A poster that set things straight !

First of all, I would like my readers to open their minds and not think I am complaining and whining !! I am and will always remain the quintessential INDIAN woman. Those fat Parsi arms, the big Punjabi face, the dark Bengali eyes, the big gujrati belly, kutchi thunder thighs and those strong flabby south Indian calves ! And at all times of the year I am very confident that life is beautiful. But a recent road-trip changed my life.

I was with 4 guy friends. 2 , well over 6 feet, big built – can almost pass for bouncers. 1, who if was in a loongi and topi sitting on a low table with his one leg over the other would pass for the wicked zamindar of the 1930’s and the 4th one, a very sweet Konkani – with a big beer belly and short body frame. The description is for a reason. So hold that image. We are cramped into this one car meant for 5 –but thanks to our sizes we are cramped. We are travelling on Andheri-Malad link road. We pass by the million posters that SEASONS has bought along this patch of road.

As we pass each one of them, 4 pairs of eyes keep following this poster. These eyes roll, become big, twinkle, flash… and then the poster has gone. Their lips twirl a bit… you can tell they are thinking about the poster. Poster 2 spotted on the other side of the road… the beautiful Italian/ greek super model is standing on the beach… her sexy bodice clinging onto her bony frame. She is looking out at eternity. Her spotless skin catches the same 4 pairs of eyes. They roll, become big, twinkle, flash and then the same lips twirl.

This was just DAY 1. I thought DAY 2 would be different. They have seen that poster. They would just look at it with plain boredom. So wht, yeah its there ! Move on feeling would come. But DAY 2 was same. On DAY 7 I couldn’t help but ask… what is it about this poster. The same 4 pair of eyes roll their eyes away from this very poster. They fall on me as though I had woken them up from a beautiful dream. I could tell, each one of them was secretly hoping that woman was looking out for them. And then I blurted out, without resisiting any further – “Whats wrong with you guys ! Stop staring !!!”

The minute I said it – I knew I had woken up an angry bull – in my case 4 angry BULLS !! I had just locked my horns with the ultimate MALE DREAM – THE SEXY WOMAN ON THE POSTER !!

This is never what an Indian bride is ever going to look like !! Who walks in that awfully expensive saree from season onto the SAND !! Why would a company which caters to making women feel good make them feel bad ?? I talked to a few woman, some who are confident of the way the look, some who weren’t. But I found out something really startling, and hence thought I will share it with everyone.

Thin models make women feel bad, but they like it. They have higher evaluation of the brands. With the more regular-size models, they don’t feel bad. Their body image doesn’t change. But in terms of evaluations of the brands, those are actually lower.” What I am yet to understand is Why would something that makes us feel bad also motivate us to buy?

Which also makes me wonder - On the other side of the scale (pun intended), the “big girl” section of the department store has traditionally been filled with low quality, unfashionable clothes made out of cheap polyester. The association between bigger models and crappy quality may not be accurate, but it’s already in our heads.
The problem with polls and studies being done about “how women react” is that there often seems to be an underlying assumption that it’s somehow set in stone, that women are somehow genetically programmed to react to these starvation victims.
The truth is exactly what @Linda Bustos says: that which women’s bodily shapes are considered attractive is culturally-based, and has changed dramatically just since the 1950’s, and even more if you look back hundreds of years.

By only focusing on the size of the model, you leave out entirely the entire creative range of expression of how retailers could speak to/with women. When retailers point to simple-minded studies like that, they are abdicating responsibility for the culture they are helping to shape with their millions of dollars in marketing. I don’t believe hiding behind “well, that’s what women want, what can we do?” relieves them of the responsibility to find ways to speak to women without contributing to the alarming level of eating disorders and other health problems, such as binge dieting, that their models have helped to create. To add to this men, and how their desires rise from zero to max in less than 13 seconds after seeing this ADD.

