Life - or something like it

As she clicked one selfie after another, to get the right picture, Sudha realized that the smile that she had bravely plastered in front of the camera was not reaching her eyes. Her eyes still looked sad and forlorn. The lipstick and the jewelry added a bit of color, but her eyes betrayed her sadness. Last week, she had stood stoically in the courtroom, with her soon to be ex- husband standing next her. As the clerk shuffled the divorce papers, there was a pit in her stomach and her heart was beating erratically. Sudha's hands were numb and the conversation between them was stilted.  Sudha's gaze moved to the bindi on her forehead as she looked in the cellphone and it took her back to her wedding day. Arun and Sudha had met in Bangalore through common friends. Though they did not know each other earlier, the chance introduction turned into friendship and both were drawn to each other. Their friendship turned to attraction and both soon realized that they were in love. 

This is not a post about the band "Fred said right" or about Govinda gyrating to the god awful Hindi song, "meri pant bhi sexy". I am talking about the emergence of a new eye candy in our Bollywood movies. Move over Bipasha Basu, John Abraham has arrived.  It is now the dawn of the era of the "female gaze" in Bollywood. The naked male body was never in the limelight, as it is now. Salman Khan set the precedent, when he discarded his shirt in each and every movie, whether it was hot or cold, raining or sunny. Mr. Khan never left a single opportunity to show his 6 packs and bulging biceps, which made several women swoon and gasp for breath. Gone are the days, when heroines in drenched white sarees, gyrated seductively in the rain and made men's hearts race. Gone are the days, when raunchy lyrics and dhak dhak karne laga dil's were only the privilege of men. Who can forget John Abraham in the movie 'Dostana', walking out of the oce

I am at such an age in life where the best pastime possible is to crib about your better half with your close girl-friends. It is a sort of camaraderie which binds most married girlfriends. We discuss ‘almost’ everything with each other (Sex and the city was right about that) right from ‘issues with the maid’, ‘rising cost of living’, ‘recipes’ and ‘movies’ but ‘Crib about Hubby’ still being the best seller. The topic of discussion keeps changing as we enter into every new phase of our life. I grew up surrounded by girl friends who were not too keen on discussing boys, they were more interested in movies, books and just having a good time. Not that I did not have my mandatory crushes or was not observant about ‘good looking’ chaps in college. But I was not the stereotypical giggling girl who would nudge her girlfriend whenever the heart throb of college passed by. Then came the newly married phase when love and passion is in the air and your other half is the centre of your life

I feel, I have been living under a rock somewhere. Today, my usual Blog surfing unearthed a lot of interesting things which definitely made me go, Huh! I do like experimenting with different products but some things I discovered hit me smack on my head and made my eyes pop out of my skull. Call me old fashioned if you want. All of us have heard of the infamous 'PMS'. Yes, the same one. It is that time of the month when most women go on a rampage. I do too. Hubs knows better than to mess with me as I walk around the house like a three headed monster spewing flames out of my mouth. He keeps the knives hidden and the scissors stashed away some place safe, wearing a Kevlar vest and a helmet all the time. 1)  For those WOMEN friends, who forget their dates:  Here is something to help you....presenting  iPeriod . You can customize it and also can track your mood. Image Courtesy: www.winkipass.com Isn't it great? I am totally buying this application. Apple here I come. 2)  M

I first heard the word 'makeup' while reading novels. The sentences in the novels 'expertly applied makeup' or 'flawless makeup' always intrigued me. While growing up, my mother had a 'solitary' lipstick, which she promptly forgot to use. That lipstick was used on my elder sister and me as a 'rouge'(hideous blobs of red) to stain our cheeks and also as a lipstick. This was the makeup for the many school plays and dances, in which we participated. My first brush with actual makeup was, when I saw my eldest sister using a compact, lipstick, kohl pencil and mascara. I was not fascinated by it so much...just thought it as a natural part of being a grown up (I still had some catching up to do). That indifference slowly waned as I grew a bit older and started going to college. That time, my elder sis and I shared whatever bits and pieces of makeup we could buy. We shared our lipsticks and nail polishes. Having a separate arsenal was not viable as makeu

The other day, I asked hubs a question. Me: Sweety, do I nag a lot? Hubs: (A perplexed expression on his face) I am sure, I caught him off guard. I tend to do that most of the times. Not being a novice himself, he recovered quickly and said not at all dear. To tell you the truth, I was just doing live research for the post...ha In a relationship between any man and woman, we have already set our stereotypes. A beer drinking, football watching man, who does not give any heed to the woman. A harridan, whose main pleasure is to scream at the man to do chores. We do come across such people in our lives but there are people who have some tricks up their sleeves and do not have to convert their home & hearth into a battleground. You come to know of each other's likes and dislikes after living together for some years. You might on occasion want to escape from the mountain of housework and chores both of you are putting off. The problem happens when one of the parties has a different i

