Desicritics Category: Culture: Sex

Ten Dating Don'ts For Men

IdeaSmith — Mon, 1 Mar 2010 11:52:46 EST

So I just read this article by [Redacted] Guy (yes, that’s what he calls himself) about the ten things he wishes his dates wouldn’t do while out with him. He asks for suggestions, so here are mine. Considering it’s a long list (List! List! My favorite word again!), I put it up as a post. Here’s what I soooo wish guys wouldn’t do when on a date with me.

1. Staring at my bust

There is just no excuse for this. Without entirely condoning it, I’m willing to see that a random guy on a bus or across the street may do this. He has the right to look where he wants. And I have the right to mentally strike him off my list of people I would ever go out with. But when I’m on a date with you, I don’t have that option anymore. Not at least till the end of the date, I’m at least that nice. Be nice to me and don’t treat me like a sex object the very minute we start the date.

2. Ogling other women

This follows from the first since some men use the excuse that ‘I can’t look at you so I’ll look at others’. We’re out on a date. That means you and I are getting together to spend some time with each other. Focus on the last three words. One date does not tie you to me but it does warrant the courtesy of your undivided attention at least.

3. Boasting

Showing off probably comes naturally to the male species especially when in the presence of the opposite sex. Animals do it, insects do it and human men do it too. Only don’t go on and on about it. The showing off is a mating ritual among the aforementioned life forms and ceases once the connection has been made. Assume that the connection has been made the minute the date has been accepted. There’s really no reason to go on and on about the number of foreign trips you go on, how earth-shatteringly important you are to your company, how you were having tea last week with the Dalai Lama and how many thousand books you read in the past year. It’s off-putting and most importantly it’s boring. I tuned out the minute you started throwing numbers at me.

4. Not listening at all

It’s a conversation. That means both people talk and listen. Talk some, I’ll listen. Then I’ll talk and you need to do more than stare around the room, ask the waiter for refills and interrupt to tell me about the movie I saw. Believe me, I could interest you with more than my bust. I have a sense of humour, an opinion and intelligence too. Give me a chance to let you see that too.

5. Calling me things like ‘Babe’, ‘Sweetheart’ or ‘Honeybun’

It’s a first date. I could be your girlfriend but I’m not, yet. We could be friends but we haven’t gotten to the place, right now. Undue familiarity and worse, sexist phrases are instant turn-offs. I have a name, use it. I might permit you to give me a nickname, but at least be original.

6. Playing SuperShrink

You’ve probably heard that women dabble in pop psychology. Maybe I have issues. Everyone does, it’s normal. Don’t put me under a microscope and psycho-analyze me on a date. It’s immensely offensive to tell me I am afraid of getting too close to men because of my Electra complex. If you’re a doctor, that’s work during a leisure activity. BORING. If you’re not a doctor, it tells me you’re just being a creep.

7. Caveating

It’s not cool to be commitment-phobic. I am not concerned with how messy your love life has been so far or how busy you are at work. You can go for a movie alone or have lunch on your own if those are true. If this date is happening, it’s because you agreed to it. Don’t waste my time and yours by coming to a date and then telling me why it can’t go further. If it’s not coming along as well as you thought, just tell me so. I may be disappointed but that’s better than being disgusted. If you’re that terrified of telling me the truth, at least wait till the date’s over. Don’t scuttle it while it’s in progress.

I wanted this list to be a ‘Ten things..’ but I’ve only managed seven. Does that mean men have fewer annoying habits on dates? Or does it mean that women are more permissive? Hmm? Women, add to these if you think up any others. Well, men you may too.

Every Place is Kansas Now, Tiger

Aaman Lamba — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 09:51:24 EST

Watching Tiger Woods apologize on television yesterday was a disconcerting sight. One was more used to seeing the iconic golfer talk about his game and recent victories. He seemed robotic and uncomfortable. In the end, his apology rambled for too long and didn't quite convince one to pick up the phone and call now, operators standing by. If it was intended as an apology, it stank. If it was an advertisement, it didn't sell the brand - it perhaps diminished it further.

Tiger Woods had no real reason to apologize to the public. He said what he had to say to his family and his sponsors. That being said, perhaps the role of the public figure does make him accountable to some extent to the people at large, but even so, he was apologizing for what will likely not change.

