Chapter 5 Reading Losing My Virginity Manufar Rashin Budurci by MADHURI BANERJEE

absolutely no cleavage would show."

Damn Aditi and her revealing clothes!

"But I was quite done. When I tried to initiate a discussion on politics it left me thinking that he was a thug. He had got his way by terrorizing people and forcing them to vote for him. When I discussed his family, he mentioned he only had a mother who was also in politics. And when I tried to ask him about his educational credentials, he laughed so heartily that chicken came out of his nose. All his credentials had been purchased."

I quickly ran back home and deleted him from my Facebook. I decided never to go

into politics or date men who were available through social sites again.

DATE NO. 4

"After having failed miserably to find a man for myself in all these years, my parents took it upon themselves to find one for me. I think there must be a code somewhere for all parents to get interfering and annoying once their child hits twenty-eight. From then on, their only topic of conversation with their child, who has been successful, independent and brilliant so far, is when and whether she will get hitched to the bandwagon called marriage. Suddenly all the talk about how they want you to be famous, strong and proud dissipates into when should we call the pundit, dear? so insensitive to people who might not have found their life partner by then. And I have a feeling most marriages in today s society happen because of the pressure parents put on their children to give them grandchildren, rather than for reasons mutual to the couple. But in any case, my mother set me up to meet a man. He s a lovely boy (somehow she could never say the word man ). He has come highly recommended (which meant someone from her kitty party knew of him vaguely) and he s doing very well for himself (meaning working in a boring bank). To keep her happy, I agreed to meet Sanjay."

"She was right. He was lovely and stable and knew my aunt really well. He, however, turned out to be my distant cousin! My vague mother, in her overexcited state had not checked how we knew him. It turned out that he was my second cousin s cousin. Okay, so not completely related, but it still freaked me out. At first sight he was nothing much to look at slightly large, tall, fair, simple. But then when we started talking, I was totally lost in him. He could draw cartoons on paper napkins and he did my portrait on a piece of paper. He understood art better than I could have, and he pointed out that I had made an error about van Gogh, which I was sure I hadn t. But he whipped out his Blackberry, Googled it and, lo and behold, he was right. Impressive!"

"But instead of embarrassing me for my mistake, he apologized and secretly told the bearer to buy me flowers from the gift shop of the hotel and presented it to me. He also sang Sinatra and didn t like Bollywood movies. His voice was deep and when he sang, I could imagine myself in a concert hall applauding him. We were just so alike. And the best part was he was born the same day as I was."

" Shut up! I exclaimed, after he told me."

I can t believe you were born on 1 April! he laughed. We ll have to share our birthdays together then.

"I was transfixed. I had found the perfect man! I was even willing to let go of the fact that we were distantly related, I d enjoyed his company so much! He had rejuvenated my brain cells. He didn t have body odour or smell like the Garden of Eden. What more could I ask for? But there was a problem. And I knew it as soon as we went from chatting like friends to being romantic."

" You know, when I saw you at Nitya s wedding, you looked absolutely ravishing, he"

"said. I smiled and he continued, I knew then that you were the one for me. "

The one? I laughed. We didn t even know each other then!

" But Kaveri, haven t you felt sometimes it takes only one meeting to know a person for a lifetime, and sometimes it takes a lifetime to know a person? I nodded vaguely. I d never had that connection with anyone but I didn t want to seem like a novice in front of this worldly wise man."

I feel as if I know you already. Let me take you on a real date. A real date? Like where? I asked. I thought we were on a date.

" Well, I would whisk you away to Paris, he said excitedly. I raised an eyebrow. I knew he would say Paris since we had been discussing how it was such a beautiful city some time back. Then from there we would go on a wine tasting trail across France. Bordeaux, Chablis, blah blah & We would go in the Eurorail, staying as long as we want in the area of the wine we liked. We would lodge in small bed-and-breakfasts, waking up next to each other, taking showers together and I would get you tea to remove the hangover we would have from too much wine and sex the previous night. I sat transfixed and listened as he continued with great enthusiasm."

