Pink is not for Boys

I was at this mall the other day with one of my companions, looking for a birthday present for my dad. She was supposed to do the extraction but some people simply can’t resist the temptation offered by open doors, so there I was – stuck in the midst of an annoying exercise wherein people in an attempt to pursue the means forget that there is something at all called the end. After arguing with the betrayer of my intentions umpteen times that L’Oreal was the same brand as Garnier, and never managing to bring her round to my side, I threw up my hands and started looking for something that might interest me, in the hope that sooner or later she’d realise our sole purpose of being in the blasted mall. Suddenly, from behind the elevator area I saw a young mother coming towards us, dribbling with a pram in one hand and a cell phone in the other. Believe me, the little one in the pram was one terrified babe. Its eyes fidgeted in all possible directions, wondering what the trouble with the lady was. And the lady in a quick movement of agitation let go of the pram and it came to rest against my abdomen. What a painful relief from boredom! I cursed the lady telepathically and the child seemed to nod approvingly. Its mother still failed to realise that she had lost the baby and continued to subdue the father on the phone (I guessed from her tone.) I caressed the child’s forehead and suddenly it burst into a wail. Damn! People around me stared at me as if I had committed a crime. I managed, “I thought we were friends” when actually I had meant “I thought we had a common enemy”. This woke up my company from her obnoxious state and she held the child in her arms, staring into my sheepish eyes with the ruthless eyes of a tigress. Thankfully the child stopped howling and its mother came to fetch the pram. I exhaled a sigh of relief as the feeling of silent vindication crept in. “The child was cute”, she said. “I wonder if it was a boy or a girl”, I blurted out. “Duh, It was a girl”, was her reply. “HOW?”, I asked. It’s tough getting used to the supernatural powers girls exhibit sometimes when guys fail to be observant enough. Besides, my words betray my thoughts when I am perplexed, so I said, “You’ve got x-ray vision and you never told me? And I thought we knew each other.” Not appreciating the humour (girls seldom do It. It requires a non negative IQ. Kidding.), she burst out, “Are you insane? You actually believe that crap you just said? Didn’t you see the baby’s blanket was pink?” “Whoa, Whoa, Whoa”, I repeated, “I’m not sure, No and Yes I saw the pink blanket. But what has it got to do with whether the baby was a he or a she?”

…
…

You must’ve grasped the essence of what transpired later. I asked her questions to unearth the mystery but she was not a genius after all (Kidding). So I had to seek the answers myself, and I found that surely there exists such a belief- more among women than in men- though none of the people I asked could convince me by their powers of eloquence or clarity of thought.

So the colour pink is not for boys after all. I sought some historical evidence and I’ll tell you what I found:

Once upon a time, the colour for boys was pink. Some argued that pink was a close relative of red, which was seen as a fiery, manly colour. Others traced the association of blue with girls to the frequent depiction of the Virgin Mary in blue. Pink being a more decided and stronger colour was more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, was prettier for the girl. Now during World War II, the Nazis made the homosexuals in their prison camps wear pink triangular badges as means of identifying them. Why they chose to profane (I chose this word specifically) the pink colour is something no one knows, but this is how pink came to mean a mark of the feminine. What the heck?

So, assigning colour to gender is a 20th century trait. On my part I don’t see any reason why guys shouldn’t sport pink- though I’d prefer darker shades myself. I'm no human rights activist but only an observer. And I ask, why associate colour with gender at all? I can understand girls vouching for this myth- they get to wear pink and this is one field guys can’t compete with them in. To even things out, maybe girls shouldn’t wear blue (which is another absurd remark but let’s just say it for the sake of argument) but it doesn’t happen that way. I’ve seen dozens of instances of girls mentioning on the internet that they get turned off by men in pink (you don’t have to believe me- just browse through the profiles of girls on Orkut). Well I’ve seen guys in pink – in fact one of my batch mates who’s got quite an impressive built goes to gym each evening in the same pink t-shirt – and I don’t find them feminine or homosexual. If the thing is just that guys don’t look good in pink, then I’d better not comment on the girls who wear shiny black jackets made of raxine along with a grey pair of jeans. Anyways I’m not someone who should comment on who looks good in what, but seriously people, we should not let such baseless assumptions hinder us from doing what we like doing. Pink is the colour!!