Well, I don’t know what response this piece of blog is going to generate and how many angry men are going to charge at me and make fun of me… !! But I know I speak for my girl friends at the moment !!! Not all men are Hrithik Roshans on the PROVOUGE posters- and not all women will be the much envied the SEASONS POSTER girl.

An ode to nice guys !

This rant was written for the Wharton Undergraduate Journal

I just thought this definitely deserves to be shared with everyone.... :-)

Honestly must say, one of the best pieces of written material ever that I've read through... Thanks Himashu for sharing this with me....Here it goes...But it is also for my very close friend AAKASH !! This one is for you. For others,Now Please do not go and judge Aakash to be the nice guy talked about throughout this article. But much of what is written - can be related to our weird friendship.


This is a tribute to the ALL nice guys. The nice guys that finish last( Aakash has his share of stories), that never become more than friends, that endure hours of whining and bitching about what assholes guys are, while disproving the very point. This is dedicated to those guys who always provide a shoulder to lean on but restrain themselves to tentative hugs, those guys who hold open doors and give reassuring pats on the back and sit patiently outside the changing room at department stores. ( He has never sat outside the changing room - so as i said not all of it is him !! Read on )

This is in honor of the guys that obligingly reiterate how cute/beautiful/smart/funny/sexy their female friends are at the appropriate moment, because they know most girls need that litany of support. This is in honor of the guys with open minds, with laid-back attitudes, with honest concern. This is in honor of the guys who respect a girl’s every facet, from her privacy to her theology to her clothing style.

This is for the guys who escort their drunk, bewildered female friends back from parties and never take advantage once they’re at her door, for the guys who accompany girls to bars as buffers against the rest of the creepy male population, for the guys who know a girl is fishing for compliments but give them out anyway, for the guys who always play by the rules in a game where the rules favor cheaters, for the guys who are accredited as boyfriend material but somehow don’t end up being boyfriends, for all the nice guys who are overlooked, underestimated, and unappreciated, for all the nice guys who are manipulated, misled, and unjustly abandoned, this is for you.

This is for that time she left 40 urgent messages on your cell phone, and when you called her back, she spent three hours painstakingly dissecting two sentences her boyfriend said to her over dinner. And even though you thought her boyfriend was a chump and a jerk, you assured her that it was all ok and she shouldn’t worry about it. This is for that time she interrupted the best killing spree you’d ever orchestrated in GTA3 to rant about a rumor that romantically linked her and the guy she thinks is the most repulsive person in the world. And even though you thought it was immature and you had nothing against the guy, you paused the game for two hours and helped her concoct a counter-rumor to spread around the floor.

This is also for that time she didn’t have a date, so after numerous vows that there was nothing “serious” between the two of you, she dragged you to a party where you knew nobody, the beer was awful, and she flirted shamelessly with you, justifying each fit of reckless teasing by announcing to everyone: “oh, but we’re just friends!” And even though you were invited purely as a symbolic warm body for her ego, you went anyways. Because you’re nice like that.

The nice guys don’t often get credit where credit is due. And perhaps more disturbing, the nice guys don’t seem to get laid as often as they should. And I wish I could logically explain this trend, but I can’t. From what I have observed on campus and what I have learned from talking to friends at other schools and in the workplace, the only conclusion I can form is that many girls are just illogical, manipulative bitches. Many of them claim they just want to date a nice guy, but when presented with such a specimen, they say irrational, confusing things such as “oh, he’s too nice to date” or “he would be a good boyfriend but he’s not for me” or “he already puts up with so much from me, I couldn’t possibly ask him out!” or the most frustrating of all: “no, it would ruin our friendship.” Yet, they continue to lament the lack of datable men in the world, and they expect their too-nice-to-date male friends to sympathize and apologize for the men that are jerks.

Sorry, guys, girls like that are beyond my ability to fathom. I can’t figure out why the connection breaks down between what they say (I want a nice guy!) and what they do (I’m going to sleep with this complete ass now!). But one thing I can do, is say that the nice-guy-finishes-last phenomenon doesn’t last forever. There are definitely many girls who grow out of that train of thought and realize they should be dating the nice guys, not taking them for granted. The tricky part is finding those girls, and even trickier, finding the ones that are single.