" Oh yes. Our sex would be wonderful. It would be a mutual bonding of our bodies, pleasuring each other at regular intervals till we need to complete the act. We would wake each other in the middle of the night and sneak out to the lawn and make mad, passionate love, hoping no one saw us, but secretly relishing the fact that we were being dangerous, risqu�, different! We would sit by the river and see the beautiful French countryside and have cups of espresso and pastries. Our lives would be so perfect! We would have wine, see works of art and make love till we were exhausted, and then have some more. "

"He looked at me now and said, That s what I would do with you. Is that more than one date? I m sorry! "

"I looked at him and smiled. That would have been so perfect and I told him that. It would have been a lovely life, not to mention an awesome date. There was only problem. I wasn t attracted to him. And really, wasn t that just too mushy for the first date? I mean, get a grip. You are, after all, a man!"

"We must have spent several hours together and yet I couldn t feel the spark . I only started feeling icky from all that sweetness. I didn t know love at all but I knew one thing: there needed to be some sort of chemistry, some sort of balance. And even if we were completely alike, I couldn t feel it. It was uncanny."

"I could see my life flash in front of my eyes. If we got married, we would do the same things together. We would complete each other s sentences and we would never differ on vacations, children, art. We would be One in the truest sense of the word. And after a while, we would get bored. We would need the difference. We would long for the new,"

"the exciting, and the passion."

So I decided that we could be friends. And I left him with tears in his eyes and a broken dream of a forever with me. I also left him with a fake number in case he got psycho and started sending me more flowers to woo me back. I decided never to let my

parents interfere with my love life again.

Seven

"After going on a few dates I realized that even though I had opened myself up to the Universe, I hadn t opened up to men. The men, to me, were useless. They didn t contribute anything to me to allow myself to sleep with them, much less be my Great Love. After all, I was giving them a really precious part of myself. My heart. That had to be worth something, and for me, the memory of the first time had to be special. So if no one fit the bill after two months of looking around, I didn t think they ever would. And this was precisely what I was trying to explain to Aditi at Stop n Shop while returning gifts."

"Aditi got gifts from her rich boyfriends that she seldom liked. So she would always go back to the store and plead with the manager to exchange the gifts she didn t want to keep. So far, we had gone return-gift-shopping rather than actually shopping for something we wanted."

" Please, sir, I can t stand this gold chain. It s just bad luck for me. Even more, after the man broke up with me. Slow tears started trickling down as Aditi continued to plead, I need to move on and buy myself something nice in exchange for this. "

" Fine. Just pick up anything of the same value, said the large, dark, bushy uni-browed, old storekeeper looking at it and then referring to the computer in front of him, it s for four thousand rupees. "

" Four grand? Aditi exclaimed, her tears suddenly drying up. Only? she said with disbelief. What a cheapskate dude! "

"I looked away and walked to the sunglasses section. She soon followed me there with her refund coupon muttering to herself, The men of today are passing off cheap items to woo women. If only I d known better, I would have dumped him a week earlier. "

" Oh come on! I said exasperated. Four grand is not cheap! Oh ya? For what I gave him, it should have been a car! "

" Well at least you re getting some. The only contact I ve had with any man has been with my dentist, I grumbled."

"And since I didn t want to hear the details of her sex life, I turned to the lady at the counter with a pair of sunglasses in my hand and asked, How much are these? "

" Rs 1,500, she replied."

"Aditi in a grand gesture told her, We ll take them, then looked at me and said, On me! I smiled and thanked her while she continued saying, Don t worry about it. If men are good for money and sex, at least we should use it for our happiness. Speaking of"

"which, have you got any lately? Money or sex? and she laughed at her own joke."

" No, I said, walking up the stairs to the women s clothing section. I think all men are useless. They don t stimulate me intellectually at all. "

"She stopped mid track. Honey! she drawled, they re not supposed to stimulate your brain. They re supposed to stimulate your clit! "

" Shhhhhh & There are kids in here, I said, looking around and blushing."

"Seriously, sometimes hanging out with Aditi was more an embarrassing experience than a pleasant one. But then she would do these nice things like buy me sunglasses without a thought and one couldn t help but love her. She went hunting for a decent pair of jeans and I looked through the racks, following her."

