Boy, I know you did NOT just say that..!

I've come to the conclusion that there has to be something to be said for the concept that men are from Mars and women are from Venus. How is it that when two women or even twenty women are conversing they're just all on the same page. Come on, we're practically finishing each others sentences. And I'm not even necessarily speaking of women that know each other!.. But put ONE man and ONE woman in conversation with each other, and WHAM.. chaos and confusion....!!

I'm not saying that things go wrong right from the moment they meet.. but boy, give it time..

Now I don't know who to feel more sorry for.. The woman who has just been inadvertently insulted, slighted or ignored.. or the guy who's wondering what the hell just happened!
How is it that a God who made the heaven and earth, the universe, the oceans, the birds, the bees, the animals and the humans forgot to put us on the same page! or at least grant us the intelligence to figure it out as the milleniums progress!!

We can put a man on the moon, send satellites into space, create weapons of mass destruction and travel around the world in a matter of hours, but we still go home at the end of the night saying 'Do you KNOW what that douchebag said????!!!'... How can it be this hard?!

Style Me Up Scotty

Im lending my space to my good friend Neha Patodia who has launched a website called Styleme, for all of us who've lost our way down the endlessly twisting road of modern day fashion. so please read on everyone, and show Neha some LOVE!!..
If you like her site, please go onto facebook and 'like' it and refer it to your friends for them to like it too..

We all spend a lot of time, money and energy in finding the right clothes and fashion accessories for ourselves. Imagine if there was a way to optimise your shopping visits and know what suits your needs best. Now, there thankfully is a place where your fashion related queries can be answered. Mumbai’s first state-of-the online fashion directory empowers you with all the information you need. Whether you want to locate a store or find out what’s on sale, http://www.styleme.co.in/ will bring you the hottest buys, the best picks and genuine reviews of some of the best known, relatively unknown and new store openings in the city.From designer wear to one-off small boutiques, Styleme will give you specific guidelines and customised help to fulfil your needs and demands. Clothes, jewellery, accessories, fashionable stationary, eyewear—men, women and children can find all their questions answered.The detailed listings will give you the exact location, contact details and even opening hours of the stores you are looking to visit. It will offer details on parking availability, credit/ debit card acceptance policies, exchange policies and what to expect from the store.From affordable dressing to personal styling and makeovers you can find all kinds of fashion-related services at Styleme. Save time and make the most of your shopping spend with http://www.styleme.co.in
Log on to be a part of this online shopaholic community!
Styleme

BCG - The Susegad Way

For those of you who are wondering, the word 'Susegad' to Goans, means lazy. On the BCG trip to Goa, we were anything but Susegad. From the moment we arrived, we were unstoppable for 48 hours till on Sunday afternoon we all returned, fairly comatose back to our own homes and own lives.

But for those 48 hours we went completely and utterly insane!!

The deal was a 2 night-3 day stay at The Park Hyatt hotel in South Goa. Words cannot adequately describe how absolutely beautiful that place is. With lush lawns, three swimming pools, a private beach and a nice, hot, bubbly jacuzzzi, I was in holiday heaven.
One thing I can say about BCG, they really know how to do things in style!

We reached on Friday afternoon and after all the hellos had been said and the lunch had been eaten, we hit the beach, then the pool, then the oh-my-god-jacuzzi, and back to the pool. And as you lie around in the water, nursing a beer, you think life doesn't get much better than this...... then we hit the party..

Sporting my cute little cocktail dress, we scooted on to the banquet hall for some drinking and lots of dancing..when we arrived, it was like being greeted by the paparazzi, with flashbulbs going off everywhere. So there I stood, feeling sexy with a glass of champagne in my hand, thinking to myself 'yep, life can definitely always get better'..:) and boy, did we live it. We danced, and danced and drank and drank the night away.. a few tequila shots down, I was barefoot and disheveled, but who cares, I was in Goa, and having the time of my life..!

Towards the end of the night, not too many of us could walk straight, and I was definitely not one of them. By this time it was 4.00 AM and I decided I was hungry!! So the ever sweet staff of the park hyatt fixed me a plate of tomato sandwiches to get me to stop bargaining with them for a plate of food..which I was terribly grateful for.

The next day was spent in a similar fashion, starting with lunch, a snooze for me, the beach and finally the jacuzzi.. (again). The nights theme was Hawaiin night. This time round everyone paced themselves with the drinking..and lord, did we dance!

Around 3.00 AM, me and my accomplice decided to take a little midnight dip into the lagoon. So there we were, just the two of us in this beautiful, quiet pool of water, bobbing along, with a beer in hand, with nothing and no one around us, except the quiet.. It was absolutely divine.. After which, I played the shortest game of poker of my life. I bought in for a hundred bucks and five minutes later, it was gone. Need I mention I was in a slightly inebriated state :)...