Aim for the moon; even if you miss you'll land among the stars

The title is a well known quote which I’m almost sure most of us would have heard. The message is clear: shoot for your goal, and if you miss you will still have achieved something. Positive thought, isn’t it? My critics often say that I’ve an aura of negativity around me (which they say is evident from what I write). I’m not sure I have it for I haven’t noticed any of it. It is just that I have a different perspective. In fact, I try to place myself at a vantage point from where I can see the things differently, but definitely more clearly than those in the views offered by the other similar positions. Or I might be incompetent to see things that others see. Negative or not, I have a protocol of understanding things: first I question them, then I analyse them and then I decide whether or not I believe in them, and while doing so I totally disregard the reputation of the proposer.


Once again I have decided to analyse. This time the subject under study is a quote- the title of this piece – enunciated by W. Clement Stone. Since intellect lies in the ability to read between the lines, and the meaning between the lines is already clear, I’ll take on the more interesting task of reading the lines instead. The author was certainly imagining some game in his mind when he said the words, “Aim for the moon.” A sane guess would be archery or shooting. And then he adds, “even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” Well, there’s some fundamental flaw in the conclusion, for it contradicts the science we know. This guy lived a hundred years from 1902 to 2002 and this piece of information might come handy to convince ourselves that certainly there’s something wrong with the saying. I intend no disrespect to Stone or his sense of sapience but the chap must’ve struggled with his Geography or his maths, if at all he was a student. The moon is about 40.4 x 10^-9 light-years away from the earth. On the other hand, the nearest known star (other than the Sun), Proxima Centauri, is about 4.22 light-years away. Now you do the math. The stats reveal that the nearest star is too far away than the moon is from us and we simply can’t reach the stars if we are aiming for the moon. Nevertheless crap is crap and you can’t get rid of it for it is a gift from nature and you can’t say no to nature. So there we go, aiming for the moon and convincing ourselves that something good will come out of the exercise for we’ll land among the stars even if we miss.

Cry Baby

You cried when they took away what you cared for
You cried in your times of disgrace
You cried when you lost it all
You cried while they laughed in your face

There are times when you feel you are alone
That the whole world is against you
These are the times you cry the most
Need someone to speak your heart out to

The world is bad for all it’s got
Your possessions are unrestrained tears and pleas
Brace yourself against them or kill yourself
For the world’s not meant for cry babies

Stop now and forget what you are
Be a fighter and not a crier
Prove your presence to the world
Or plunge and sink in mire

Set yourself on fire
Or plunge and sink in mire
The world’s not yet meant for cry babies
So be anything but a crier

The Cafe`

[ This piece of literature is inspired by one of my earlier works. It is a more vivid description of a scene which happens to be a part of one of the stories I wrote. ]






I was sitting at this cafe
Waiting for my cup alone .
It was raining outside ,
The cold could chill the bone .

And then the glass door creaked
And let in a sight to cherish .
A wet girl shaking with cold :
A stunner without a blemish .

I could've never imagined
God could be so kind .
All the tables had been taken
And there was not one to find.

Then I knew what to expect ,
As she peered into my eyes.
"Do you mind if I sit here ?"
That was when she broke the ice .

I pointed to the vacant chair -
That lay right in front of me .
Her thankful eyes and her smile
Set my harrowing solitude free .

"You are all soaked up" , I said ,
"I'm Glad you came in " .
"Oh Thanks for having me" ,
She wiped the water off her skin .

I passed my handkerchief to her
And she accepted it imperceptibly .
She was not the type with attitude :
She was just my type apparently .

My cup was on the table soon
But my attention was elsewhere .
I woke up and saw her staring at me ,
Pointing to my cup she said, "Its here" .

I asked if she wanted some coffee
"I'm without my purse ", she said.
"Pay for me the next time we're here"
My inhibitions were all shed.

She gave me a shy smile
As I divided the contents .
Her eyes looked into mine
Suggesting "lets be friends" .

We sat there an hour,staring at each other
In the friendly silence .
Some bloke nearby sighed "Weather's fine"
The Rain had stopped in the distance .

I thought it was the end
Of another sweet coincidence .
She and I'd have to part ways
And it made complete sense .