I visited the Kinsey Institute in Bloomington, Indiana, the other day and was struck by how ornate a facade we create around our basic identities. Dr. Alfred Kinsey painstakingly documented the various facets of human sexuality in the 1930s and 40s. When his books were published there was a general uproar, but much of what he documented as outre and the exhibits on display from the period seem quite commonplace today. Our perceptions of sexuality have changed so much in the intervening period that much of it does not shock, as it must have in those days.

Certain tenets still seem to hold good though. Years after Harvey Milk and others tore down the closets people had forced them into, men still resort to lurking in lonely chatrooms and truck stops to find solace. People still make up entire false lives to cover up their basic need to explore or just to have sex. Moral police barge into private homes and expose consensual doings, demanding the 'perpetrators' pay a price for their 'sins'. Celebrities are expected to lead sacrosanct lives, even if that means more pulchritude is shoved under the proverbial carpet than it can bear, until inevitably, the curtain falls and we are left with the sad man behind the Wizard.

Dorothy, it looks like every place is Kansas now.

Nawwab and I: Turning to a Lamb

temporal — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 10:42:30 EST

N: Regrets? I've had a few...
t: What? Not again on Lucy's lawn?
N: But then again, too few to mention...
t: Thanks for confessions.
N: I did what I had to do....
t: Where is my poop-n-scoop bag?
N: This will take 4.40.
t: What are you talking about?
N: At 11am EST, Teddy Lamb would speak for 5 minutes.
t: Teddy Lamb? You mean a remorseful Tiger?
N: In five minutes, without questions he hopes to wipe it all clean.
t: Ah, the pseudo "press conference"... he certainly chewed more than he could digest.
N: Woof woof...you're a tad slow...as always.
t: Let's not go there or I will turn you over to the Humane Society.
N: You will never do it. You need me.
t: Just like the hydrant?
N: OK, stop being sarcotouchy.
t: I know what he would say.
N: "I regret letting down my family
t: ...and my friends...
N: .. and my fans...
t: ...I have sought help...
N: ...and am actively seeking rehabilitation...
t: ...(to repair my image, my handlers and enablers advise)
N: (He would never utter those words)
t: Just like he would never really own up.
N: ..."I would like to return to the game that is my life...
t: ...this time without all the women save one...
N:...and I seek your understanding and support
t: (Ladies please do not thrust yourself on me)
N: He will flash a sad smile and leave
t: ...as the select media scramble to report the non-event.
N: And Von-Siffers would form a fan club and cheer on when he shows up in India?
t: He will play in India?
N: Woof! Woof!
t: But this lamb is no Blue Eyes.

Homosexuality Versus Violation of Privacy

Aditi Nadkarni — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 08:04:22 EST

Dr.Siras, reader and chairman of Modern Indian Languages at the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), was filmed having consensual sex with a same sex partner in his on-campus home without his knowledge. This video was then sent to his university employees. This likely seems the work of a group of pranksters looking for either entertainment or the settling of some scores. Some media outlets speculate that a local news channel may have been involved in this "outing" which I find bizarre.

Our media is now invested in splashing private sex lives over the news? When did that happen? It is very easy for the decent and thinking ones among us to pick out the victim and the perpetrator in this situation. If a heterosexual couple were filmed having sex in their own home, practically everyone would immediately conclude that the couple were innocent victims of a gross violation of their privacy. Would it matter if they were doing it doggy style or in the missionary position when they were filmed without their knowledge? I don't think so. It would be a slam dunk case where police would have gone after the people who filmed the video without Dr.Siras's knowledge and Dr.Siras would've eventually been able to file a lawsuit against the perpetrators. Right? Well, apparently, our societal morals and ethics depend upon a person's sexual orientation. AMU has pronounced this as grievous conduct on part of the professor to have sex in his own home and has suspended him.

It is an interesting time in India for homosexuality and sexuality in general. We as a society have never been openly homophobic or openly opinionated at all about anything remotely sexual. We don't talk about it. We just do it and then shush other people when they bring it up. As a nation we are all secretly homophobic, especially the men of our masses, the ones who adjust their crotches in public and molest women in trains as a mark of their machoism. They might not go around bashing homosexuality in public like the right-wing Christians do in the United States but they do their bit. Raani, chhakka, hijhda, all code for eunuch, are the terms they have coined to add to the existing offensive nomenclature for those whose sexual orientation does not quite fit with rigid ideas of who should sleep with who. Our commercial filmmakers gingerly broach homosexuality in films, often doing more damage than good for the LGBT community in India. Gay men are portrayed as weak, overtly effeminate and used mostly as comic relief in films thus successfully reinforcing popular and damaging stereotypes. I have personally witnessed college kids torment a classmate who is not into girls or does not invest into building a macho image. We all watch people being teased or left out but how many of us speak up? I grew up in this very society and yet when I see a gay couple, I see a couple. When I see homophobia, I see irrationality driven by fear of the unknown.

