not to be a wuss when you whine, and then tell you how to fix your ipod, and your life.

He says:

Yes, the lady wins this one. Hands down.
Of course she has a sense of humour to write whatever she did.
Because, the joke's really working.
The floor's sparkling clean. I'm just rolled on it laughing.

A friend of mine suggested a simple test: Make a list of different people who make you laugh. Oh, of course, there are so many women who do that.
But the point is, they don't intend to. Which is why you laugh.
Call any girl a clown and she'll frown.

Because, my friends, most women consider the word clown derogatory.
Tell a man that and he's sure to laugh and say: "Guess what? You're funny too."
She's also right when she says women don't faint when they see rats. They just become one of them. Jumpy, hiding for cover, lest the frightful monster gobbles them up. Men consider it perfectly natural for rats to co-habit their eco-system and do remember that they are right at the top of the food chain.

And what's a girl gang? Ooooh, I'm really scared now. Because, the girls are going to drink their guts out and fall over me on a Saturday night. Ha ha!
So what is this "one of the guys" thing men talk about?
Come on, you need to be among the guys to do that.

I could write a check-list of what we dream, lust and fantasise about all day and all night. But I just heard that the list would not be printable. Oh damn!

Men have simple tastes, they are colour blind, so they wouldn't even notice if it's a blue lipstick or a black one she's wearing. So whoever said they like their ladies to be dainty in pink.
Men have basic instincts, let's just say they are very very basic.

They can laugh at themselves, call themselves clowns, lech at every other woman and perfectly not feel guilty, catch a rat by its tail, get pissed drunk on a saturday night, sport a Salman Khan wardrobe every single day, hit on women shamelessly, make them laugh and be laughed at.
Now lady, if you can do this, you're one of the guys too. Else, just snigger dismissively, saying: "Boys!"