This Should Do It

I have this bad habit of falling in lust with people at the drop of a hat. No. You don't understand: bad habit as in I fall in lust with
lots of people at the same time. And no I'm not a nympho (at least I don't think I am). The thing is …I love men…. I just simply love
them… -short or tall, thin or fat, big or…...anyway. I love the buggers.

Looking back on the 22 years I've spent on this planet (20 of them in this nation of the selfless and pure). I can't pinpoint exactly
where my obsession with these creatures started. My best friend Swsrnlttomdah (she who shall remain nameless less the taint of
my desire anoints her) often refers to the weekend I bunked girl guide campfire song practice to take part in boy scout tug of war
as the "Day It All Began". I disagree. I can trace my exploits with slightly greater accuracy. I think it started somewhere in 1980,
the year I turned 5, the year of the Goat.
There I was, a wee little thing in my polka dot chaddas, hiding behind a hedge with Asif (where is he now I wonder) throwing rotten
pears at the neighborhood girls. Sitting there, poised to pounce, I looked over at him and thought the 5 year old equivalent of "this
is something I could never share with a girl". The sense of purpose in the most meaningless of things, the headiness of a pointless
chase, the passive acceptance that hit or miss at least I've tried: this is something only a man can do and then later take great
pride in narrating to his friends. Of course, they change the story a little bit, the power to reject changes hands, and the slap
becomes a caress. Pshaw! Let them say what they will. A man's best friend isn't a dog, it's his imagination.

Men, then, have been the objects of my unsullied affection for years. This has lost me more friends than I can count on my toes
(and the toes of whomever I happen to be with) but hey, I don't care. I really, and I'm being totally honest here, can't afford to
care. If I sat at home and moped over every little thing some woman had to say about me, I might as well just take a shortcut and
roll over and die. I have a better revenge in mind. I shall take their men away from them (and dump the bodies in a landfill, but that comes later).

Now that isn't as easy as it sounds. Behind each great steal there is someone in the stands shouting "foul". The trick is to ignore
them, do your thing, and then go blue in the face protesting your innocence. And here you were thinking desi women were a
bunch of doormats, limp with the passivity of the defeated. Think again. desi women are all that and much more. They can lie,
deceive, cajole and flutter their eyelashes with the best of them. In fact, I think the fact that we are battling a patriarchal society
makes us even better at what we do. We are used to operating in secret, with one face for the public and another for private. Don't
believe me? Look at Benazir. Classic case of feminine deception. There we were thinking this woman has a brain, and we find she
hasn't even met its second cousin.

BB made the crucial mistake of getting attached. This is another area where I find myself in total agreement with the male of our
species. Why get attached when you can have a perfectly good parasitic relationship? Women, you see, have all these misplaced
notions of loyalty. Not that men don't. I can name a few who did their best to impress upon me, in ways more subtle and insidious
than honey, the benefits of what some call "monogamy" and others "oh no not that". There was A, mine for 5 years during which
time the barometer of romantic intensity yoyo-ed wildly, in the process decapitating many other would be "bouy and girl friends". We
parted ways eventually and claim to be the best of friends, but If he sees me on the street tomorrow he wont hesitate to run me
down. Just another one of those little gestures to let someone know you care.

After A came S. S entered in the days when I was trying to prove there was more to me than meets the eye, and no I didn't do this
by exposing myself as much as possible and then singing "choli kay peechay kya hai". I was being "intellectual". I wore
khaddar, waxed lyrical about Garcia Marquez and magic realism, wore big brown glasses to get that earnest, constipated young
thing look.

I must have been a sight to behold.
S took me in, in a manner of speaking. He told me what to read and how to pronounce faux pas (not that I think it matters). He was
so totally non-threatening. I could see myself ten years down the line, coming home at four in the morning after a night "with the
boys" and seeing him asleep on the living room couch, a book open on his lap.
Touching isn't it?
But he left, said I scared him with the schizophrenia of my affection.
And that was my almost marriage story.

On to brighter things then. Let us address the question of "Why I became the way I am". Simple. I was born to this. The people who
wrote the Adam and Eve story (or was it Adam and Morticia?) might well have been on to something. I do honestly believe that as a
woman I was made for a man, and operating on the book principle that the more widely circulated a product the more profitable it
is, I am, at this very moment, a metaphysical cash cow for somebody or the other.

There will be people who will scream for my blood. "Slut" they will say (\\*yawn\\*). Hey, if I can give someone pleasure and a
glimpse of happiness in this cruel, cruel world ("sure I love you, sure you're my first") why not? Don't separate the physical from the
emotional? Don't separate the church from the state? Sure, just tell me when the guillotine falls ok. I think I'll keep my eyes closed
a little while longer.

It's a lonely life, it is, being the enemy of the pompous and the defender of the meek (that was a JOKE). The women hate you; hell
they hate you anyway if you're just another woman, and a self-confident one at that. But I don't blame them. If I was in their place, I'm
sure I'd despise me too. I might not be better looking, I might not even be smarter (perhaps I AM just a bimbo after all) but at the
end of the day I'm not the one waiting for someone to come home for me to feel complete. I'm the one who lets herself into a
cramped little apartment in the wee hours of the morning and is greeted enthusiastically by a hearthrug. Feel sorry for me if you
dare, but the satiated sleep is a deeper sleep than the righteous, or am I getting my proverbs mixed up again?

Somewhere along the line I met a few women I could consider doing more with than nodding at in a supermarket line. We traded
numbers and insecurities. This is when we hit a snag in an otherwise smooth garrote (my company would have suffocated their
social life). I don't really have much insecurity. You want insults? Got those; but if you're waiting for me to tell you I think my
breasts are too small you might as well leave now. Funny how it all comes down to what you can and what you cannot afford to
have.

The men might secretly despise you, as learnt from the mother, but when it comes down to brass tacks, they'll be civil to you at all
times. Except when their girlfriends are around, but then you can be sure they'll call you later, apologize and ask if they can buy
you dinner to make up for it. The girlfriend will call you later too, but only to see if her man picks up the phone.

I don't miss the bathroom bonding, I don't miss the sleepovers, I miss the honesty. The way I see it, all women know somewhere
deep down inside that they are all the bible says and more. But we are, as of the decade the feminist movement started, in a state
of denial. Men have no such illusions about our purpose here. You're a receptacle for semen and a trash can for guilt. You're the
next best thing to a dog in that you hear and obey. You might occasionally need to be punished.

Men, you gotta love 'em. You can never tell when a woman will unsheathe her claws, but men give you all these little signs. The
vein pounding in the forehead, the jaw clenched, the balled fist, the stars dancing around your head as you hit the floor.

Always did think the bruised flesh heals quicker than the battered soul of a misfit.