When I first read about this case, I desperately hoped that the story would be about how AMU stood by their professor and how the police immediately were on the case, looking for the people who had violated Dr.Siras's privacy. I set myself up for disappointment. In my mind, academia and media are the the outer, growing fringe of our society's thought map defining how progressive we are as a populace, they make up the forward moving wave on which intellectuals ride out and set themselves apart from the rest of the crowd. In this case, it was television reporters who allegedly filmed a man having sexual relations within the confines of his own home and then a university condoned this by castigating the professor because the form of sex he was having was not appealing to them. When media and academia promote regressive thinking it comes as more of a shock than it would have if it were say a political party doing it to pander to voters or a religious group looking to recruit. This sort of thing could happen to any of us. Even if you, my reader, may not be a homosexual, I am pretty sure you do things in your own home that you would not want media filming and showing to your employers, right? I guess 15th August is just a public holiday then.

History is witness that it takes times like these to brew a revolution. It takes nerve to side with the right kind of morality, the one that does not pause in doubt and morph into something unrecognizable when overcome with prejudice, intolerance or fear. In my opinion, the LGBT community in India needs to empower themselves and be more vocal. A lot of homosexual individuals do not make their presence known. They prefer to lead privately gay lives often offering up the understandable explanation of "My sex life is nobody's business". Sure. And this attitude may afford them a relatively drama free life, but as a community it will not bring them to the status of equal citizens with equal treatment unless they come forward and fight for it. Today in the face of this scandal, Dr.Siras according to a news report is voluntarily leaving the university. There are so many gay individuals who avoid a scandal and walk away from the mess, not demanding their rights or questioning the raw deal they are dealt.

Last year, Chief Justices Shah and Muralidhar made me proud when they mandated that Section 377 was inapplicable to consenting sex between adults in private. They noted that, “Constitutional morality must outweigh the argument of public morality, even if it be the majoritarian view.” It was a small, yet mighty step in the right direction. And now, a group of idiotic television reporters and the Aligarh Muslim University has brought us a few steps back again.

AMU's Suspension of (Allegedly) Gay Professor - Unconstitutional

Ruchi — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 08:03:02 EST

Aligarh Muslim University suspended the chairman of its Modern Indian Languages post after a sting operation (allegedly funded by the university) yielded footage of the professor engaging in consensual homosexual sex in his official residence. The university cited “gross misconduct” as reason for suspension. The professor was due to retire in September of this year.

First, it’s not the professor but the university, the local television channel and anyone else, involved in the sting who are on the wrong side of the law. In this case, it’s almost irrelevant that homosexuality was decriminalized last year, because the evidence thereof was obtained through premeditated and calculated violation of the professor’s constitutional right to privacy (under the expanded scope of Article 21, right to life). His privacy was invaded twice: entering his home without consent; and filming him while having sex and distributing it for public consumption. The continuing inquiry into his private sexual life is continued invasion of privacy and the suspension is not just illegal discrimination based on his sexuality but also impinges on his right to livelihood.

There are other issues that bear consideration. The university and some news channels note the professor’s partner’s profession, “rickshaw puller”. Why is this detail relevant if not for its moral aspersion, the sneaky insinuation of promiscuity and/or prostitution given the class difference between the two men. Had his partner been some nondescript middle-class professional such as engineer or chartered accountant, would this detail been brought up so frequently? Obviously not.