So, until those girls are found, I propose a toast to all the nice guys. You know who you are, and I know you’re sick of hearing yourself described as ubiquitously nice. But the truth of the matter is, the world needs your patience in the department store, your holding open of doors, your party escorting services, your propensity to be a sucker for a pretty smile. For all the crazy, inane, absurd things you tolerate, for all the situations where you are the faceless, nameless hero, my accolades, my acknowledgment, and my gratitude go out to you.


Fu-zu Jen, SEAS/WH, 2003

Battle of the Sexes

Sure, you thought you already knew the different between a girl and a guy. But now I have conculsive proof! After countless hours of talking with my guy friends ( I have a lot of them I hang out with/ and also a lot of my girl friends) I have come up with the top 20 difference between us and MEN !!

1. RELATIONSHIPS:
First, a man does not call a relationship a relationship - he refers to it as "that time when me and Anita were dating on a semi-regular basis."
When a relationship ends, a woman will cry and pour her heart out to her girlfriends, and she will write a poem titled "All Men Are Idiots." Then she will get on with her life.
A man has a little more trouble letting go. Six months after the breakup -- at 3 am early on a Sunday morning -- he will call and say "I just wanted you to let you know you ruined my life, and I'll never forgive you, and I hate you, and you're a total floozy. But I want you to know there's always a chance for us." This is known as the "I Hate You/I Love You" drunken phone call, that 99% of all men have made at least once. There are community colleges that offer courses to help men get over this need; alas these classes rarely prove effective.

2. MATURITY:
Women mature much faster than men. Most 17-year-old females can function as adults.
Most 17-year-old males are still trading cards and giving each other wedgies after gym class. This is why high school romances rarely work out.

3. COMEDY:
Let's say a small group of men and women are in a room, watching television, and an episode of "The Great Indian Laughter Challenge" comes on. Immediately, the men will get very excited - they will laugh uproariously.
The women will roll their eyes and groan and wait it out.

4. HANDWRITING:
To their credit, men do not decorate their penmanship. They just chicken-scratch.
Women use scented, colored stationery and they dot their "i's" with circles and hearts. Women use ridiculously large loops in their "p's" and "g's." It is a royal pain to read a note from a woman. Even when she's dumping you, she'll put a smiley face at the end of the note.

5. BATHROOMS:
A man has at most six items in his bathroom - a toothbrush, toothpaste, shaving cream, razor, a bar of soap, and a towel from the Holiday Inn.
The average number of items in a typical woman's bathroom is 437. A man would not be able to identify most of these items.

6. GROCERIES:
A woman makes a list of things she needs and then goes to the store and buys these things.
A man waits until the only items left in his fridge are half of a lemon, and something turning green. Then he goes grocery shopping. He buys everything that looks good. Of course, this will not stop him from going to the 10-items-or-less lane.

7. GOING OUT:
When a man says he's ready to go out, it means he's ready to go out.
When a woman says she's ready to go out, it means that she WILL be ready to go out, as soon as she finds her other earring, finishes putting on her makeup...And men will never understand this, but all this pain is only for them.

8. SHOES:
When preparing for work, a woman will put on a Mondi wool suit, and then slip into Reebok sneakers. She will carry her dress shoes in a plastic bag from Saks. When she arrives at work, she will put on her dress shoes. Five minutes later, she will kick them off because her feet are under her desk.
A man wears one pair of shoes for the entire day.

9. CATS:
Women love cats.
Men say they love cats, but when women aren't looking, men kick cats.

10. MIRRORS:
Men are vain; they will check themselves out in the mirror.
Women are ridiculous; they will check out their reflections in any shiny surface: mirrors, spoons, store windows, toasters,

11. JEWELRY:
Women look nice when they wear jewelry.
A man can get away with wearing one ring, and that's it. Any more than that, and he will look like a lounge singer named Vic.

