Here, There & Everywhere

The ‘Good Guy’ Myth Explained

It’s 2012 and you’d think that everyone has figured out FriendZone and Good Guys and all that nonsense.

From Taylor Callobre’s The “Good Guy” Myth here:

“But most of all, stop thinking that what people so loathingly refer to as the “friendzone” is some sort of purgatory women put “nice guys” into.  My friendship is not a crappy consolation prize that you’re left with if I deny you a sexual relationship– and my body is not your reward for good behavior.  Thinking that simply being a “good guy,” whatever that may mean, entitles you to unlimited sex with the girl of your choice shows that you don’t truly believe women should be in control of, and have full ownership of, our own bodies; instead, it shows you think we should use them like doggy treats whenever you do the human equivalent of a jumping trick.  If you treat us as humans, that’s fantastic, but we do not owe you for it.

One of the worst outcomes of the “but I’m a good guy” phenomenon is that it overshadows the many, many men who don’t think this way and instead realize that if we don’t want to go out with them, that’s our choice and we most likely have a good reason for it, even if we don’t feel like sharing what that reason is.  The word “friendzone” has crept into the vocabularies of even the most respectful, enlightened men, and I think it’s time we push back.  Why not call it something more poetic and accurate, like “unrequited love” or “unreturned affection?”  If you do, you’ll know that at least your grasp of the English language is better than that of the “New Found Asshole” who aired his thoughts so brutishly on Facebook.

Also learn to gracefully deal with a rejection without putting your asshole tendencies on display on every social media platform you can find.

For what is a cat to do in an empty apartment?

For the longest time, my grandparents had a Rice Cooker Box. I don’t remember seeing it anywhere else when growing up and to me it was the mark of being a grown-up. It was spoken about in high pitched voices, many conversation revolved around how someone’s Rice Cooker Box was the best and if it could have been proudly displayed in the living room that would have been done too. It was a brown wooden box lined with thermocol and I remember Granpa talking about a certain Rice Cooker Box Man who made them. The purpose it served was simple: The rice was cooked till almost done, the pot of rice was then placed in that Rice Cooker Box. 

That box used to make me very anxious about adulthood. Where would I find such a Rice Cooker Box? This Rice Cooker Box Man who made these boxes would be dead by the time I grew up. No, I can’t ask Granpa to make me one and give it to me when it’s time for me to cook rice. How will I know when to turn off the gas on this utensil full of rice, how will I lift it out of the box? Where will I keep the Box? How will I carry the box? The box, the box, the box. Who will make the box for me if one box gets damaged or something happens to it? The Wooden Thermocol lined Rice Cooker Box! 

Then I was gifted a Rice Cooker. All my anxiety went up in one big *poof* of steam.

On Perfect Elusive Things

I wanted to say something about a couple of songs by Teitur and how I love the pretentious cool of various hipster nooks (This I realized in retrospection). And how wanting anything and anyone that catches my fancy “Oooh, Shiny! I want. Now!” gives me such a thrill till I have it. Once it’s mine, it’s all bokeh in the background and TV dinners and gawd, can we go off to sleep already.

Then out of nowhere I rediscovered the joys of a mint chutney sandwich. 

Two slices of lightly toasted white bread, place slices(Yes, I said slices) of Amul Butter on both slices, slather on some mint chutney, cut thin slices of boiled potato and cucumber, cut out the crusts and what you get is a perfect mint chutney sandwich. 

Which brings me to the Perfect Sandwich. A sandwich which is not a soggy lunch of ham and day old bread fixed with some stinging mustard, clumpy cheese and ketchup that is more sugar and less tomatoes. 

To me, a perfect sandwich is a play of contrasting textures and tastes. And a clever way to  turn the food pyramid of Grade 4 textbooks into a perfect pie (Try not to think of Excel Sheets here) that must not be resisted.

The Bread: Not soft and milky like the sliced white bread of the Mint Chutney sandwich but crusty and chewy and hitting a perfectly soft spot in the middle. Like a baguette. “Like lingerie - there, but not, providing delicious support without obscuring the main flavor.” Perfect when it’s in a race against your cream silk shirt to soak up the profligate juices. 

The Meat: Juicy and loaded with character. Roasted Beef, Pulled Pork, Steak, Corned Beef, Smoked Salmon, Fatty Pastrami maybe even Fried Chicken. Barbecued, Grilled, Marinated, Slow-cooked, Roasted, Cured meats will make my world go round but none of those wimpy slices of ham and pepperoni and god knows what other excuses for meat. 

The Salad: Sundried Tomatoes, Pickles, Cucumber, Watercress, Arugula, Lettuce, Peppers, Caramelized Onions, Coriander, Jalapenos, Avocado, Heart of Artichoke, Shredded Carrots, Crumbled Bacon. Hell, even Coleslaw and Sliced Boiled Eggs. Enough to keep me chewing and con me into thinking I’m eating the recommended portion of veggies for the day. 

I was eating a sandwich, oh so creatively named Cafe Noir at Cafe Noir, UB City (Ha!) and with every bite of Roasted Beef + Baguette + Cucumber + Olive Oil seasoned with herbs I called out to the Heart of Artichoke. I’ve never liked an incomplete sandwich. 

The Spread: First some butter so that the bread doesn’t soak up the moisture. Then a dash of orange juice, chopped herbs, honey, garlicky mayo, salsa, basil, BBQ sauce, smoked cheese, freshly crushed pepper, provolone, some sharp smelling bleu cheese, hummus, mustard that stings like wasabi or mayo that smells of Grandma’s kitchen. The choices unending but let’s just make sure they meld the flavors of the meat with the salad but not overpoweringly so. So long as it’s NOT a Mayo Sandwich with a side of roast beef.