In addition, our news media, which just till last week portrayed themselves as guardians of free speech and democracy have chosen not only to not take a firm stand on the issue but have also downplayed the news with minimal coverage. Constitutional rights have been trammeled but gone is the moral outrage that marked the coverage of the SRK’s standoff against Shiv Sena. The reason is obvious: the professor lacks SRK’s saleability and more importantly, the corporate interests that govern our news media cannot be certain of the viewer’s reaction, given the fact that a large section of Indians still frown upon homosexuality. Hence, instead of the clearly defined pro-SRK stand and ad nauseam coverage seen last week, we see detached and neutral reporting here (while it is agreed that the job of credible news media is to report, keeping the analysis/opinion confined to the appropriate pages/shows, the discussion is about the double standards of the media). It also bears mention that Shahrukh Khan is still waxing eloquent (diplomatically) about Sena’s misguided ways but is completely ignoring this issue even though he’s made a predictable routine of modern haha homosexual insinuations with his loyal sidekick, Karan Johar in movies, award shows and interviews.

The university’s decision to suspend the professor is in violation of both the court’s decision (which decriminalized consensual homosexual sex between adults) and its central tenet of inclusiveness. While, it is unfortunate that the professor himself has chosen not to fight against the university’s decision (instead leaving quietly to return to his hometown), the rightness of a fight is not based on the subject’s own willingness and/or ability to fight (e.g., the fight against Sati was not led by the thousands of women who perished in the tradition’s flames). The mark of a just and open society is how well it protects the interests of its minorities, not the powerful.

Homosexuality - Are Heterosexuals Right In Being Righteous?

Cee Kay — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:06:47 EST

What I really, absolutely don't get is how or why people consider homosexuality

1. immoral

2. unnatural

3. criminal

Looking at it as a rational human being, I see two adults who love each other enough to want to spend their life together and, of course, have sexual relations with each other. They are not harming anyone. They are not imposing their views and choices on anyone. What they do in the confines of their homes is, and should be, none of our business. No one peeks into a heterosexual couple's bedroom to see what they are doing, do they? Then why do some people consider it their right to poke their noses into a homosexual couple's business?

Is it unnatural? If yes, how? People wouldn't do something, which obviously generates so much hate in many others, if it weren't somewhere a part of their nature, their being. I fail to understand what is so unnatural about feeling sexually attracted to another person of the same sex. It can happen. Who can understand exactly how a human mind works? Why do we like certain people enough to be ready to have sexual relations with them, while we wouldn't even imagine it with some others? If the opposite sex was the only thing that mattered in sexual relationships, there wouldn't be so many dating and match making sites out there, right?

I have a lot to say on the topic but my words usually get lost in the outrage I feel when I see people being so intolerant about something that doesn't even affect them in any tangible or intangible way. Yes, some would say it weakens the moral fiber of our society. What moral fiber? The moral fiber that allows people to kill girl children just because they are girls? The same moral fiber that advises a victim of molestation to "be more careful" instead of punishing the perpetrator? Or the moral fiber that binds the society into inaction and silence when they see a woman being harassed on roads and other public places? Or maybe they mean the moral fiber that bound a certain class of people in the category of untouchables for generations? No, really. PLEASE explain it to me.

I read this article in The Times of India. This is the pits of civilization - people barging into other people's homes. Even if the door was open, it didn't mean an open invitation to come in and invade the privacy of the person living there. There are so many things wrong here. Students thinking they can play moral police. The University's administration even entertaining the students’ attempt to bring Dr. Siras' homosexuality to light. The administration questioning and suspending him. The local TV channel making "news" out of this. (Is this "news"?? I shudder at what's considered news these days. But that is material for another post). What saddens me the most is that Dr. Siras is leaving without disputing the administration's decision. I think he should have stood up to them, but then I have not lived his life. Who knows what else he had to undergo? The humiliation this incident alone must have generated must be crippling.

Then I found a link to this article under the above mentioned article. Really? Decriminalizing homosexuality means (I quote) approval of "one more way of largescale sexual exploitation of children" ??! How does one make THAT leap of conclusion? I fail to understand. When I see such ignorant remarks my mind just stops functioning and I am reduced to a sputtering, blubbering mess.

In my opinion, unless the human race learns tolerance, it won't be progressing very far. People from different religions will kill each other, heterosexuals will kill the homosexuals, young will kill the old and countries will wipe out each other. Maybe we SHOULD let that happen. Then we can start from scratch and hope that the next "batch" of humans has more sense and tolerance.

