(For Women's Day) Nari Nari Quite Contrary...

Nari Nari, quite contrary…

Indu Balachandran sheds some light around that eternal question: What do women really want?

So it's Women's Day again, and magazines are going into overdrive celebrating the wonder of womanhood. But there's something we women have to admit about our glossy women's magazines: They're pretty schizophrenic.

If you look at the enticing covers of these magazines, there'll be an insightful article telling you what low-ranking beasts some men are. Followed immediately by another that tells you how to attract men. Now this can be pretty foxing to gender experts, who have made an extensive study of women's writings… trying to solve the eternal question: What do women want?

Ha ha! Keep figuring that one out, men!

Take my feisty friend Lily, who is anything but silly. While she was being wooed, she made things quite clear to her boyfriend Shanks. I always want to hear the truth about myself, Shanks, she said. No matter how unflattering it is. So he simply can't understand why she is still so mad at him…All because he put down her true age in their Club's notice board, when they asked for names and ages of those joining a trip to Ladakh.

So perplexed men try to cope by endlessly making up jokes about us multifaceted, multilayered beings called women (which are wonderful words that mean: We've got you stumped with our contradictions! Haven't we, guys?!).

One reason why there is so much ribbing going on about the woman of the species is probably because she was created out of Adam's rib. And men can't help making wisecracks even when called to address a bunch of women on serious and prestigious occasions like Women's Day. Here's what happened when a very respected personality, a man, was invited to be a key-note speaker at a women's organisation's celebration of March 8th. The revered gentleman had promised to make it a short opening speech. So he went right up to the podium, cleared his throat, and started: “Women are, generally speaking…” And then sat down.

(Okay okay, we do speak a lot, Mr. Man, but what about you all, when you are in the 278 {+t} {+h} cricket pre-World Cup special on TV this year, discussing whether India will repeat its 1983 World Cup win or not? You never ever stop speaking either…and all at the same time too). Meanwhile men, (secret readers of women's magazines — perhaps even more than women themselves) continue to find insights into our real wants — so that they can figure out life's most perplexing dilemma: Marry ‘em or stay single? And no matter how much, like Mary, we are quite contrary, a recent survey I conducted reveals that men need us, more than we need them. Take my good friend Jojo. He is of the firm belief that every man should have a wife. Preferably his own.

My other pal Rana is even better. Every man actually needs two women, says he. A secretary to take things down. And a wife to pick things up.

Indu Balachandran is a travel and humour columnist. Email: indubee8@yahoo.co.in

Whine and Dine : in The Sunday Hindu

Whine and dine

INDU BALACHANDRAN

The ecstasy and the agony of eating out.

Illustration: Surendra

BEFORE marriage, the three best words a couple loves to hear from each other are "I Love You". Later, the three best words are probably "Let's Eat Out".

With new speciality restaurants popping up like mushrooms — in fact, I heard one opened last week called Mushroom Mania — there are so many new exciting ways to eat, without having a pile of dishes to wash up later. And eating out can be enjoyed in such fine combinations of activity these days — buy books and eat, watch a play and eat, enjoy a movie and eat, go bowling and eat...

But, I must say one combination seemed a bit suspicious to me. This was a petrol station with a restaurant attached. A board outside announced, "You can eat here, and get gas".

Decisions, decisions...

The eating-out industry depends largely on people like us who stare at the refrigerator every day, fraught with indecision wondering what to cook, and then decide it is far simpler to decide to eat out instead.

Indecisions

Ha! Now is when the real indecision starts... Which place? Asks the one behind the steering wheel after getting into the car. Oh, any place is absolutely cool with me, choruses everyone. Okay, then how about that new Chettinad restaurant that everyone is talking about? Oh NO, chorus the voices again. ANYthing but Chettinad." And so the indecision goes on: Anything but Chinese; anything but Punjabi...

When rising hunger pangs force a "where" finally, there comes another decision to be made at the venue: which table? (At home you have only one, but here you have such a choice.)

After a consensus on the most suitable table, you settle down, and the waiter arrives to force one more decision out of you. Mineral water or restaurant water? Now is when you have to decide how you want to come through to the waiter: as a stylish diner who'll pay a fat premium for bottled water, or appear cheap and say, ordinary water will do.

And then staring at the menu, back we come to the same dilemma of where it all started: What to eat?

Good things

Despite knowing the rule that the longer the description of the dish, the bigger the bill, we will, from time to time, land up in utterly posh places, open a huge designer menu card, and nonchalantly tap at, say, "Risotto Supreme: cooked with freshly flown-in mountain-dew from the Swiss Alps, and served with our chef's repertoire of Milanese sauces gently simmered with Moroccan wild thyme" and turn to the waiter and ask "Is it good?"

Well. What did we expect the waiter to say? "Well, the rice is totally undercooked, there's a funny dark coloured sauce quite alien to our Indian tastes, two sprigs of broccoli, unsalted, and the portion is so tiny you may have to go home and eat curd rice or die of hunger in your bed tonight... "

Instead of which the waiter says, "Excellent choice! You picked the best dish of all; in fact it was Bill Clinton's favourite when he visited India."

Exotic names

I remember once ordering "A Mediterranean blend of farm-fresh, sun-kissed legumes sautéed and combined with herbs de Provence and grilled to perfection in a gentle dip of bakery-fresh crumbled bread" ... whose common name was a vegetable cutlet, of course, but who knew that? After a 45-minute wait (which made me think, I am the waiter, waiting and waiting, not that snooty waiter there who is trained never to catch your eye once your order is placed... ), two cutlets, the size of one-rupee coins arrived in a huge square designer plate, decorated very artistically with a zigzag line of sauce, an elegant piece of coriander and a tomato skilfully cut and shaped to look like the Sydney Opera House.

