Self Service- A 55 word fiction entry

I ran a finger over the soft creamy surface

Round and round around the mound till I got to the peak

And got down to kneading lustily with my palms and fingers.

I pinched and prodded to check if the silky mass was hard enough now.

Satisfied with the dough I started making the chappatis.

Cry Man Cry.....

(Disclaimer: this story happened in a galaxy, far, far away, a long, long, time ago...)

I happened to read recently this wonderful post by a fellow blogger Christopher @Chronicwriter about his heartbreak when he broke up with a girl and how he tried not to cry. Now this is a touchy subject for men. All men. As far as I know not one man in ten will be brave enough to talk about their heartbreaks in a public forum. It’s only done secretly in the middle of the night during a marathon drinking session with close buddies when the dam breaks and the tears start flowing copiously. It takes guts to write a blog post about it and put it online. Hats off to you Chris, you are a braver man than I am or ever were. You have shamed me indeed that I have never really talked about this issue on my blog. I have talked about my victories but never till now about my failures. Shining in the afterglow of a temporary courage (and before it evaporates) I am going to talk for the first time and hopefully for the last time, what it takes for a man to get over heartbreak in love.

We men, have this humongous ego which does not allow us to admit that we were wrong or were made fools off. Admitting to anyone else that our heart was broken by a mere girl almost never happens, because we consider it a sign of weakness. To admit to failure in love- even to ourselves is about the toughest thing in a man’s life. We simply refuse to do it. We would prefer to close our eyes and carry on as if it’s alright, nothings amiss and things will get back to normal. To face it, face the obvious truth, is beyond normal endurance and we try to dodge it as much as we can. Until events force us to. 

The girl who was always hanging around with us, suddenly becomes unavailable, invents excuse after excuse to avoid meeting us every week, invents an old friend from out of town who suddenly turns up and will stay just the one day in town and has to be taken to dinner, in order to beg off a movie the tickets for which were booked a week ago. I could go on and on and on… and finally comes the clincher. Your friends call and say “hi buddy, we are having a surprise birthday party for our close friend so-and-so at this restaurant and you need to get here immediately dude” And all innocent of why they are calling you so urgently, you go over there and see your girl with a new date, having an intimate romantic dinner at the restaurant. And then you finally get it. Only when you see it with your own eyes- the proof that the relationship is well and truly over and they have been avoiding you, just to avoid mentioning it in a honest way, that they have moved on from you. 

And you just pick up your mobile and dial her number and say “Hi! are you free? Can I come over to your house and pick you up and lets go somewhere?” and she says without a pause “Oh no, I can’t today, my mother is very sick, I have brought her to the hospital and we are waiting outside the doctor’s room to meet him. I am very scared and worried about my mother’s health”. And then you ask “you sure? Which hospital is it? Can I come over there to check on aunty?” and she says sweetly “oh thanks for your concern, but please don’t. Just not in the mood to socialize with anyone today. Maybe later” and finally you say “that’s a pity, for you look to be in a great socializing mood to me. Why don’t you turn to your left for a minute?” and when she turns over to look directly at you, you wave and smile and have the satisfaction of watching her face blanch white. And then leave the place with full closure, knowing it wasn’t you at fault.

Anyway whatever be the reason for the love failure, the impact is far more on the man because, because the man is supposed to be a brave heart and go around with no show of emotion. Pain is pain. It’s equally felt by men as by women. But men as said by Chris, don’t cry. We put on a brave face, boast that we will get even by getting a new one within the week and go home to lock the door, lie on the bed and stare at the ceiling. But still the tears won’t come. The pain, oh the pain will be unbearable, the heart will be ready to burst, it will keep pushing out of the ribcage trying to come out, a cold fever will be all over your body and you will start shivering, your mom will come put an hand on you and ask why are you covered with a blanket when you are sweating like this. But still the tears won’t come. They will be there, right up to the throat level, but an iron determination not to cry and look like a sissy will hold them back inside. 