Movie Review: Ishqiya - Sex and Sensibilities

PH — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 06:13:44 EST

Abhishek Chaubey's Ishqiya opens with a shot that will rank among the most sensuous ones in Hindi cinema. The camera zooms in on a half asleep Krishna (Vidya Balan), as Rekha Bharadwaj's husky voice breaks into a couplet on the end of longing. The aesthetic here, as in much of Vishal Bharadwaj's work, is that of the finest Urdu poetry and literature. Indeed, the two male perspectives on love, personified by Babban (Arshad Warsi) and his Khaalujaan (Naseeruddin Shah), respectively mirror the majaazii (figurative/sensual) and haqiiqii (real/spiritual) layers of meaning in Urdu poetry, the name Krishna underscoring the bhakti element.

Babban's sexuality, then, is overtly carnal - he reads Hindi soft-porn, likes catchy numbers, frequents whorehouses, and plays peeping Tom on Krishna (though she knows this, and is simply seducing him). A line in the fly-by-night playfulness of word-czar Gulzar's penned to perfection Ibn-e-Batuta could well be a description of Babban: "uR uR aawe, daane chuge, uR jaawe chiRiyaa phurr" (the sparrow flies in, pecks at the grain, and flies off). It takes an actor of Arshad Warsi's cool and acumen to endear such a character to the audience.

Babban's Khalujaan, by contrast, is a man of refined sensibilities, an old-school romantic who cherishes the Hindi film melodies of Jaidev and Hemant Kumar. The closest he comes to voyeurism is listening in on Krishna's riyaaz. Krishna is something of a goddess to Khaalujaan; he even refers to her as "Krishnajii". His song is "dil to bacchaa hai jii", excellent in its composition (Bharadwaj's use of the accordion gives it that old world charm), its poetry ("saaree jawaanii qatraa ke kaaTii, peerii meN Takraa gaye haiN") and its filming (Chaubey's camera seeks out the beauty in simplicity, the girl on a bus, the cook chopping almonds in a dhaabaa - just the sort of imagery that proves that the Hindi film song can be a thing of beauty when it's done right). So when Khalujaan sees Krishna boogie woogie with Babban to a Mika Singh number, in Babban's clothes at that, it isn't just jealousy he feels; it's also the inevitable disillusionment of a romantic who has seen his ideals in tatters - Krishna's sacrilegious fall from grace. Naseeruddin Shah's finesse as an actor comes through in the expression of this disillusionment and loss on his face. How fitting that the very same tragedy of a hopeless romantic was writ large on the very same face, two mentor-generations ago, in the climax of Gulzar's Ijaazat!

This tug-of-war of sexualities, and its result, are reminiscent of a Manto short, wherein a civil servant's bourgeois double standards on sex prevent him from meeting the advances of a village belle, who is eventually whisked away for a roll in the hay by a truck driver with no such qualms. Like Manto, Chaubey, Bharadwaj and co-writer Sabrina Dhawan subvert Khalujaan's romanticism to expose his attraction to Krishna. "So your love is love, while mine is lust?" asks a justifiably indignant Babban - the haqiiqii is the majaazii, and attraction is attraction even when it's dressed up as poetry. Neither are the writer-trio content with fitting Krishna into one of the male moulds of Eros or Agape - she's a woman with a bit of both and some. When Khalujaan complains, "You can never tell if a woman is a houri or a whore", Krishna shoots back, "Who are you to call me names?"; and later quips to Babban, "(Khaalujaan) can't swallow the truth; it's stuck in his throat". From an iron-willed urban mother in Balki's Paa to an earthy seductress here, Vidya Balan emerges as the most intelligent actress in present day Hindi cinema.

The sexual politics play out in the UP hinterland where politics of another kind is prevalent. In a clever shift of perspective, we're shown how the city world must appear to those outside its privileges. "In the city, you pelt a mongrel with a stone, and hits a billionaire", we're told. Here, too, there is the Mantoesque use of sex (the S&M kind, no less) to expose the seamier side of respectable society. I've said this before but it bears repeating. Bharadwaj's cinema, and Chaubey's in his footsteps, is centered on characters who don't usually figure in the urban viewer's main stream of consciousness. That the proceedings are peppered with top notch humour is simply a result of the meticulous craftsmanship of Chaubey's team of writers. They're well aware of the serious business that comedy is. Sure, the idiomatic wit and the foul language get our laughs, but they also evoke empathy. Thus, unlike most Hindi films, here we're laughing with the characters not at them. In Ishqiya, Bhopalis with kohl-lined eyes aren't comic garnish (who can forget Jagdeep as Soormaa Bhopali ?); they're the dish itself.