12. MENOPAUSE:
When a woman reaches menopause, she goes through a variety of complicated emotional, psychological, and biological changes. The nature and degree of the changes varies with the individual.
Menopause in a man provokes a uniform reaction. He buys aviator glasses, a snazzy French cap and leather driving gloves, and goes shopping for an expensive foreign sports car.

13. DIRECTIONS:
If a woman is out driving and she finds herself in unfamiliar surroundings, she will stop at a gas station and ask for directions.

Men consider this to be a sign of weakness. A man will never stop and ask for directions. Men will drive in a circle for hours, all the while saying things like, "Looks like I've found a new way to get there," and, "I know I'm in the neighborhood. I recognize that White Hen store."

14. ADMITTING MISTAKES:
Women will sometimes admit making a mistake.
The last man who admitted that he was wrong was General George Custer. And no one knows who he is.

15. DRESSING UP:
A woman will dress up to go shopping, water the plants, empty the garbage, answer the phone, read a book, get the mail...
A man will dress up for: weddings, funerals.

16. NUDITY IN MOVIES:
Every actress in the history of movies has had to do a nude scene. This is because every movie in the history of movies has been produced by men.
The only actor who has ever appeard nude in the movies is Richard Gere. This is another reason why men hate him.

17. POLITICS:
Men love to talk about politics, but they often forget to do political things such as voting.
Women are very happy that another generation of hot Congress leader is growing up and getting into politics, because they will be able to campaign for them and cry on election night.

18. CHANGING ROOMS:
In the locker room, men talk about three things: money, football, and women. They exaggerate about money, they don't know football nearly as well as they think they do, and they fabricate stories about women.
Women talk about one thing in the locker room - sex. Not in abstract terms, either. They're graphic and technical, and they *never* lie.

19. WEDDINGS:
When reminiscing about weddings, women talk about the "ceremony."
Men talk about "the bachelor party."

20. TOYS:
Little girls love to play with toys. Then, when they reach the age of 11 or 12, they lose interest.
Men never grow out of their obsession with toys. As they get older, their toys simply become more expensive and impractical. Examples of mens toys: miniature TV's, car phones, complicated juicers and blenders, graphic equalizers, small robots the serve cocktails on command, video games, and anything that blinks, beeps and requires at least six "D" batteries to operate.

Dear December... With love, yours forever

Dear December,
I am closing another year. And there is this whole urge in me to write something. But when you write something that is so close to your heart, people get to know what you are feeling at that point in time. When people know what you are feeling, they think you have suddenly become predictable. And predictable = vulnerable. And Vulnerable is not a good sign of a winner. Being a winner is important to me. But then again, this needs to be told. For if I don’t say it, these thoughts will remain in my heart. And then they will form into big word clots. And word clots kill people slowly, they are unlike the blood clots, wherein a person gets a heart-attack and it’s done! So since the words are at the end of my finger tips, I am going to blog on.

A quick conversation with a dear friend of mine led into this letter to you taking shape.
Friend : Dishudi ( as she fondly calls me ! ) .. I need someone to tell me how much he loves me ( ofcourse my friend is a girl. Guys and I will never have this conversation )

Disha : I know ! its almost as though they stopped producing my type : Bald, Handsome, smart, Funny, Witty, Ambitious and GUJARATI.

Friend : I know, whats happened to our community gene. What’s going wrong ??

Disha : I know what you mean. I have had 4 people who asked me out in November, none with all criteria. I mean if one has to remove any criteria, he can – with the exception of Gujarati.
( It will be ironic, if after publishing this I have to do pheras with a non-gujju !! ) however

Friend : I like all castes – he just needs to want me as much as I want him.

Disha : My friend, then you don’t want a guy, you want a woman. Hhahhaha . What happened to that guy you were talking about.
( We have talked about so many guys. So when I say, what happened to that guy, she knows I am talking about the latest one ; P )

Friend : Oh, it was useless. He didn’t even kiss me, and it was almost as though all my efforts to dress up that night went down the drain !! He pisses me off with his indecisiveness Dish !!