Hey! I don't mean that literally. It was just a ruse to grab your attention. Plus, I don't want to disappoint those people, specially men, who like to package women into stereotypes . For instance, how much women talk and shop, how they want their husbands to change after marriage and such other nonsense. Bah!!! I love shopping. To be more explicit, I love shopping when I get to buy stuff for myself (I can feel the negative vibes people). I don't mind being the go along person too....remember the don't mind part. My idea of shopping is to go and make quick decisions and buy what you want quickly. I am not so much of a fan of endless shop hopping for e.g. a dress ,that is the exact shade of 'Mauve' that will go with my Nail Varnish types. I hope you get my drift. I call such people Pain-in-the Ass-Shoppers (PITAS). And god knows why, I am surrounded by people like that. My eldest bro-in-law and sister are both fanatic about shopping and are complete PITAS. I rem

My everyday walk to work takes me through the High street in Lancaster. The street is lined by shops selling branded clothes. Each of them have a display window displaying , dressed up mannequins. Are these shops selling a dream or merely making us depressed. You ask me why depressed?? Oh I promise, I have never ever been envious of any inanimate objects in my life to be termed as loony. But then why do I have this sudden desire to smash the display window and wring the necks of these wooden people ermmm... actually break it with an axe? Before you think I've gone totally mad... let me take some deep breaths...and continue Next time you are out shopping...please do observe a mannequin. The slender figure, the perfect body...the perfect posture...no wonder any outfit looks amazing on it. The same dress will make you look like a sack of potatoes. If you will see all about you, you will very rarely find women with the perfect curves. All of us have unwanted curves and the curves we ha

It all began one day when I started getting a severe headache in spite of using my spectacles the whole day at work. In addition, the constant staring at the computer monitor was not helping much. Eventually I stopped wearing them for a couple of days and then concluded that either my visibility has increased or decreased. This conclusion needed to be checked out by having an eye test. Walking in town during my lunch break, my eyes fell upon a sign that said 'Free Eye Tests'. Nothing like 'Free' right? I rushed to the shop and booked an appointment. An ‘Optical Wear’ shop provided free eye tests. The catch was 'You had to buy your spectacles from them as they did not give you your test results'. I fell hook, line and sinker since I came to know of this only after I had completed the eye test. The 'Eye Test’ itself was routine. In India, I had my eye doctor who funnily enough went by the name ' Andhare ' which means 'darkness' in Marathi. I us

'A' and I have this long standing tradition of arguing just before I plan to have a haircut. Its a finely tuned ritual with each of us playing our well rehearsed parts. 'A' never wants me to cut my hair and says I look better with long hair. I tend to disagree (Well, what's the fun if you give in). The other reason being I think I look better in shorter hair, younger and also its manageable. After completing the ritual, I got dressed and left for work, an hour earlier. Being quite impulsive on a lot of things, I can never ever book appointments for any of the beauty regimes. Never did that in India and am not about to change here. So I popped into a swanky looking Hair Salon. After looking at the charges I started praying inwardly ...Please god, please let them not be free for an appointment. The cost of one haircut could feed an entire Indian family for a whole month. God heard my prayers and I moved on to my ever dependant salon whose charges were decent and did

I have recently purchased a pair of boots after searching for months together since, I am really finicky about the heels and by the way did I mention that they were on 'SALE'. A sale sign is like a flame which draws moths like me to it. I am sure women will identify with what I am saying. All around me fair damsels of all ages were foraging through the shoes on Sale checking out the highest possible heels. Some were even as high as a length of 'Apsara' Pencil and equally thin. It has always been a mystery to me as how do people really manage to walk in those heels. I remember during my school days a girl wearing too high heels usually came from a well to do family with an access for choosing her own shoes. In my case my sister and I were herded by our pater to a all too familiar shoe shop in the Bazaar and were given a capped budget. Any chance of going overbudget died its own death when our father gave a withering look and we hurried on to buy something else. Not that

In my search for the perfect body lotion I came across shelf upon shelf of body lotions which maintain your perfect tan and tanning lotions which help you tan.Well again at the cost of repeating myself I will say "Summers here" in UK. The campus is converted into a beach where semi naked bodies are lying down in the sun .Its like the entire University is in a picnic mood. Well back home in "good ole India" we run for cover from the blazing sun not to get tanned. All the beauty regimes definitely include how to get rid of that ugly tan . Where as the Sun heats up, we can see our feet bearing the design of our footwear . Its kind of ironic to see the fair skinned "Firangs" wanting our skin shade "BROWN" (as Russel Peters likes to call) and us trying desperate measures to look fairer. How could I miss talking about the beauty cream "Fair and lovely" . I personally feel that the product should be banned from the market. It actually promote