In his production house, Vishal Bharadwaj has created an ecosystem where the stories of the dusty landscapes of villages and small towns tend to flourish. To tell such stories is, in itself, a political act. But to do so in a manner that the viewer also gets her money's worth of entertainment takes genius. The Hindi film viewer has for too long been held captive to the mindset that films are either meaningful or entertaining. Ishqiya reminds her that they can be both.

Fiction: Tryst With A God

Deepti Lamba — Tue, 9 Feb 2010 08:34:48 EST

The rosy cheeked cherub grinned at her. She stared back at him. No owl hooted, no wind woo wooed against her window pane and no full moon stared down at earth demanding the presence of a werewolf. Yet there was a creature straight out of the world made of mythologies buzzing way with wings at the foot of her bed.

The cherub seemed no more than three years old. His nether parts were barely covered by a coarse cotton cloth held together by a yellow diaper safety pin. His hair was the color of spun gold and in his hands he held a bow, a heart shaped arrow and a quiver on his back.

Tacky she thought and leaned against the headboard of the bed. Her fingers tightened over the rough leather collar of her dog - Banjo the Rottweiler. She could feel the tremble of the dog's low growl caused by the intruder's presence.

The thin bedsheet that covered her naked breasts slipped and pooled around her waist. Like gentle hillocks the breasts rose from her emaciated rib cage and the narrow brown nipples capped the slumbering volcanoes.

The cherub's smile widened and he pointed the tip of the torrid heart on her breasts. She lightened her clasp over Banjo who was mesmerised by the tiny dangling pink toes of the child stranger and the low growling increased a notch. Even the dog knew that the intruder before them was not human.

She cleared her throat and asked "Lets get one thing out of the way first. I am not dreaming, right?"

Cupid raised an eyebrow and raised his arrow to her head.

She nodded and spoke as if she was making an everyday observation "There is a little greek god in my bedroom and he has a weapon in his hands. Tell me why I shouldn't let my dog have his way with you? That is if you are real and I haven't lost my mind."

Cupid shrugged and she watched his pudgy arms stretch into action. The bow's string became tight and the arrow was aimed at her head.

"Bummer!" she muttered as the twang sang loudly in her room and the arrow sliced through the air to swarm her mind with hearty heart love.

Cupid sucked in a breath. It was his turn to feel the sharp echoes of surprise resound in his mind. Couldn't be, he thought.

The arrow had stopped just inches before her forehead and was clasped between her joint palms. She threw the arrow away and glared at him.

"You are a Ninja Assasin! They are extinct." His words of protest made her smirk.

She pulled back Banjo who had risen to his haunches in attack mode and replied "No. I abhor violence. This is the result of yogic meditation. I recently mastered the art of time suspension in the local YMCA evening classes."

"YMCA?! Is that some sort of a warrior community?" he let his bow fall to his side and spoke again. His words reminded her of smooth Maple syrup over hot pancakes, of musky heat between sheets.

She let out of a husky laugh and ignored the desire that curled between her legs. "Sort of" she replied and asked "Now do you mind telling me what are you doing here before I ask my dog to fetch me your wings?"

Cupid perched himself on her bedpost and his visible weenie disconcerted her and reminded the dog of sausages his mistress shared with him without fail for breakfast.

"Why my wings when you can have me?" he asked mischievously.

"I'm not into cherubs. Thank you very much" she replied and crossed her arms over her breasts causing the nipples to get squashed. The dog put his head down next to his mistress's covered thighs and fell asleep. There was no threat apparently and he had sleep to make up.

Cupid relaxed and laid the bow over his pudgy little knees and replied "Well, tonight I have to be in this form. That was one of the conditions I had to agree to."

Her lips tightened and she asked "Conditions? What are you talking about?"

He shrugged and looked through the French windows at the moon that silently guarded the sleeping world "I was called in to carry out a hit on you. A favor for someone in high places."

"High places?! you are not making any sense. I don't know any god, demi-god or ..or-"

"Or anyone who worships us? We haven't been worshipped for a very long human time. You want to know who made me come here to make you fall in love?"

"Of course I want to you to tell me who conjured you up so you could..." she raised her hands in wide circular motions and then pointed at his bow.

"Make you fall in love." he completed her sentence. He watched her with the eyes of a hawk watching an innocent field mouse "It was Karan."

