Louuuuv ke rules

"So what's the most important thing you've learnt from any previous relationship?", asked a friend casually. "Ummm, hmmm, well...I think..., I struggled to reply. "Oh come on dude, get on with it, you're not playing chess with Kasparov for God's sake", was the impatient reply. "Opposites attract....sure they do so long as we talk about physics, that's probably the most important thing I leanrt", was my reply. Do men really learn anything from previous relationships, I thought to myself. Well this is just what I learnt, so not any rules as such, but just my observations. If I indeed knew any rules, I would probably be on Femina's list ot most eligible bachelors! Ahh such dreams.

Dont forget the dates....EVER

In a relationship where love, emotions, feelings, willingness to do more for the other person is supposed to be of prime importance, I've never quite understood why chronology plays such an important role. I mean if you are so interested in chronology, find a historian na, that's what he is good at. That's probably the only thing he is good at :) And it's not just chronology, but materialism also plays just as much of an important role, in the form of gifts. Women for some reason like to celebrate the most inane and ridiculous events. Fine, I'm happy if you are, but expecting me to remember it and further more buy EXPENSIVe gifts (yes expensive is important here) is stretching the limits beyond infinity.

What's more, it's not just the birthdays and anniversary's that are important, but other dates where you apparently did some really romantic things are equally important. It doesn't stop at you and her, you have to remember the important events that occured in the life of everyone who she is close to. This would mean her family and circle of friends. Now if she has one best friend it's one thing. Well, as it would be most women tend to change their best friends faster than men change their socks! One solution to this problem is spending some hard earned $$$$ on buying a nice piece of equipment like a blackberry (what a nice excuse to buy one), and dedicating lots of space for this cause.

Can you blame me if my ex's birthday happens to be April1st? Very innocently I called her to wish her "Happy April Fool's day", only to recieve a 45 min lecture about how insensitive I was and how could I forget such an important day. Needless to say, ever since there hasn't been a year gone by where April 1st hasn't reminded me of that unpleasant conversation.

Be picky about your fights

Whatever happens, we always know it's always the guy's fault. Make peace with that fact and life suddenly becomes a very easy proposition. Now you are a man, your voice is louder and by virtue of being male, you are the bad person irrespective of who started it. You shout louder and so you are insensitive and insulting her.

If she's late, think of it as a 'cute' habit. Advice: Always carry a book with you, or your ipod, especially if you are a time-freak like me who likes to reach everywhere 15 mins before the scheduled time of meeting anyways. Remind yourself why you with her. If you cant think of any good reasons, it's probably time to move on anyways! Remember pick your fights.

Flowers, Flowers, Flowers!

For reasons best known to them, a life form that is cut to meet it's certain death and will most definitely wither away in a few days is very important to all women. There MUST be flowers in a relationship. There are no two ways about this guys. So accept this, you are probably going to spend more on flowers than on petrol/diesel. Make peace with this ASAP.

If you are buying her a gift, it has to be accompanied by the flowers. Never mind the fact that you probably spent a few hundred bucks on getting that bouquet. Well here's the thing that's a saving grace, flowers always work! They almost always do the trick. So if you've screwed up big time, before you go and apologize, make sure you have a huge bouquet of flowers with you. And for women any gift is incomplete without a flower. You will probably spend a few thousand $$$$ on buying her a nice car, but unless there are flowers accompanying it, the look on her face will suggest that there is something missing!

The only time flowers are irrelevant is while buying her diamonds. If there are rocks coming her way, then flowers be damned. Jewellery carries that special place in women’s hearts which surmounts any damn arrangement of flowers you can get her. Of course, since it is much cheaper to do flowers instead of jewellery, we’ll stick to the bouquets :)

Racism

Did Harbhajan Singh call Andrew Symonds a monkey or no??? The billion $$$ question may never be answered. We will never know whether he actually called him a 'monkey' or as he said said ' tere maa ki' which can well be (mis)heard as monkey, especially by other cultures that are not well versed with hindi words. That is not the point here though...the point is for far too long we have pretended that we are not racists...and sorry to say but I have to disagree. I think most Indians dont understand what race means and what racism is. We are far too enamoured by 'white' colour and so often unrealizingly we pass comments about people of other races which can be interpreted as being racist.

We make a big noise when our players get pulled up for things they said or did not say. What about telling our players to get their act straight when they are at fault. After the Sydney test marred with so much controversy, majority of the Australian public were of the opinion that the home team was at fault, that they did not play the game in the true spirit and that they had to take at least partial responsibility for the events that occured there. How many Indian people would have done the same had the Indian team done something similar?

It is pretty clear that there are a few characters in this Indian team that Symonds does not like. Sreesanth and harbhajan probably head that list. And Symonds I think was partly at fault for provoking Harbhajan and abusing him when all that Bhajji did was pat Symonds' team-mate on his back for bowling a good ball. Symonds' claim that a test match is not the place to be friends with opponents is clearly his own view and hopefully not all test cricketers believe that. But what followed is now history...I still maintain that Bhajji was wrong in getting Symmo's mother involved in their argument! I mean the poor lady was probably sitting home watching the game and wondering what did she do to get involved in this!

We have to admit, we are racists...it's a fact and the sooner we get rid of this the better it is. Ask any African students moving around the city and they will vouch for this fact. The problem lies in our thinking. We are so fascinated by the colour white that anything other than that becomes a joke for us. "Kallu/Kala/Bandar" may just be words to us but to other cultures they mean a lot more. These are serious racist remarks. The argument that we all originated from monkeys is really stupid. I mean fine we did, but seriously when you are calling someone a monkey it is said b'coz you want that person to feel bad. Clearly you are not thinking about human evolution when you are making a statement like that! Sure in a court of law that cant be proven but then how many guilty parties actually get punished in a court of law?

I will be the first one to say I had been one of the many people in India who was racist. Very often without thinking I had called many Sri Lankan cricketers "Ravan" or "Nariyal Pani wala"...and those comments were not made just for no reason. They were made in a derogatory manner. But since I have thankfully grown up and matured and hopefully wont pass any such comments in the future!

It's time to wake up and accept we are wrong....it's okay to be wrong, so long as you know how to correct those mistakes. Rarely is there a mistake that cannot be corrected. But for it to be corrected you first have to realize it's a mistake!