"Lets go", I said walking towards the door
She said, "Can we talk" .
This was not the end I guessed
And accepted "Yeah, we'll take a walk" .

So this was how I first met her :
My very first love ever .
God has his strange ways of
Uniting people forever.

John Doe's got a problem remembering things.

Yes it is true. Our good old, seemingly harmless and the very avuncular John Doe has a problem remembering things. And guess what, JD was the first to discover it too. It started with small issues, as forgetting where he kept his stuff. Then he started to forget things that others told him. And now the conditions deteriorated so much that he has started to forget names of people he once knew. I hope the condition doesn’t worsen lest one day he'll stand in front of the mirror and say, "Nice to meet you". However there is something very peculiar about his condition that is he only forgets things he doesn't care about much. This would have controlled matters to some extent had he been a regular guy. But the fact that there are a lot many things he doesn't care about has worsened his situation even more. I believe he needs professional assistance, but he doesn't agree on consulting a professional.


Once it so happened that he was home alone. And his distant relatives happened to be in town. As a matter of fact they came to visit JD's place. He had once been to their place, but that was half a dozen years ago and he stood like a complete jerk staring at the lady at the door. He was perplexed, trying to remember where he had seen the couple, and in the mystified silence, he sucked big time. It took him a hundred and ten seconds to realise he was supposed to let them in and not block the entrance. He asked them to come inside and kept asking himself who on earth they were. Once they had settled and aunty had finished the customary act of pulling cheeks, he fled from the scene and called mom, his data recovery software. It was a tough time for him to keep them entertained till his saviour mom arrived.
Recently, he received a call from a long separated friend. Since he had not changed his cell phone in years, it had the caller's number, saved by the name of "Task Manager". But the mystery was, who the hell Task manager was. And why such a technical name? However, being an engineering student, JD was good at "Troubleshooting". So he pretended he didn't have the number saved and asked who it was. But like a shrewd Virus, the caller escaped JD's ploy by replying, " Your good old buddy, the Task manager". JD was tempted to ask "Who the f*** are you, fancy name?" but he didn't. Anyways, JD realised his troubleshooting skills were no better than Windows Vista's which always said, "Unable to fix the problem. Contact your Hardware Vendor". JD could not guess who the analogous hardware vendor could be. So he was considering the option of referring to the FAQs instead, but he identified the high risk of embarrassment. So he chose to talk instead, pretending that he knew whom he was talking to. But after a half an hour of seemingly meaningless conversation he was frustrated at his pathetic memory. After killing two days trying to remember, he gave up, wanting to beat himself to death using a baseball bat. Later he even considered the idea of using a Firewall on his cell phone to block incoming calls from people with unrecognized Digital Signatures which could be a threat to his System Security. Nevertheless, he put Task Manager in the list of Quarantined objects.


And very recently JD has been receiving emails from one of his blasts from the pasts (I believe you are keeping up with the current teenage lingo, in case you aren’t, consult the Oxford). But as it is with girls, she insists on his figuring out who she is. I’d like to mention that JD has had a jolly good past and for a guy of his stature it sometimes gets really tough to remember the dramatis personae of every play he reads. The girl says they met on a Friday and that he was wearing a grey chequered shirt and similar stuff. But he doesn’t even remember the shirt, let alone the girl. And he doesn’t wish to guess, for if he guesses wrong, any guy with brain in the right place would know what’d happen.


So he has been asking me what course of action he should follow. I believe he needs to execute Check Disk or even Defragment his hard drive before any Bad Sectors creep in. Before I can convince him to see a professional I’ve asked him to eat sprouted almonds. And he’s jolly well doing that.

Life teaches us to live and we must learn to learn

Hunger bothers me
But I will not complain.
I am but a no one,
And no one listens to me.

My feet ache
Out of walking barefoot
But I must walk
The place doesn’t belong to me.

This place’s not mine
I don’t belong here
I have no place
And I’m not supposed…

Its not that I have nothing
The penury is mine.
My unheeded wounds,
They do remind.

The tears are mine -
My kith and kin.
For they come to me
When I most need them.

The helplessness is mine
And the loneliness.
The world’s just about fine
I’m invisible.

Life teaches us to live
And we must learn to learn.
I’ve no books
But only experiences.