"Karan?! That techie who sits in the next cubicle at my office? That fellow barely talks to me!" she threw off her sheet with vicious kicks and the dog raised his head at the sudden movement and gave her languid look of protest.

"You humans make things more complicated than they need be." Cupid shrugged. "All he needed to do was tell you how he felt but I see now why he couldn't."

"What do you mean?" she thundered and looked around for her robe. Cupid's eyes followed her slim form, the play of her buttock muscles and her elbows that jutted out like dry knobby branches.

She yanked open her chest of drawers and pulled on a large t-shirt instead. Cupid looked at the dog and rolled his eyes in disappointment. Humans and their defense mechanisms always began with ensuring their bodies were armoured with clothes.

"Okay!" she walked over to the little perched god and asked " How did he get you to come over?"

"My mother runs what you people call a flower shop just round the corner."

"Your mother?" her mouth fell open

"She gets tired once in a while and likes to play - agony mother to humans."

She corrected him "Agony aunt."

He nodded and eyed the shirt that read - no fucking me if you won't kiss da frog

"Why do you want people to kiss frogs?" he asked

"What?" she glared at him and shook her head "Oh! its just a stupid t-shirt. Doesn't mean anything. So Karan put a hit on me?"

Cupid left the bedpost and his dimunitive form stood on the bed quite close to the Banjo who opened one eye, looked at the little child he could easily maul and went back to dreaming of pork sausages.

"No, my mother put a hit on you. I came here as a favor to my mother. If it was Karan I would have come as me."

"As you? what do you mean?" She put her hands on her waist and demanded

The cherub gave a feral smile that drowned her vagina with heavy passion. She took a deep pranayam breath in all the way to the pit of her belly and exhaled.

"I would have come as Apollo. This form is made by human perception. You would have liked that?" he asked softly.

The lust on the young face sat strangely and made her feel disoriented but she refused to take her eyes off him.

"Maybe not. Banjo would have killed you in a nanosecond. Your child form saved you from becoming Greek or Roman chops."

"Fair enough. Now what are we to do? I have a task to carry forward." he asked her softly and let his eyes run over her body.

"Do you always follow what your mama tells you to do?" she whispered back and felt her nipples tweak.

The god in his small form let his bow and quiver full of arrows fall on the bed "No. Not always. But it is a hit and I have to follow through."

She licked her lips and whispered back "I am not stopping you but you must hit me in your true form."

He stood still and replied " If I do that the hit will be mine and not Karan's."

"Fair enough." She answered back and felt her knees tremble with anticipation.

"There won't be any going back. There will be repercussions." he warned her

She shrugged and as she lifted her over sized t-shirt he changed form.

The room brightened for a second. She suspended time, stared at Apollo's muscular divinity and muttered "Oh my!"

Liberate Our Students From Sexual Repression

Golden Boy — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 08:49:50 EST

My decision of taking up the Profession of a Spoken English Trainer came with its own pros and cons. On one hand it meant I would have had to settle for less money, on the other hand I found out that it could be a deeply satisfying experience as it meant I could work with young people, helping them learn a language that could open for them not only a door to a whole new world of expression but also free them of the cultural baggage of their mother-tongue.

In my experience as a Spoken English Trainer, I have discovered that two things compel Indians to learn the language: One, the whole new vista of better job prospects that the knowledge of this International Language offers; and secondly, the characteristic of English language as a tool of self-expression which is used across the globe in a growing community of forward-looking people who belong to the realm of progressive thought.

Being able to speak and communicate in English is the key to adopt a whole new culture based on freedom from archaic traditions imposed by religion and society. It is THE medium now for universal brotherhood, the language of the Global Citizen who does not believe in boundaries of narrow nationalistic ideologies.

"Experience in the Classroom"

Even as I struggled to find my own ways and means to teach a foreign language to young people who largely belonged in the age group of 17-24, in an attempt to equip them with a skill for financial betterment, I was soon to discover that I was also dealing with their psychology in some way.

Knowing a particular Indian language as your first language can bring with it its own luggage of past history and cultural ideologies and limitations

Very soon in my career as a Spoken English Trainer I found that my students were basically shy, non-expressive, self-repressive, and carried a baggage of puritanical ideology, all of which was evidently not their own baggage but the heritage of their mother tongue which was the symbol of a particular lifestyle and psychology that their elders belonged to.