And you know when they finally come? When your friends turn up at home, drag you to their hostel room, pour some beer inside you forcibly and then say “Forget that cheating bitch dude, she doesn’t deserve you, let go bro” and that’s when the tears come. And once the dam bursts it’s a regular cry-fest. You cry like your heart is going to burst. You cry and cry for being made a fool of, for wasting so much time on a worthless person and most of all for the loss of something beautiful- your trust and your love. For taking your heart and crushing it under their feet. That’s what hurts and that brings the tears out. 

But everything has an end. Every storm pours itself out. You pick up the pieces of your broken heart and get on with life, trusting to time, the great healer to take care of it. And soon, pretty soon you are back on the mend. But the sense of loss, of something beautiful will always be there. Till something new and wonderful comes to take its place in your heart. For life is all about hope. And love is the greatest hope of all mankind. We never know, never can we predict when the arrows of cupid will strike again. A look, a word, a chance meeting and suddenly the birds are fluttering in your heart again, the sky is filled with rainbows, the throat is dry despite drinking tons of water, the heart is leaping and doing jigs and we are back again in love. That’s men. We love and we love and we keep on loving till we die. No full stops for us.

(Pics Courtesy : Google Images )

On High Heels And Size Zero....

Have you ever had the eerie experience of walking down a hallway or a foyer of an office or an hotel, hearing footsteps behind you and by the distinctive clackity-clack echoing on the marble flooring know it is a woman, a woman in high heels who is coming up fast behind you and then you turn around to feast your eyes on the person wearing the high heels striding briskly by you, her confident stride showing her intent solely on her work? There is something extra attractive about a busy woman in high heels striding by with nary a glance around but lost in her own world of professionalism. Especially when the same woman is not aware of her effect on other bystanders and on-lookers. It’s the very fact that they are not self conscious is what makes such busy professionals so incredibly attractive to guys. This fact is lost on a lot of girls who think that the way to attract a man’s attention is to always look their best at all times and try a few coquettish tricks instead of just calmly going about their work minding their own business. The more self-absorbed (in professionalism) they are, the more incredibly attractive they look to guys. The why of which cannot be explained that easily.

Some girls are obsessive about trying to conform with what they think is the fashionable shape, based on popular culture (television/fashion mags/movie stars ) which showcases how a real woman is supposed to look at all times. Such women find it hard to believe that a man, a mere, admiring, wolf-whistling creature, who knows nothing about women’s feelings, such a man can be attracted to the whole package too. This creates a practical difficulty for most men who look at women as a lovable whole, warts and all and don’t give a damn about their waist size, height or weight and certainly never worry about any body part that can be measured by a tape (and indicated in alphabets and numerals).

And normal men are not stupid enough to believe that any real woman can ever conform to the fantasy body structures (the size zero look) maintained by film stars who are paid daily (by their producers) not to eat but to look like refugees from a famine stricken land. The film stars who undergo such an ordeal are, if you believe the gossip magazines, almost always half mad all the time, as they are half starved all the time and hungry enough to eat up their co-stars given half a chance. Which might even happen one day.

Anyway, contrary to what the advertisement industry has conned us all into believing- having spoon fed the theory that the thinner the better and the part played by celebrities who unethically promote unreal and unlikely shapes as the ones to aspire for by impressionable young girls. As I said, contrary to this entire BS, the real attraction between a man and woman is entirely based between the ears and the other body parts are mere add-on packs, just optional and not essential. Men, always have and always will be attracted by the quality of the mind and the empathy and sympathy which envelops when the two minds interact. The rest is just mere packaging. And, as time flies by, the outside of the package fades. But when you unravel the thread tied in a bow then what finally counts is what’s inside the package and that’s what lasts a lifetime. The rest is just a pretty paper cover. So when a man falls for a woman he falls for the whole package and not just for the pretty label or the nice paper. Real women, are interesting and attractive in themselves, not as a set of numbers or as a collection of body parts. And busy women? Oh they are the greatest of nature's aphrodisiacs.

P.S. I am kind of partial myself to a busy woman in formal pantsuits walking around Blackberry in hand….such a sight makes my day.