So it is on days like these I just want to wake up to doggie kisses, eat sandwiches and smell the sea in my hair. The truth’s harsh: everything’s elusive and I’m evasive but I’ll forget that recklessness for a bit. 

Let’s just watch the tides grow. I also might feel like waking up in your house some day or eating off your hand like a bird astray. 

You see, right now I’m just thinking of the time when I was in love and out of all else.

Foot Fetish

Give me skinny jeans, flannel shirts and oxfords(tan please) and I’ll smoke a cigarette all the way to Annie Hall. Maybe the solid colored oversized shirts- rolled-up sleeves and light blue denims with chestnut brown loafers and Woody Allen glasses will buy me a bottle of bourbon. Then just maybe I’ll wear my hair in a bun and tuck in my navy blouson into the white cigarette pants and click the heels of the cherry red alligator skin loafers to Rachel Maddow’s door. While at it, I’d also read Philip Larkin in that drone which sounds Parisian and hence very making-love-with-the-utterance-of-each-vowel-like.

Sweet lord. 

And because I always want more: Mmm…loafers! 

(So the story goes, she killed it-she skinned it-she cooked it-she wore it. Alligator, Mmm.)

I roll over and Derrida

A snapshot of a memory

I get a lot of flak for this picture and all the flak has everything to do with the camera in the picture. I want to get that camera out of the way: Yes, I own a DSLR. No, I’m not a Photographer. Peace?

A picture is worth a thousand words. Here are the first 32: You see me clutching a DSLR, you can’t help but notice the verdant surroundings, you may or may not notice the tiny droplets of rains on the window reflected in the mirror.

**

The details matter. Everything matters, in the end. The curve in the road, the rough patch on the tree bark, the colour of her hair under the Bangalore sun, the butterfly shades, the blue of the car- was it aquamarine? Was it turquoise? Was it peacock blue? It matters, all of it. Because we assemble our picture of reality from details. Our ideas about reality come from bits and pieces of experience. It is these experiences that we assemble together, forcefully fit together into something that has a consistent narrative - something to reinforce our belief in our reality. We tell stories to ourselves, and to others. These with the passage of time become memories. But memories? Memory is an elastic affair. We remember selectively, just as we perceive selectively. We have to dig through perceived, remembered and experienced events, in order to figure out what really happened and how we want to remember it, how we choose to remember it.

**

Here’s what you don’t know:

This was a picture I shot one weekend in October 2010. It may have been the second weekend or the third weekend, my memory fails me. Brm, K and I were driving to Coorg.

2010 was a year of heartbreaks. I had returned to India in July 2010. It was Sidkid’s birthday - September 19th - when Brm flew back to India, nursing a broken heart. K was rekindling forgotten friendships and finally allowing time to heal wounds that cut deep. Sidkid was dealing with a personal tragedy.

Remember when we were kids, how we would swoop down, rush in and pull a friend to her feet when she fell? Remember the urgency in the moment to help the friend out? When we didn’t debate and argue back and forth with ourselves if we were crossing lines, overstepping boundaries, bringing down fortresses.  October that year demanded just that kind of swooping down to pull our collective heaps off the floor. One weekend was spent digging into Creatine rich food in Bangalore, on another we drove to Pondicherry, and yet another we almost drove to Calicut.

But it was the weekend we drove to Coorg that I want to remember.

K was driving, I sat next to him demanding chai, Brm dozed off at the back. We were driving through a tiny village dotted with shops, goats and the occasional farmer hitching his lungi and walking the road that never seemed to end. It had started to drizzle and we stopped by a tiny tea shop with asbestos sheets for a roof.

There was something extraordinarily comforting about that moment: the promise of rain, the thought of chai and the warmth of friendship. And really, it takes more than just rain, chai, verdant surroundings and friends to create the rush of sensations that make us feel safe, calm, and cared for. There’s a complex interplay of memory, our own personal histories and quite a bit of brain chemistry, and while some basics apply the specifics are highly personal. For that moment and for now, those triggers of nostalgia will have to do.

**

The problem is that memory is endlessly colored by our imagination, perceptions and beliefs. If there is a story that we wish to believe, our perceptions will modify what we see to fit our beliefs. We don’t see things for what they are but as we are. We remember things incorrectly or differently, our memories change over time.

The brain creates, omits, confabulates, denies, accepts, suppresses, confuses and even distorts. We may think we see it all and know it all but through our biases - our perceptions - the brain may just be blind to what is actually going on around us. The perfect replica of reality as it is/was won’t exist in our brain and therefore in our memories there is no way to separate what appears as reality from reality itself. The brain is all we have.

**

If a clown came out of the woods,
a standard-looking clown with oversized
polka-dot clothes, floppy shoes,
a red, bulbous nose,
and you saw him
on the edge of your property,
there’d be nothing funny about that,
would there?

…

would you pivot and run from him,
or stay put, as my friend did, who seemed
to understand here was a clown
who didn’t know where he was,
a clown without a context?
What could be sadder, my friend thought,
than a clown in need of a context?

    - If a Clown, Stephen Dunn    

An image without context is like that clown without context. I needed a picture, this picture any picture.  What has been captured by this interplay of science and technology and light is the only thing that won’t change when everything else does.