Your dress size doesn't define you. Neither does your blatant disregard for your health.

With all the discussions about the body type of women going about, this article was probably in the making since I was old enough to realise the importance of self-image. But let me, ahead of time, assert that I am not writing this in encouragement of prototyping women based on body-types. This goes a little deeper. 

So, I see there are women out there who attempt to justify being fat (yes, I am goin to use the ugly, blunt f-word), by claiming that it is more beautiful than being skinny and that the world is teaming up against them to create the perception that fatness (there! I said it again. FAT. ) is not 'lovely' and 'pretty' and all the jazz. There is a reason humans like thin women. Actually, there are a host of reasons. Humans originally are hunters. Our bodies are made for intense physical activity. The natural state of the body is healthy! Notice how I use the word healthy? These unfit women try to hijack the word healthy as a subtle version of fat or obese and I wonder where this association comes from. Healthy is lean! Healthy is when u r so fit u have muscles, u don't tire easily, and your body works well. Not when u r tired easily, have a higher fat percentage than what is considered healthy or normal. Bein thin is about exercising, which will keep you energetic, fresh, and well capable of performing tasks and chores. It is really simple, isn't it? If you exercise and eat properly, you get thin! And as a result, you have a better lifestyle. Don't u think that is the reason why we are wired to like slender figures more? I could go on an on about the good that bein healthy would do to your life, but you might as well google that, taking up on my side of the argument. 

And unfit stretches to the skinny women who are equally out of breath as the obese ones. All I say is - be healthy, get fit! The rest follows- energy, great skin, great sex, no depression or negativity, lovely taut bodies, and all that which is perceived as glamorous.. 

High time we stop making excuses for being unfit (curves are lovely, fat is sexy, real women are those with curves, and so on), and take up to a healthy, lean lifestyle, irrespective of our dress sizes! 

Should we keep hope alive?

It's so funny how our society is made. And how every family is different. Staunch feminism is appreciated in households like mine, while for most people, feminism is a fancy term and feminists should keep their views to themselves because "everyone was having a good time until you spoilt it". How do you even begin to comprehend the events and opinions that went behind the creation of that attitude? The humans are not rational, and the older we get, the more presumptuous we get, and our opinions are usually irreversible. How, then, do we rectify all the wrong there is in the world? What hope must we have from this planet that is certainly heading towards self-annihilation? It leaves me so hopeless that anti-depressants have stopped working. And hope is literally the only thing man has to hold on to, in the world full of the evils from Pandora's box. How much can we fight back? Does it make sense to keep on living, only to keep fighting? 

The men we seek...

Chivas regal points out how gentlemen ought to be, in their 'Live with chivalry' campaign.

Okay, so most of us are depressed at the current situation with the male category of our race (you know, with the intimidating, raping and murdering, amongst the larger problems we face from them). But you all will be glad to know that the world is not, in fact, completely overcome by this sort. We all know how empty vessels make most noise. You see, that is the problem - The ideal men, such as we seek (kind, sensitive, just) do exist; however, they are under-represented. Of course you will never find the nice men bragging about how amazing their sort can be. They just are, and their niceness is them, not a heroic act that they deem the need to parade around. It does seem like they are a few in number. Sadly, there are no statistics that I know of, and hence cannot judge. Maybe they are in a large number, saving the world from utmost chaos, or maybe they are struggling for existence, but carrying on their work in the shadows, like the superheroes that they soon will be considered, if the other sort dominates.  Instead, I choose to be optimistic and assume that there are nicer men around and that someday there will be an uprising amongst the males of our species and they will overthrow the horrible sort that causes us to feel the need to constantly be agitated and defensive. Yes, and then we all will hold hands and walk into the sunset, to live happily ever after. I know that isn't happening (Sigh). Yet. This is probably why I appreciate the good men out there, and hope and vow to propagate the same amongst other men. Every time a stranger holds the door open for me, I try not seeming obviously surprised, or remotely suspicious; instead, I thank them, genuinely. I usually mean to thank them for their existence, and the blessing that the factors responsible for their nature are to the planet. But that I leave unsaid, so as not to seem like a crazy person. I have met such men, and a lot of the despicable sorts. It is probably human nature that the impact of bad things stays on longer, and we tend to remember the bad things done to us better. But do not let your hopes down, for hope is all we have. I simply try to enjoy the company of the nice men around me, who treat all women as equals, and promise myself to inculcate the same unto every impressionable boy I can influence.

In a nutshell, what I mean to say is this – there are good men out there, and we need to appreciate them for not being the awful men in the news, and so, we ought to stop generalizing men. Maybe there still is hope for mankind?

The truth that be..

Sadly, we live in a world that is filled with misogynists. And people who propagate it. What saddens me further is that women grow up with instincts that may or may not protect them from acts that such people do.  It is now natural to be careful around strange men when alone, try and be invisible so as not to attract wrath, be constantly vigilant, dissect every sentence a person says, to make sure it has no sexist implications, and fine tuning words coming out of our mouths, to make sure we are not accidentally sending out wrong signals. Apparently it is too easy for ‘them’ to get wrong signals. And we are responsible for their actions.

