A Cure for Orgasm

A cure for Multiple Orgasm? Maybe even a vaccination in due time? Wouldn't that just make half the world ecstatic!
This video is absolutely hilarious, and just about sums up the male-female take on orgasm and sexual satisfaction.
It is the unachievable for some, the non-existent for others.
Ya-ya party discussions sometimes tread on this (depending on the comfort level of the women present), and almost right away one can make out the FAKERS from the FEELERS.
The FAKERS begin with a confused giggle (orgasm? is that a bacterial growth in my vagina?) and the when wisdom dawns slowly, they agree vehemently without offering details, because they claim they are too shy to do so (thank heavens it is not a bacterial growth, but then why aint't I getting it?).
The FEELERS know that next time around, at the get together for spouse and offspring, all eyes would be on her husband. That elusive male, who walks the talk.
The FAKER holds tighter to her husband, hoping that the closer she stays, the sooner it would grow (not the bacteria, but the orgasm, that even wikipedia doesn't have satisfactory explanation for).
At the next ya-ya party, there is a showing of When Harry Met Sally, to help FAKERS master their art.

Warning! May offend sensitive readers

I have been wanting to blog about a LOT of stuff, and hold myself back out of fear of what people may think. And I am shocked that I feel that way, because in person, I care two hoots, and speak my mind, however dirty, x-rated or blunt I maybe.
But the writer in me, tugs at my sensibilities, when I want to write about stuff like SEX.
Still, it is time that I did. Because for most virgins and married women, sex is on the mind, all the time.
Sex after Children is what ya-ya party sob stories are made of.
Speak to most married (girl) friends, and it is the same sob story again and again.
See, while men cease to speak in detail of their exploits once girlfriend turns wife; secretive girlfriends turn into big-mouthed wives, and have no qualms of discussing sex or the lack of it.
So, back to the subject of children being a natural contraceptive, especially for us Indian folks who believe in sharing the bedroom with the brood till they learn to scream "stop rocking the bed you two!"
Then the next day, there is a flurry of shopping for second hand bedroom set and setting up the spare room, and kick the kids out. But then this usually happens when the children are about 8-9, by which time, the hymen, due to limited activity, starts to grow back.
It is not about lack of opportunities alone, it is also about how everything starts feeling looser, and it just doesn't seem worth the effort to suffer lacy underwear that causes an itch under the arms.
Why am I ranting? Because, sometimes a girl just has to!

Hair Raising

I've sported a crew cut, I've had it in a bob, I have had it in steps, and now down my shoulder.
My hair.
Till I was about 12 I hated it fervently. Just too unwieldy, and not fit for a length any longer than an inch or two.
And then while spending time at the workplace of a hairdresser family friend, 3 clients asked for a perm like mine. A new found respect for my AWFUL curls.
Ever since, I am vainly in love with my hair. Of course, I kept it short for a long time. But the last several years, I have let it grow.
Please note this. Growth of curly hair is not the same as the growth of straight or wavy hair.
The curly hair does not grow down. It grows out. In all directions, except down.
So shoulder length curly equals mid-back length straight.
After coming to Qatar I've been exposed to style products that include 'tousled' and 'out of the bed look', which roughly translates to 'parata thalai' in Tamizh or 'Sai Baba' style.
My appreciation for what I possess, grows. So I can get out of bed, just run my fingers through the unmanageable locks, and run out of home, looking stylised (and very weird).
The other thing about curly hair is that it's seasonal. From tight manageable curls in winter to frizzy and furious in summer.
Somehow, the global trend to respect anything that looks, sounds or feel unreasonable and untempered has helped me with my bad hair days!
Hail curls, and I just hope this is one fad that never goes out of style...

Harry Potter and the Crazy Me

I am all rheumy eyed, writing this, after reading HP7 cover to cover. And craving for more... like the werewolf who has a taste for human flesh, even untransformed.
So it's 2 am, I am a little tipsy after the night out with some girlfriends, and I drag my very sleepy husband out of home in search of that one elusive book shop that is selling the books at 2 am!! Al Saqr zindabad.
So after some luckless rambling, we land (taking a no entry) in front of the store and I bark at the guard to stop locking the door, and thrust a 100buck into the cashier's hand and grab my Deathly Hallows.
Unputdownable... I grab some sleep after the first 100 pages, and then am glued to it again.
All this would not be so frightening if I had been say half my age? Or atleast 10 years younger. But for a grown woman, with responsibilities at home and work, to stay curled up in bed a whole day?
How, absolutely delightful!!
And as good friends always validate your obsessions, far, far away, another crazy adult is trying to grab pages between feeding and poo washing...
And in other land far, far away, is a woman raking it in...
And all over the world are muggles enchanted by her quill...