Back in the room, we stayed awake a little while longer, catching up, now that it was all coming to an end.

The next morning was a delicious English breakfast, followed by hurried packing, hurried goodbyes and suddenly, we were back on the bus again, heading to the airport...

The whole experience was absolutely divine. It was my own little pocketful of sunshine.

Now am back in Bangalore, and missing my friends. But I'm not grieving whole heartedly. After all, New Years is right around the corner, and the sun shall shine once more..:)

You're Not The Man For Me

After having been single for the past year (or more) I find myself acting like a walking matrimonial website. It is the strangest thing, and to be honest, slightly horrifying. When I go out I find myself, quite subconsciously I might add, scouting the crowd for a nice, eligible bachelor.
However, something seems to be wrong with my antenna because while I find bachelors without any hassle, the 'eligible' part still seems to be a little elusive.
I have managed to find this past year, the short, the thin, the creepy, the clingy, the obnoxious, the conceited, the two-timers, the liars, the poorly endowed, the bad-in-bed and even the downright strange.
They were not all bad, quite a few of them shared some very good times with me, but when did it get so difficult to just meet a nice guy??? Someone who, if he is charming and witty and interesting is not poorly endowed or bad in bed! Or someone who, if he is amazing in bed is not a lying, two-timing, obnoxious, conceited pig!
I'm starting to have new respect for these matrimonial and dating websites. It is just too exhausting, time consuming and expensive for a lot of people to keep going out there to meet someone. I guess these websites are like a police line up and you just gotta pick your guy..:) Well, maybe not that simple..
But I ve come to the conclusion, the only time it is easy to meet a guy is when you are in school or university, when you have all these men coming to one place every day, seeing the same people every day, and the sheer numbers indicate that something has to give. And throw some raging hormones in there and you've got something for everyone.
Me? Well, since I'm no longer in school, and university is some time away, I think I'm going to change tactics. I'm going to use reverse psychology on myself and hope that if I no longer want it, or look for it, it will hit me dead in the eye... One can always hope..:)

We Are Family, I Got All My Mallus With Me...

In true Cherukara (for those that don't know, that's the family name) style, us cousins had our own little family gathering - for the first time breaking free of our parents and doing it all on our own.
For you to capture the essence of the Cherukara family, I need to paint you a little picture of what its like being a part of this family, what it's like growing up in this family, the quirks and the traditions of this family.
The head of this esteemed household is the late C.S. George (A.K.A Appacha) A legendary man, a devout christian and a loyal and doting grandfather to us. His sense of humour was incomparable and the stories of his stunts and gimmicks was the stuff that has carried us through many a nights over the years. And being blessed with some members of the family gifted in acting and mimicry, the legend lives on.
Married to the wonderfully kind, understanding and rock solid Annamma George (A.K.A Ammachy)known to us for her faith and love (for us and for god), her tolerance for what life deals her, and (let's face it) the Cherukara men, together they had six children. Yes, SIX children. Who in turn had a total combined number of fourteen children, which is the current running generation of the Cherukara clan.
So this time we stepped up, travelling great distances, putting aside work and other priorities to do some good old family bonding.
So the first thing about the Cherukaras is that we just love our drink. So we kick start our gathering in the afternoon with a couple of beers, followed by a huge, delicious, heart stopping, cholestrol inducing lunch, followed by the requisite snooze.
Come evening, everyone troops downstairs and we have our priorities straight. Keeping with the Cherukara tradition, we have the family photo session. Women seated, Husbands behind their wives, Babies in their laps, and the unmarried folk jump in anywhere (but always, always women in front, men behind) After several dozen photographs have been taken, we troop onto the lawn, dragging our plastic chairs with us and settle into a circle to commence with the drinking. As the alcohol flows, so does the erachi olathiyathu (beef fry).. 2 kilos worth to be precise.
Keeping with tradition, the whole night is being captured on video and of course being photographed, as we swap stories of our memories of our infamous grandfather, stories of our childhood and our numerous previous gatherings growing up.
We are however proud to say that we also did things a little differently. For the first time I think, the women sat and enjoyed the alcohol and conversation as freely as the men did, and the men also took turns helping out with the cranky babies, putting them down for the night. Someone jokingly said perhaps with this coming generation the women may sit around in the circle on the lawn drinking while the men stay indoors with the babies and frying the cutlets. One can always hope..:)
As the night wore on, we drank some more, did some terrible karaoke (I guess the one thing we don't have are the musical genes), and wrapped up the night with a good old mallu dinner complete with Kerala paratha.
All in all it was a grand success. After all our scoffing at our parents for their endless gatherings, somehow I believe that the story of the Cherukara reunions is far from over.

