What I've learned (??) about women

The age old question "What do women want ?" is something I've asked my self a lot more often since I started dating my fiance. Each time I think I have it nailed down, I realize it's like a video game and I've just graduated to the next stage which turns out to be tougher than the one before. I'm nowhere close to having everything figured out, but I thought I'd list out the things I feel I have discovered over time.

1) She wants me to know what she wants - The most important lesson I've learned. Never get frustrated and say "Why don't you just tell me what you want?". If I have to ask her what she wants then I have failed.

2) I'm doing it because you want it vs. I'm doing it because I want to - This is another absolute no-no. If I'm doing something just because she asked (read: told) me to, I'm in trouble. I better be doing it because I wanted to in the first place. If you haven't seen The Break up, watch it to get your Relationship 101.

Brooke asks Gary to help her do the dishes. He's busy playing video games . Brooke gets upset.
Gary: “Fine, I’ll help you do the damn dishes.”
Brooke: “That’s not what I want. I want you to want to do the dishes.”
Gary: “Why would I want to do dishes?”

3) Women want to forgive - This one I never realized until I watched Riding in cars with boys:
She'll get over it, women want to forgive.
Even a total screw-up, they'll help, It's in their nature.
You just gotta remember, you gotta tell them you need their help.

I promise you I have tried this and it works. No matter what I do, if all else fails, I just need to tell her I need her help and then it's all OK. Let me give you an example: You blew up a bunch of money on a "little boy" fantasy like a sports bike. How do you tell her?

Wrong way:
Honey, I bought a new bike today, it rocks !!

Right way:
Honey, I bought a bike, but now I realise I spent too much money on it. I'm sorry. The next few months are going to be a bit hard. I really need you to stand by me to get through it. Will you ?

Always works :-) Anyway, please pass on any valuable lessons you might have learned. On my part, I will update this list as time goes by.

Love is….

So I’m getting married this October and all the three of you who read my blog are invited! Now since the time I made this decision, I’ve been asked by family and friends alike, “So how did you decide to get married?”, “What do you guys have in common?”, “What do you like about her the most?” and a host of other questions. After much thought, I’ve come to the conclusion that I really don’t have a clue as to why the two of us decided to get married. The only way to describe us is the way Frank (Phoebe’s brother in “Friends”) does “It's so cool man, it's so, it's just 'cause being with her is so much better than like not being with her.” Maybe in the end that’s what counts.

One day the two of us sat down and tried to list out the things we have in common. It turns out she loves big cities; I’m more of a small town / suburb kind of guy. I love reading, she loves TV. She’s an artist; I can’t draw a straight line. I play the guitar and sing, she can’t hold a note. I’ve been described as being “quietly confident”; she’s got all the bubbly charm of Priety Zinta in Dil Se. How do we get along? Bear with me as I quote Simon Green (Played by Ashton Kutcher) from the move Guess Who “That's just it; she's everything I'm not. You know, she's my other half. Without her I'm not whole.” Now I’m not sure if I would go as far as to say I’m not whole without her, but we do bring out a different side in each other. A side neither of us knew existed. The fact that we don’t always like the new side we bring out is a story for another post ;-)


So as we go forward, the two of us don’t have all the answers. We know we have our differences. We know it won’t always be easy, but we also know as long as we are together, we’ll be better off than well…. not being together.

DWA - Desis With Attitude

This post isn't about my opinions. It's just about a holiday weekend in May when we went to the beach. I have a group of biker friends, all Indians and we call ourselves Desis With Attitude. (I know a cheap rip off from the NWA) but here we are.

The first guy is .. well missing. Abir didn't come on the trip so we missed the founding member of the group. However, going from left to right

1) Rahul - Always the tail gunner. He's normally a mile behind the rest of the bikers because cops seem to have an affinity towards him. He rides a Ducati Monster, 625.

2) Surya - That's me. I usually ride in the middle of the pack but ever so often I like to break away when I feel the need ... the need for speed :-) That's a Suzuki GSX R 1000 I'm on.

3) Shyam - He talks alot faster than he rides and alot more as well. If you want to be entertained 6 hours straight, he's the man. The newest rider to the group, he got his motorcycle just 2 weeks before the trip. He's rides a Suzuki Boulevard M 109R. The biggest bike in the group (1800 cc).

4) Pradeep - A slightly dangerous and temperamental rider. Hates being passed and normally regains his position by overtaking you in the same lane. Scares the hell out of me when we are averaging 70 - 80 mph. I like his bike it's a Yamaha R1.

5) Srinath - My roommate from college, have known him for 10 years now. He used to drive a 75 cc kinetic honda back then. He's graduated to a Harley v-rod. The safest rider. Doesn't take off his helmet even when he's not moving.

6) Jayakar - The dare devil of the group. Amazing control and confidence while riding. It's always fun when he is leading the formation. He's rides a Suzuki Hayabusa. The fastest production bike on the planet.

There are just so many reasons to ride a motorcycle. While I love cars, motorcycles ooze passion. You can be "one" with a motorcycle in a way that you can never be with a car. Apart from that, it's just such a liberating experience.