After a while, the specially flown-in French chef personally dropped by our table to ask, "So how did you find the meal?" "With a magnifying glass," I wanted to say. Instead of course, I gushed "C'est magnifique!"

And at the other extreme are honest restaurant managers who like to say it like it is. Down my road is Varalakshmi Tiffin Home, an international restaurant serving Indian, North Indian and Chinese "Cueesines" where omelette is spelt armlet and peas pilaf is spelt peace pullow, and where the two most popular dishes are Chow Mean and Sholay Bhature. But one item written on the menu board in chalk outside Velmurugan Meals (specialising in North Indian food) had me mystified, as I drove past it every day to work.

Right on top of the list was Malai Gupta. Perhaps an authentic UP dish named after the chef? I used to wonder. Then the penny dropped one day. It was Malai Kofta of course.

Well, God forbid any Chinese traveller (now that the borders between our countries are open) from actually entering any of our South Indian Chinese speciality dining halls, and find out what Gopi Manjurian is all about. And so what if some sambar powder was added to make it really tasty for the auto rickshaw drivers who regularly drop by.

Reddy meals

Meanwhile, People Like Us will continue to eat out at the most exotic restaurants, where the tip alone could feed the average Indian family of six a totally satisfying thali each at any "Meals Reddy" place.

However, recently while dining at a new, classy European bistro, I found my "Bean Goulash with Courgette Dumplings" bland and boring beyond belief — and so I decided to protest. "I'd like to see the Chef please," I said in a dignified but firm, threatening voice.

"Sorry M'am," said the waiter. "He's gone out for lunch".

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

My First Book! DONT GO AWAY. WE'LL BE RIGHT BACK

Today's Paper » FEATURES » SUNDAY MAGAZINE
Published: April 17, 2011 00:00 IST | Updated: April 17, 2011 04:07 IST
Book bond

INDU BALACHANDRAN
On the occasion of World Book Day (April 23) INDU BALACHANDRAN takes a tongue-in-cheek look at reading habits.



I plan to write a book called “How I conquered the British Vampire”. I have no clue what it's about, but am sure that with a title like that, millions of crazed teens will rush out to buy it, as vampire fiction is still a worldwide rage…

Ok, ok… you must excuse us writers the occasional trick to get you to read more, because there's an entire publishing industry that's dependant on us to keep them off the streets, begging for food and sleeping on, what else? Newspapers. Using unsold books as pillows.

And if you are among those rare ones that read at least four books a month, then several publishing houses would like to garland you, and perhaps even name a bookstore after you…(hope you're name isn't Higginbotham, as that one's taken already.)

I know a lot of people blame the drawing room deity, the TV set, for keeping us away from books and newspapers. But that's not always true. I once read that Groucho Marx thanked television for encouraging him to read. Every time someone switched on the TV, he rushed out to another room and read a book.

Or perhaps the movies are to blame. Nowadays they seem to be making movies out of books even before the author has finished writing his book.

However there is no need for the few committed readers like you and me to turn our noses up at those who prefer to wait for the movie version rather than go through 400 pages of a book. Because even the movies encourage the reading habit in their own way. I know pals who don't leave the hall till they've read every name on the rolling credits, down to Nora Philips who was the Fat Lady in the Airplane , and Timmy Anderson who handled the Key Grip.

Books improve looks

There's no denying that books can improve your looks instantly. Look what happened to me recently when I decided to appear ridiculously well-read at a swish society party. Sipping my drink I said breezily, “Isn't it fascinating how Goethe has made Faust an erudite hybrid between a play and Hellenic poetry? I find Faustian allegories apply even to the questionable lifestyle of Salman Khan…” Oh what a high I experienced as several people gazed at my face in deep admiration. It sure beat using Fair & Lovely.

And in this day of multi-tasking, it is great to see people combine reading with whatever else they are doing. Like my former colleague Jojo. He spends at least three hours a day reading, combining it with Looking Busy Doing Work. He reads around 237 status updates daily on facebook ; he reads 10 reasons why raising shrimp is better than marriage (forwarded to him by an ex-fiancée), and is up to date on what the Harley Davidson Club in Utah is planning this summer. We must thank www for doing its bit for the reading habit.

But am not quite sure about the younger generation…There's this incident I read about the man who recently gave his nephew a Book to read as a Christmas present. The seven-year old spent hours trying to find out where to fit in the batteries…

And I doubt if even his parents were great readers in their childhood. Because a Classic is a book that everybody is assumed to have read, and often think they have.

So we must thank Reader's Digest for giving us bite-sized bits to chew and swallow and still appear smart at interviews and parties. Though I think this writer of abridged classics went too far when he gave us this book that reads: “Boy and Girl from warring families meet. She is compared to a rose. She pretends to be dead. He thinks she's really dead. He kills himself. She finds he's dead and kills herself.” I think Romeo and Juliet deserved a bit more than that.

Keep exercising

And if Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body, then my cousin Raju's mental treadmill has remained broken down for a long time…

I saw him the other day in a green park, blissfully staring out, doing nothing, under a tree. “Hey what's up, “I asked. “Don't disturb me, I'm celebrating World Book Day by reading…” he said. “How? I don't see any Book,” I said, puzzled.

“Can't you see? I'm enjoying a Book while it is still a tree…”

Hey publishers! A lot of environmentalists may love Raju. But don't worry; I am still there for you.

Indu Balachandran is a travel and humour columnist for leading magazines. Email: indubee8@yahoo.co.in.