Money, Money, Money... MONEY

For the longest time I've had the feeling that Im being wrongly accused and repeatedly sentenced for the crime of spending too much of my money. I could never really understand this, for if you actually look at the book of accounts, what I have spent is a minute, marginal factor of what my ever-so-responsible sister was spending!!
Now Im not suggesting that she was being frivolous. Infact, Im not going into any detail at all about how much she spent and on what. Suffice it to say that it was mutliples of mine.
But you can imagine how it would make my blood boil.. the sheer injustice of it all. I mean come one! Here I am, actually trying to be responsible with my money, live within my means, even going so far as to live practically outside the city because I couldn't afford more, living in a hell hole because I didn't want to ask for the money to do the place up and at the most asking for a few hundered bucks a month to float me if needed. And I would be lectured about how responsible my sister is with her money, how she invests!! Hell, I'd invest too, except with all of the above, investing doesn't really fall into my scheme of things.
Anyway, somehow a few days ago, this started becoming a real problem for me. And everytime I thought about it, I would just start to see Red.
And it all came to a flash point when I was taking a nap, and the damn dog, sleeping under my bed started barking like a lunatic, shooting me straight upright. So I lay there, fuming mad, and guess what I started thinking about. And guess what I wanted to do about it.. write all about it in my blog, spew all this venom for the world to see..
Then perhaps by divine intervention, I looked at my phone and I saw a chirpy,cheery message from my mother. And just like that I calmed down, and I realised that whatever else is going on, she's not doing this on purpose. So I called her, and had a conversation with her that was long overdue I think.
She admitted that perhaps she's been judging me based on an image of my past, and not who I am with my money today. Although, we did branch into other areas of possible improvement for me.. where I conceded..a little.. in my head.. But I'm working on it.
But the point is, that I went from wanting to write a fury filled, venomous blog post to writing one that's completely appreciative of my mom and how willing she is to listen and understand..
How cool is that? I guess I should have tried this a few months sooner..:)

Let's Talk About Sex...

There are some things that people say should not be mentioned. Some things that are meant to be kept within the family, the four walls of your home, within your mind, and behind your bedroom door. One of these is sex.
Now, Im going to discuss this freely and hopefully objectively on ths forum, since i consider this to be my space, where I reign queen. And while I am sure this particular post will garner more than a few frowns and outright shock, i think its high time people stopped pretending that it doesn't happen, it's not natural and it's not pleasurable.
Long gone are the days when women go to their marriage bed, blushing virgins. I think today, women especially, are more aggressive in terms of what they want sexually from their partner, and more vocal about how to achieve it.
Whether it is through the television, radio, internet, billboards, magazines, newspapers or even through friends, women are now tremendously more educated on how to have sex, safe sex and (if I may say it) mind blowing sex.
What confuses me about the society that we live in, is why people act like this is something that we need to pretend doesn't happen. After all, do we not want our sisters or our daughters to have a thriving, exciting, stimulating sex life. Or would we rather they lie in bed, in dread waiting to perform their marital duty, simply because they are so ill equipped to deal with the level of intimacy thrust upon them.
Wouldn't the man enjoy having a sexual relationship with a woman who obviously enjoys and partakes in the act as much as him, rather than have a mere vessel in which to purge himself.
And what of those couples (married or unmarried) that are unable to openly express their sexual desires to each other? Should they not have other avenues of exploration and education available to help them?
The idea that sex is something that can only be shared between two people that are married (but I think perhaps not necessarily in love) is ludicrous. I believe the institution of marriage was put into place to regulate people, to build a society, and at that time to regulate the act of procreation. Today, I believe that institution is becoming obsolete. And I believe that today, sex as an act is gaining acceptance as something that is not sacred or holy, it is not something that should be done out of duty or obligation, and it doesn't need to be something painful and embarassing.
People today turn to spouses, partners, same-sex partners, friends and even strangers for sex for a multitude of reasons. Some turn to each other through love, others for trust, affection, comfort and even straight forward, no strings attached attraction. One reason does not have to better than the other, for two lives are not the same and so decisions cannot be measured against the same yardstick.
I believe people need to have the freedom to experiment, to see what they enjoy, what makes them uncomfortable, to discover how far they are willing to go.
They need to learn to use their body, to appreciate their body, and to thrive on the pleasure gained and given through their body. Sex is not a one-way ticket to hell.
So I say, Be Safe, Be Responsible.. But Be Bold.