The Deathly Hallows
Have you ever been the one who could never understand the passion displayed at the Kacheevaram Silk Sarees section Nalli's? You look at the women grabbing bright, gaudy sarees and drape it around themselves and stare so (strangely) admiringly at themselves in the mirror, and wonder "What the eff is wrong with these women?"
Well, that's how some people viewed me, this last week, when I was get delirious with excitement over the last part of the HP series.
Point is, nothing is wrong with me. I am under a spell. Have been for 6 years now, when I first laid hands on the first book.
The series is amazing... I won't say this is my favourite book(s) ever, because there are just far too many. But problem is many of them were written before I was even born. But I saw the story evolve, I see the author write about reality. Yes, yes , it's about magic. But above all, it is about people, about relationships... it is a book about emotions.
And it is very clear about right and wrong...
She doesn't talk about good and bad changing at convenience, she simply equates it to being humane and not being humane; however silly your humanitarian spirits may seem, they pay off; and however clever inhumanity may seem, it destructs.
And then it is the belief in innocence, the trust in youth, the confidence in giving chances... the spirit of love.
A truly amazing book, that shows darkness to reveal the power of light; that shows hatred, to reveal the power of love... And does it all without being stupidly sentimental.
No Spoilers here... just that whatever adults-in-denial (yours truly in particular) may say, HP is a book for children... It ends as such. With hope and love.
JUST LOVE IT!

All Woman, All Girl

Confident, Confused, Sexy, Gawky.

All Woman, All Girl. Just a child?

My first job. Am all of 21. And Billy Joel sang the sang to me, for me...

Sitting in the beautiful, dilapidated Indian Express building, in the Express Estates. Sunday afternoon shift. The dumb shift that interns serve. And we sit listening to this, me and a few others.

A different world, before other women joined the domain. The only female in a department of 12 (apart from the alpha female). A girl amongst men of all ages, attitude and stages of hairloss.

And I sit listening to the song with the guys... feeling confident, confused, sexy, gawky...

The way a woman would feel in a room full of guys. Most of them rather nice.

And without our noticing it, the clock has struck 5, and with that the chief walks in, ordering us back to work. Back to reality...

Memories are made of moments... and while we remember with great clarity the beautiful ones... every breath, every sigh, every smile and every word... the not so great ones are a blur.

The beauty of memory is it's capability to make the beautiful more beautiful!

On a tough day, Billy Joel is the way to go, girls!

And for all those men who made me understand Joel better -- Thanks.

She's always a woman
She can kill with a smile
She can wound with her eyes
She can ruin your faith with her casual lies
And she only reveals what she wants you to see
She hides like a child
But she's always a woman to me
She can lead you to
can take you or leave you
She can ask for the truth
But she'll never believe you
And she'll take what you give her, as long as its free
She steals like a thief
But shes always a woman to me

Chorus
Oh-she takes care of herself
She can wait if she wants
She's ahead of her time
Oh-and she never gives out
And she never gives in
She just changes her mind
And she'll promise you more
Than the garden of eden
Then she'll carelessly cut you
And laugh while you're bleedin
But she'll bring out the best
And the worst you can be
Blame it all on yourself
Cause shes always a woman to me
Chorus

She is frequently kind
And she's suddenly cruel
She can do as she pleases
She's nobody's fool
But she can't be convicted
She's earned her degree
And the most she will do
Is throw shadows at you
But shes always a woman to me

Turn it off and smell the roses… or whatever!