"I started off on a theory that had been brewing for the past few months in my mind, Men are a complete waste of time. Look at what you are doing. First you have to shop for new clothes, new shoes and new accessories to impress a guy. Then you have to play dumb to get down to his level, then you wait for him to call, then you have a fight, which leads to a heartbreak, and then you start the process all over again. What s the use, dude? I exclaimed in one breath."

"Aditi took five pairs of designer jeans and a few tops and walked into the dressing room. The lady didn t say anything to her, so I did, You know you re only allowed three pieces of clothing in there, right? "

" Ya, she said. But I ve come here so many times that the dressing room lady knows me by now and figures it s easier if I take all of them in at one go rather than be here for hours chewing her head. "

Point! So I kept quiet.

She came out parading a few jeans and decided to pick one. Half her budget was blown on that.

Isn t it better to keep a gold necklace for later when you really need the money than blow it on a pair of jeans that you don t need now? I asked prudently.

She looked at me as if I was a moron.

" Later, I ll be dead. Right now, she paused for dramatic effect, I need to look good for the men who will buy me stuff for later anyway. "

"One could never beat Aditi s logic, and I had to admit she did look good. Her long, chestnut hair, carefully retouched in the L Oreal salon every two months and a lean body that was worked out at the gym at least thrice a week made her look like a model in her size 28 jeans. Instead of being an assistant director in Bollywood, she should have been a heroine."

But today her logic about men was all warped for me.

" Men, I started, need to intellectually stimulate me for me to go anywhere with them"

"& No! I don t like that colour. It s hideous! I said in between, referring to a pink"

paisley top she had chosen. The men I ve met are mentally vapid and physically challenged. Aditi and I had the kind of conversation most outsiders wouldn t get. We

could have one main topic and several side stories and never lose track of any of them. We multi-tasked with our discussions!

"She poked her head out of the dressing room and asked startled, You mean they have a small willy? "

" Shhhhh & I said, for the second time that day. Then I looked around and added, No, I mean they re all average looking and short anyway. "

"Aditi liked shocking people. That was her thing. She spoke loudly and laughed even louder so people would notice her and be scandalized. I had become so used to her that I knew when she would take off on something. But it still made me cringe sometimes when she couldn t act normal, always wanting attention from everyone wherever we went. But I kept quiet. Aditi was a good friend and I really didn t need to annoy her to prove a point."

"She came out of the dressing room, carrying the clothes she wanted to buy on her arm. She signalled to me to go towards the cashier with her while she commented, Look at the statistics. 60 per cent of our male population is below the poverty line and ugly. 10 per cent is rich and ugly. 10 per cent is old and ugly. 10 per cent is adolescents and ugly. That just leaves 10 per cent who are good looking. Now these men might be around our age, they might be married and they might even be too full of themselves to notice you. But to find someone who is intellectually stimulating and good looking, well the statistics are completely against you! "

"I couldn t believe she had thought so long and hard about that answer. Or maybe she was just bullshitting me. But I began to wonder. If you went by that logic, every single woman had compromised in her relationship. And that no woman was completely happy."

"So I replied to Aditi, We never compromise when we take up a job. We don t compromise when we buy new jeans. So why should we compromise on relationships that are supposed to be the most important aspect of our lives? When I go to buy something and it doesn t fit I don t say, at least the colour is right, or if we have to buy a house, we don t give a crore and say at least it s in a nice locality even if it is too small. We don t take anything in our lives we re not completely satisfied and happy with. So why do we take crap from men? Or for that matter, crappy men? Why are we saying at least he is funny, or at least he is rich? Why do women compromise on the biggest thing of all? The men! "

"Aditi didn t reply. Instead, she changed the topic, which was so typical of her. She could never be wrong. And when she didn t have an answer or was uncomfortable with a question, she would change the topic completely and pretend as if the earlier conversation was over with her last statement. It was a very ostrich way of living life, but she had mastered it."

Now we need to pick out some new clothes for you. With your new haircut your old

clothes are not making you look glam enough. Aditi went on to pick some brightly

"coloured, shiny shirts and some short skirts."

" I m never going to wear these short, overly revealing things! I exclaimed in exasperation since I

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