People from Hindi and Marathi medium schools are basically unexposed to the ideas of Individuality and Liberty. The Cinema of these languages are hugely influenced by a sexually repressive and narrow Nationalistic mentality which has been the heritage of a country like India, a country that has historically been subject to foreign onslaughts, and was subject to major religious influences (Indic, Islamic and Victorian) which believed in suppression of one's sexual energy.

Even as I struggled to help them learn a foreign language, I noticed that just knowing the nuances of the language was not enough.

The struggle lay not as much in teaching them Grammar but in giving them a voice to express themselves, a voice that had been silenced over generations by forces- religious and imperialistic that wanted the multitudes of this country to remain quiet and adhere to the Ideology of Suppression

Talking openly in the classroom about Sex or anything remotely to do with sexuality, even about being attracted to the opposite gender, could be termed as a major diversion from my duty as a Language Trainer

But what can be more liberating than tapping into one's sexual energy for the purpose of freeing oneself from the mentality of suppression? And what better way to expressing oneself than tapping into a space within which is hugely sexual in nature, in order to free individual expression?

Everyone knows that even the most loyal of Elephants goes wild when in 'heat' i.e. the period of 'heightened sexual desire', when the animal struggles to break away from its shackles.

What lies beneath all our highly held ideologies of Liberty and Freedom as the basic Human Right enshrined in every progressive Constitution today, is this sexual energy. And if it is tamed or suppressed in any way, be it religious or societal is an abuse of the most pervert order.

What I have found in my classrooms is that families go to an extra mile to suppress the sexual energy of a growing child, even to the extent of depriving them of Attention as a means of manipulation of their sexual life-force. Lack of validation for the Individual in them, due to the archaic family roles and duties in India, makes Individual Expression even more repressed.

How can an Individual speak the language of the Free when he/she has to bend down under the weight of his own cultural baggage? How can he even start expressing himself in English, when self-expression itself has been muffled in every home in this country for generations?

It is time to wake up and think!

Fiction: Rockstar

IdeaSmith — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 19:57:21 EST

I've just discovered a kink in my sexual make-up. I have a thing for gender role switching. That's not men dressing in lingerie (eww, gross!). It's a woman who's sexy because she's wearing a guy's long tee-shirt that comes down to mid-thigh. It's the breath-catching oomph of a rolled-up cuff revealing a slender arm. Or ooh...a chunky, sporty man's watch on a delicate female wrist.

How about the reverse? Hrithik Roshan gliding across an airport, pink tee-shirt, coloured sunglasses glory, the cool criminal in Dhoom 2. Oh he kills me, he kills me.

But the true master, the one that transcends gender, who takes sexuality beyond female or male has to be Sting. A voice that feels like a caress...of a man's tongue. When he lifts one foot to step forward and a field of golden corn springs up within him, it makes me think...that's the kind of sex that makes life, it makes you come alive.

How come all the lead guitarists, the famous ones, the images you have of a rockstar are all male? There's obviously something vaguely sexy about a guitar. The curvaceous soundbox, the long phallic arm and what about the strumming? I've played the guitar and I know it doesn't have to be held at crotch-level. And yet, why not? It goes from song-making to love-making.

I'd love to be straddling a guitar with my torso, strumming in tune to the master, letting his melody caress my song.

Ooh....

Oh, it's my phone. That buzz in my pocket feels so good.

Down with flu. Can't make it to practice today.

AHEMMM.

My mother's grim throat-clearing conveys that she is very, very angry about my checking my phone in church.

It's about choir practice.

Her thin-line mouth is a pointed reminder that we are still in church and I'm talking. I drop my gaze and shut up.

Twenty minutes later, I am settled in as comfortably as is possible in the confessional. Why do they make these seats so uncomfortable? Probably to punish the confessors for the sins they confess to.

Yes, my child.

Father, I have sinned.

Tell me about this thing you have done.

It's not something I did. I've been having...wrong thoughts.

Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep brooding silence. Presumably to make me ponder on my wrongdoing. Shame me into confessing all and purging my sins.

The silence is music. The silence is sexy in its own way.

About what, child?

About three notes too low. But low is good. It takes me higher. Go down, down further, go down on me.

I've been thinking of quitting the choir.

The silence is different now. Taut tension knife-edge sharp like the orchestra falling away to leave just that one high-pitched note behind.

I want to be in a rock band instead.

CRRRRRASSSSSHHHHHH.

I take a bow.