(I wrote for my mag... reproducing here)
About six weeks ago, my lifeline went on the blink. Or so I thought.
I rush home, all eager to grab a bag of crisps, a steaming cup of coffee, the remote control, the phones and plonk down.
Because that’s how most weekday evenings are spent. Tea, reading, phone calls, dinner, even social visits… all in front of the TV.
Yet, if you had asked me two months ago if I were addicted to the tele, I would have said ‘no’.
Then the bitter truth. I was a closet-addict. In denial. Because when the satellite receiver went dead, and the familiar drone of Frasier, 24 and Lost was lost, the future seemed bleak. What would my evenings be like?
There is only so much gallivanting you can do in Doha.
What would life be like without the comfort blanket.
Apparently, not so bad.
It is like when you give up smoking, and smell the flowers.
The lack of tele-noise at home has had such profound impact on my senses, that I have convinced a friend who is redecorating her house, to relegate her big screen TV to a less prominent place. And as that move happened, her son wondered loudly how he would have his dinner from now on!
Probably it was easier for me to give up the tele, because I never ‘only watched TV’. I always, watched TV while doing something else.
Like eating, reading (yes, it’s possible), doing puzzles, ironing, preparing dinner, browsing the net.
But that is no reason for the die-hard addicts to give up hope. It just needs a little discipline. To wean yourself away from the tele, start by diluting your tele-time. Do something else while sitting in front of the TV.
If you don’t want to go the length and disconnect satellite/cable TV, then here is an alternative. Activate parental control, and courier the remote to a friend in another country. It will be at least a week or two get it back, and you would be forced into detox.
I have decided not to renew our cable connection for now. When I feel like watching something, I choose from the collection of DVDs and cassettes. For news updates I go online.
There are times, alone at home, when I pine for an emotional Oprah-moment, a high-pitched Richard Quest report and even the toons. But those are fleeting. Most of the time I just feel clearer.
Do I claim that ‘I now have more quality time with child/husband/laptop/pet cockroach’? No such clichés. I don’t know if I am doing anything better, since giving up non-stop access to television. I only know that it doesn’t feel bad at all. It feels great almost all the time.
The home just seems so much more relaxed and serene.
And since it’s in keeping with the spirit of the day, let me also add, I am doing my bit towards controlling noise pollution (and other environmental hazards TV causes, that I am not fully aware of).

Knot or the Noose

One of my sisters-in-law is highly accomplished. She did her doctorate from one of the best universities in the US, she is a professor, she is well known in her field, is extremely smart and well-read.
She is also wonderful with her nieces and nephew.
Still, every time someone refers to her, and wants to make a distinction between her and her sister, they say: "The unmarried sis-in-law..."
It annoys me so much, the next time I am going to poke the person in the eye with something pointy, and tell them that she has so much going for and to be identified by, that has nothing to do with her marital status.
Yes, she is 40. Yes, she is unmarried. And yes, most of the time she seems extremely happy. There maybe times that she is not so. But which one of us married ma'ams can claim to be content 100 percent of the time?
I wonder, if it upsets me so much that she is referred to as the 'unmarried' daughter/sister/aunt/friend or whatever, how much it should affect her.
Why can't they just call her the one with a doctorate, the one who is awesome with the kids, the one who is a well known researcher...
What is our obsession with marriage, when most of us who are married can't stop complaining about our spouses.
Here is the other interesting thing. I notice women making this reference more frequently than the men.
Why is that?

Woman in a man's world? Easy does it!

I hate to admit this. But it is more difficult to work with women than men.
Men maybe quick to react, but they are as quick getting over issues and moving on.
In my 13 years experience across various jobs, women colleagues, I find, have been more consistently petty, jealous and seriously bitchy.
Men do bitch, and boy, do they gossip. But as I said, somehow they are quite honest and open about their loyalties. What you see is what you get most of the time.
Not so with women.
A colleague told me the higher you rise, the fewer friends you will have at work. That is the 'success tax' you pay. It is not so much about who you are, but where you are!
At my very first job, my boss was a woman. And when I joined as an intern, I was the only other woman in the department of 12. Wise woman... because other departments headed by women, with women in the team, seemed to be a lot more tense.
Of course, I had teething issues... my boss and I didn't quite trust each other for a while, and then once trust was established, it was real smooth sailing.
But I was young, out of college, with no previous exposure to office dynamics. And that has been my greatest experience, that at the very first job, I realised it was easier being a woman in a man's world, than a woman in a woman's world.
That experience has helped me deal with female (and male) colleagues ever since.
First with the latter -- while working for or with male colleagues, the cardinal rule is not to be timid. But if you are the boss, then it is not being overtly aggressive, confusing aggression of manly leadership.
Now that we have the simple part over with, let's get on with female colleagues.
Working for a female boss, empathy counts. Believe me! That doesn't mean being patronising, nothing can be more annoying than that.
Working with women is a fairly easy task. If everyone is at the same level, there really is no problem.
But if you are the boss, then get ready for a whole load of shit!
No one resents a multi-tasking woman more than another.
There is no easy way of handling them... If you are too empathetic and understanding of their home-life balance, chances are you will be taken for one long ride.
If you are not, then you are termed 'Queen Bee'. And really there is no middle ground.
While men may resent you, they either get over it or get on with it. But the intentions are clear.
With women, it festers.
... To Be Continued