We wade through life praying that we do not have to face the extremities of misogynist depravity, but expect, and face routines like the proclamations that women aren’t good drivers (men are quite certain the lady will back up into the car behind hers while reversing, or turn without indication, or ram into the car ahead, etc.), that good culinary skills are the pinnacle of a woman’s success (yes, that still happens), that most women are characteristically ignorant about mechanics, physics, and geography (women aren’t interested in specification of cars or computers alike, they cannot read maps, or follow directions), that everything women do revolves around men (she is wearing that dress because she wants a guy, any guy, to have sex with her, she acts interested in his work because she wants to date him, she is talking to him because she wants to sleep with him, she learnt to cook so she can cook for the men in her life, and so on and so forth). As most of you know, there is an ample amount of such generalizations that we can add to the list.

Women propagate such impossibly absurd social assumptions too. And women mould to the rules that the society (which must include only those men who think less of women, for whatever reason that they do, as there is no other explanation for the sad state of affairs) has set for us. For one, we have the set of rules of conduct for the ‘lady’, which is, of course, not applicable to men. These rules include the most outrageous, gender biased criteria that seem like an evil ploy to weaken us. Thou shalt not raise your voice: tolerate all injustice without raising your voice. Thou shalt be friendly: talk to every creep who is setting the crazy siren in your head on an overdrive, because “he was just making a conversation! No need to be a bitch about it.” Thou shalt behave with reservation: you absolutely must not come across as a free-spirited, loud person who enjoys life. Thou shalt look pretty for thy man: yes, because you are merely that (hopefully) beautiful vase that he brought back from an auction, so it is your duty to sit pretty. Thou shalt listen to thy elders: even if they want you to destroy your career to get married and bear the babies of someone you do not love or want. My god! This list goes on and on and on..

Even as I write, I can see how humorlessly absurd all of this is. And yet it happens. We should naturally oppose such profanity, and it should not have been a part of our society in the first place. We do not ask for more than to just be left alone to do what every man is left alone to do – to be. We do not seek hindrance, just as we do not interfere in the lives of men. Just that – Gender Equality. Do not treat us like princesses; treat us as equals, which we mentally are. Dominance over the physically weaker sex works in the jungle, participated by species of lesser intelligence than ours, and hence incapable of thinking or needing to think beyond. Let us make use of that mass of neurons, grey cells, and what-not, that has led to the most amazing creations in the world, and apply them to the most basic, obvious and natural paradigm of gender equality.

Disclaimer: I do not generalize men. Though I speak of the stereotype that walks the planet in a larger number, I do acknowledge those men who are everything the women ask for them to be - just and brave - who simply don’t seem to exist in numbers that would outshine those of the mentioned stereotype!

Talking is therapeutic.. Tolerating obscenities about your friend is NOT!

I often felt that it will do me a limitless amount of good to actually write - like people who keep diaries. The attention-monger in me nudged me towards writing blogs. But you see, I can talk a substantial amount in real time, when on a topic. The same is much too difficult for me to type. Classically, my brain works faster than my fingers can type. Yes yes, there are tapes and Dictaphone that I could use, but I really do not prefer listening to my own voice ranting to me.

As a conclusion, I have decided to actually sit down and write. Yes, this is the outcome of a trigger. You know when your mind is ripped into two, one asking you to punch the bastard in his face, and the other that actually doesn't care? I am there, and that is what I am writing about.

So, you go through what seems like a lifetime (even if it is a year, at the best), believing that the person you let inside your life is speaking the truth when he says he cares for you. Of course, you then ignore the others in your life who are not in a limelight, and the ones who have actually displayed their loyalty to you more than once. A friendship is much like any relationship - you fall in love and are in the stupor where everything is rosy and perfect, then slowly you start noticing the various flaws that every person has, then they begin to irk you, and you know you got to work on them. All that is fine if the relationship is worth salvaging. At the end of the day it is all about trust. How much should you trust someone who did  not stand up for you when his disgusting friends suggested they could 'take advantage' of you when drunk, and claimed that your friend, 'wouldn't even know'? I can not put things up subtly, and so I simply chose to provide you with the crude details. Before moving ahead, let me justify calling his friends disgusting, because that has been my opinion of them since before this incident. These men (for you can certainly not call them gentlemen), have always bragged about their 'conquests' with every girl in the party. Their usual "I have had sex with her, her, her and her", in a much degrading way than I put it here, pointing fingers towards the girls, has been witnessed by many. And when such men come across you when you are with your closest lady friend, you bloody well keep them away from her! My self-righteous, now ex-friend, walked away from the scene, alone. His justification - "I walked away FOR YOU (making me the reason he had a tiff with his friends), because he said it too many times (of course, saying it once or twice is okay)". Maybe I am an extremist, but I would have preferred him slapping the guy, at the very least. 

Yes, many of you might find it a petty issue. I don't. I abhor such creatures that objectify women, and consider each one of them a sexual conquest. More than that I despise traitors. I staunchly believe in loyalty. At a point, one must take sides. You choose. You can not be the pigeon AND the crow. U can not belong to both groups. Join them, be like them and out of my world. Or be my friend and let go of them. The sheer fact that this 'friend' showed no remorse upon his behaviour, and continues to be friends with the disgusting men, who have constantly tried befriending me (probably so they can add me to the list of conquests), whilst still texting me "you are my best friend", depicts the self-imposed stupor he lives in.

 

And then there is a part of me that realises that nothing will change him, and it does not matter if he tries to make up for it. It would be too little, too late. This incident has shed bright light on all the cracks in the relationship. And now it is impossible to go back. Which means I have lost my closest friend. Which is just fine, because this friend I loved was my perception of what I would want him to be, which, in reality he neither is, nor would ever be. So I shrug my shoulders hoping to lose that thought, and concentrate on more meaningful relationships I have, that have been unfairly given lesser importance by me, and attempt reviving them.