Disha : Oh acha ! ( Only some kind of joke would make my friend feel better at this point in time. ) My dear, I think we should number them. But that would be just plain boring. Lets call him your December.

Friend : Hahaha , Your December. You are funny Dish ! I know

Disha : If you had 2 in December, I would say what happened to December 1st week.

Friend : Disha, I am not that lucky. We are talking about the guy, who is = November. Where is my December ??

Which makes me wonder, Where is my December?? Shouldn’t he be here by now. I mean, I know it’s all mean and all, but he should be here. Its soon going to be 31st. Where every other person if going to ask me who I am going to be with on New Years eve. So irritating. The side effect of growing older is that everyone assumes you are either married, engaged, have a boy friend or almost going to have one. There is nothing called Single. So much so, that an offensive junior of mine asked me, why are you alone with your girl friend watching a movie !! I mean, this is how difficult it is Mr December. Get here now !! January is on its way. You will have only 2 weeks of Disha. Or even better, if Disha likes you and all goes well, December will for the first time see Jan, Feb, March etc. But for that December, you need to magically appear right now !!

Waiting for your early home coming – Love, Yours now and forever.

Mind Over Matter

The last couple of days I finally grabbed a copy of Dan Brown latest book ,"The Lost Symbol". MIND OVER MATTER is a thought that originated from this little piece that I am reproducing below. As described, " Let hypothetically a single thought may have a mass, however negligible and thus exerts gravity. So if thousands of minds focus on a single thought.. It can be converted to action.. " it means if sufficiently large number of minds concentrate on a single outcome of a event, may even cause an event to happen.

FOCUSING on a single thought is the central theme of this blog. It got me thinking, can every square inch of your body focus on a single thought and move oceans ??. I have one such incident in my life. It was grade 1, when someone said, FAT GIRLS CANT COME FIRST ! The mind and body worked in tandem on the day of the race. I had practiced quiet hard pre-race. The race was pretty simple, from a basket full of potatoes and onions somewhere halfway, one had to take 3 of each and run towards the finishing line. So while most athletic girls attempted to find “their potatoes”, little Disha just took any 3 each and ran towards the finish line. FOCUSING on the end and not the means has always been my mantra thereon.

But contradicting my statement above - LOVE works differently !!! The more you FOCUS on it, the more it will RUN AWAY from you. A couple of months ago I went from being a believer in LOVE to a non- believer ! Almost non-existent. Things will happen when they will happen. And there is nothing called forever and always – this was Pankti’s status updates. So who I loved for the first 10 years of knowing what love is, is no longer a relevant part of my life. All my thoughts were focused for a good 10 years on this one really handsome guy. But isn’t 10 years of FOCUS enough?? If that didn’t work, I tried my luck with another gentleman – 2 yrs. thinking things would work differently. Then I tried with another completely different person and another, and another.. each time the focus span decreasing… !! And the more my focus decreased, the more their clinginess increased in a weird observation. So is the rule of MIND OVER MATTER not universal ??

I have had a paradigm shift the last couple of months as I have mentioned earlier on. There is no such thing as TRUE love !! People make adjustments and suit their needs as and when they say they have found their true love. In the last 6 months I have had a couple of men ask me out on dates. Each one is a different individual mentally emotionally and physically. They professed they would love me forever and keep me like a princess. But it all changed the minute I said can we not jump into this, or this is too quick. Let’s give this time. True love was supposed to know everything about me, or at least willing to know what I really like or feel. I should have been their focus. Some of those very people aren’t even a part of life – exited – jumped off the boat. People have shifted their focus from TRUE love to we shall love after we jump into it.

Am I still in fairytale land ?? Is there something like jump into it and everything will follow ?? Should I re-focus on finding true love ? or will someone focus everything on me and find me to be HIS FOREVER ??