But the number one reason to ride -

Tag - 8 things about me

I was tagged sometime ago by nainaashley. As a chronic procrastinator I didnt get around to doing it till now. And when I started writing I first had to list out things not many people know about me, but then I had to filter out the stuff I wouldn't like anyone to know either :-) So here's the list. It's pretty boring actually, but anyway.

1. I figure out new things about myself every day, sometimes not very pleasant.

2. I have an insane need for all arguments to be logical and reasonable. Doesn't go down very well with my girl friend.

3. I have a bad temper, but over the last few years I have learned to keep it on a very tight leash. Most newer friends would never know that.

4. When I was 17 I wanted to quit studies and form a rock band.

5. I'm scared of fish. I don't know why.

6. I am a speed freak. I Have 4 tickets in the last 18 months, but I only speed when I'm alone.

7. When I came to the US, I laid out three goals for myself
    a) Own a Porsche and a Supersport bike
    b) Watch Metallica, U2 and Pearl Jam live
    c) Go on a date with Salma Hayek
I've achieved two, still waiting on the last.

8. I procrastinate. (That's why I'm responding to the tag so late)

The best things in life …. can kill you !

The best things in life are hardly free, in fact most of the time they can end up killing you. Smoking causes cancer, drinking kills your liver, sex… what can I say… there’s AIDS, STD’s and now this. The best food is unhealthy; the best cars cause the most pollution. The list goes on and on. So unless you like Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, you better be ready to pay with your life for the things you love.

Is life unfair? If you believe in God, do you think He purposely attached a higher price tag to things that he knew we humans would love? Or is it human nature to want the things that are bad for us. I think it’s neither. I think we go looking for the dangers in everything we enjoy. Our conscience doesn’t allow us to simply enjoy the things we do without worrying about consequences. So each time we find something we love, we start looking for reasons we shouldn’t be doing it.

Fortunately for me, I don’t care :-) I think abstinence is for people who give in to the temptation of denying themselves pleasure. So I’m going to listen to my grand mothers words of wisdom “Take what you want from life.. Take it and pay for it”.

Speak Up

Why is it that it’s always the extremists who speak up the loudest and the liberals whose voices are never heard? Is it below the dignity of the intellectuals to protest against what they perceive as injustice? Or are the liberals just complacent “As long as it doesn’t affect us”?

Sure, we do speak up once in a while like in the Jessica Lal case, but only when the issue is close to home. With most issues, as horrifying as they might seem, we (I include myself here) just don’t feel the need to speak out. There might be a genocide going on in The Sudan, but it doesn’t affect us. Civil War in Iraq, but it doesn’t affect us.

With extremists however, Richard Gere kisses Shilpa Shetty and they protest all over the country, burning effigies. Say what you want about extremists, but at least they stand up for what they believe in. We liberals just seem to lack the courage of our convictions.

I leave you with a short poem written by a man who survived the Nazis.

They came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up.
-Martin Niemöller

Live in New York once

As I write this post, I'm sitting in a bustling Starbucks cafe in mid-town Manhattan about to leave to a little suburb in Northern Virginia that I currently call home. For the last few weeks I've been visiting a client in New York quite frequently and every time I step out of the station into the busy streets of Manhattan, I can't help but quote Baz Luhrmann's lyrics from Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) to myself. "Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft".

I've never lived in or even visited Northern California, but I can tell you this, it doesn't take long for New York city to make you hard. I remember my first visit here around 2 years ago when I walked around the city careful not to bump into anyone, apoligised to anyone I brushed against. Stopped on a red walk sign, allowed cars the right of the way. Now, after spending the better part of three months here, I drag my little strolley around at full clip down the avenues and streets not caring who's toes I drag it over. Apologise? You've got to be kidding!! I stop where I feel like and walk when I feel like it regardless of how many people I bump into or how many cars swerve.

Darwin must have come up with his theory of evolution after studying New Yorkers, for this is definitely a process of natural selection. You either survive or you quit. I for one would love to quit.

Having spent most of my life in small towns, New York came as a nasty surprise. It's crowded, dirty & noisy - And this is coming from from a guy born and brought up in India. People are always in a hurry whether or not they have a place to go to. It's insanely expensive, and even with an extremely good hotel expense policy I sometimes wind up getting rooms worse than I have ever lived in. Not always, but sometimes they just don't have rooms. New York is the only city where I have stayed in where I got bitten by bed bugs in the hotel- And that's after paying $350 a night.

So why do so many people want to live here? There has got to be something to it. Is it just to have a 10001 zip code? Is it that you can be who ever you are and no one would give you a second look. Right in this cafe there's a guy with his hair in three colors, a woman who's trousers start almost where her thong ends and no one cares. They say you could walk down manhattan stark naked and people would probably think to themselves "Interesting" and continue on their way. Or maybe it's because just looking around you in this city can make you feel like you've arrived. You start believing in the American Dream. You're ready to reach for the stars.

I sat in a cab a few days back and actually survived the ride. The cab driver had a short conversation with me and was surprised I travel here from Virginia to meet clients during the week when I have the option of living here. He boasted to me about how successful he is living in New York. I started to point out that he was driving me around in his cab when I realised that's what New Yorkers are about. Wherever in their lives they may be they are proud of it. The most lonely city in the world, the most likely place for a person to die alone. Yet New Yorkers are proud.

What's my point? I don't know .. but that's New York for you , in a New York minute. Next stop Northern California !!