Everyone errs.
People learn from each others mistakes.
I make my own mistakes
And learn from them.

I will perish
And leave no traces behind.
Except an unsung tale
Of failures and an obscure existence.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Let me ask you to solve a simple riddle. What is a nine letter word which stands for something that follows you like a shadow, doesn’t let go of you and you can’t get rid of it easily? NO! It’s not Virginity you polluted minds, what I meant to suggest was AMBIGUITY. See, ambiguity is omnipresent, even in my question. In fact, it is far more potent than you would have ever imagined. TRUST ME! I’m not lying.

Ambiguity refers to the state wherein one thing said can have more than just one possible meaning. And as always, there has to be just one intended meaning. But the fact that there are more than just one possible meanings, the probability of the addressee understanding the address is less than or equal to half, mathematically. In simple terms, there is always more than half the chance that you will be misinterpreted. But chance is chance: it has no bearings upon what actually happens. Probability is a mathematical - or let’s say a hypothetical - concept that fails to predict what’ll happen in the real world, outside the framework of the rules that govern it. And from what I have seen so far, let me assure you that you are bound to be misunderstood more often than not. In other words, to some extent, there is absolute certainty that the blasted words you spit from your goddamned mouth, will always betray you and create an unintended reaction from your over-speculative audience. Don’t mind my blasphemous language for it is just intended to bring in some humour. You simply can’t mean what you say. You always have to mean something else. You got to appear like an asinine jerk.

Ambiguity is an irritating and unnerving companion. It’s a pain in the butt: it won’t let you sit and you’ll have to lie on your stomach. Once it sticks to you, like the deadliest of all viruses, it gets into your system folder and modifies the content of your vital system calls, and you are ruined. Even the most obvious of your statements tend to appear like mischievous puns, intended to disrespect people around you. Nobody takes you seriously, and when someone does, he happens to be the beau of a pretty girl who believes she is your object of desire and the results are very unpleasant: you end up wearing a denture. And you know what, I’m married to the dame called Ambiguity already. She’s my wife. And my life …… is …..

We don’t need to look for Ambiguity with a lamp. It’s everywhere: all around us. It’s in the air in the form of sound waves caused by vibrations of the vocal chords of the species that we know as homo sapiens. When we say “I’m sorry”, we mean “stop nagging”. When we say “nice” we mean “not bad”. When we say to a girl “can we be friends” we mean “will you be my girl friend”. When she says “no” she means “I have a boy friend”. When she says “okay” she means “ I don’t have a boy friend now, so consider yourself a temp. You might not be Mr. Right but you might as well be Mr. Right Now.” When she says “I’ll be glad to” she means “I don’t deserve you but luck’s on my side.” When the speaker says “we’ll die for our rights” he means “you do the dying, I’ll do the reaping.” When I say “we are fooling ourselves” I mean “you are fooling yourself.” So, if there is anything that is like advertisements in the middle of interesting news (I mean unnecessarily too much), it has got to be Ambiguity.

During my courtship with Ambiguity, I had observed that things were going astray. My words perpetually conspired against my intentions. I took care to choose my words, and always said what I meant, but people never seemed to understand. To tell you the truth, I’m not just the one she’s been dating. She’s a polygamous bi***. All of us face problems making others understand what we truly intend. I’ve always said that it is better to find out than assume anything. So at one point of time, just to get rid of any ambiguities I always blurted out unnecessary questions. If someone said she could cook, I’d ask if she meant preparing something fit for human consumption by means of heat. If someone asked me to turn on the light, I asked if I was meant to push the electrical switch. If someone asked me why the chicken had crossed the road, I asked what exactly “chicken” was meant to be. At one point of time I was so much into finding out that I became utterly obsessed with Ambiguity. And then people started avoiding me. I distinctly remember the gal who called me home, saying there was no one home. I went there and indeed there was no one home, not even her.

And then I stopped talking much. I do talk but tend to use the least possible number of words. I guessed the amount of Ambiguity was proportional to the number of words. Lately, I have been using the interrogative “What’s that supposed to mean?” pretty often. It’s my favourite line. And these five (or six) words form the combo that I speak most times every single day. So feel free to take a leaf from my book and ask “What’s that supposed to mean?”