Date a Girl Who Likes Biryani

(Because I was fed up of the exhortations to date girls who read, write, travel, does handstands while riding a horse, etc.)

Date a girl who likes Biryani. Date a girl who doesn’t need to look at the menu to know what she wants. She says no to dessert every day because she has no space for it after thulping a full Biryani. Date a girl who knows her Hyderabadi from her Malabar Biryani, can distinguish between the scents of Awadhi Biryani and Chettinadu Biryani in her sleep.

Find a girl who likes Biryani. You’ll know she does because she sniffs the air in anticipation when the waiter is bringing her order. She’s the one who has chicken bones stacked neatly on the side of her plate and an empty bowl of raita beside her in restaurants (Unless she’s not finished, in which case she’s the one who’s eating Biryani.) You see the weird chick who’s peering into your plate when you’re gorging on Biryani like there’s no tomorrow? That’s the Biryani lover.

She’s the girl you run into at Shanmukha Biryanis and then again at Biryani zone. If you take a peep into her plate, she will not have touched the gravy which comes with the Biryani. That’s the mark of a true Biryani lover – the Biryani is to be had unsullied except for the gentle dulling of the spices by the raita. Sit down. She might give you a glare as the girls who eat Biryani do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she liked her Biryani. Ask her if she thought the rice could have imbibed the masala better.

Buy her another plate of Biryani.

Let her know what you really think of Vegetable Biriyani. See if she thinks only Mutton Biryani deserves to be called Biryani.  Understand that if she says she understood what exactly the ‘Dum’ in ‘Dum Biryani’ stands for or if she’s just saying that to appear knowledgable.  Ask her if she knows Kalyani and pray she doesn’t say ‘Who?”

It’s easy to date a girl who likes Biryani. She understands there are highs and lows in a relationship and it might not always be rosy. Just like how the masala is not even throughout and the flavor might vary from part to part. Get her unexpected gifts which surprise her like the odd raisin and cashew in a Biryani. You can stop doing that after the first few weeks, because the raisins usually get over pretty fast. Sprinkle attention on her like the golden deep-fried onions sitting pretty on top of the Biryani. She’ll enjoy the attention but understand that it is really not integral to the Biryani relationship.

Make her Biryani for her birthday. Call up your mom in advance and ask her how many minutes to let it simmer on the stove.

On the day she timidly extends a casserole to you, with a blush in her cheeks, you’ll know that you have successfully captured her heart. Eat the whole of what she has given you, even if it tastes like horsecrap. Do not tell her how badly it sucks, instead tell her how it is the best biryani you have ever had. Ensure she doesn’t have even a morsel to taste. Because then she will learn the truth. She’s the girl who likes Biryani.

You will propose in Paradise Hyderabad. Or at Top Form Calicut. Or at home over a bowl of steaming goodness of rice and meat and spices. In a perfect blend. Like you and the girl who likes Biryani. Imagine her doe-eyed smile of wonder when she unearths the ring from under the juicy leg piece of chicken.

You will have a grand wedding. Where you’ll serve all the guests with the Biryani of their choice. After everyone is gone, you’ll be left alone with the girl who likes Biryani. You’ll smile happily and extend a plate of Chicken Biryani to her. And vow to share Biryani with her forever, in sickness and in health. Except if you get jaundice, in which you’ll do better to stay away from Biryani.

Grow old with the girl who likes Biryani. As old as having Biryani three times a day will allow you to. Have kids and watch her teach them to scoop Biryani onto their plate without spilling using the spoon-fork double hold. Stay in on hot summer days and order in family packs of Biryani. Cuddle around the heat of Biryani cauldron on cold winter nights. In spring, take her on walks to shed those extra pounds.

Date a girl who likes Biryani because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the tastiest life imaginable.  If you can only give her the monotony of Roti-daal, aaloo paratha, idly sambhar, you are better off alone. If you want a deeply fulfilling life with the right mixture of joy and spices little sorrows, date a girl who likes Biryani.

Or better yet, date a girl who likes Porotta-Beef Fry.

Death of a Revolutionary

Story I wrote for the Saarang Writing Awards 2011 – Facebook Flash Fiction Competition. The story had to fit in 10 lines and the prompt was, ‘When you have nothing left to burn, you have to set fire to yourself‘.

The revolution had failed. He would never live to see the dawn when his people would walk the streets fearlessly, their heads held high with no muzzles to bow down to. What pained him was that the people didn’t seem to want to. More than the guns of the army or the fear of the tyrant, it was the apathy of the people which had hurt the struggle the most.

At first, he had hoped that the truth would be enough to jolt the people out of their beds. Then, he was sure that the blood of their brothers would push them over the edge. When all else had failed, he had even reluctantly approved a campaign based on lies, magnifying the regime’s atrocities tenfold.

But here they were, the last remnants of the uprising hemmed in by the army on all sides and it was time for the last gamble, the one which he had hoped he would never have to make. He stepped out of his tent to meet his bodyguards dressed in the unfamiliar olive-green of the official forces and the photographer who would beam the graphic pictures of cold-blooded murder of a defenseless prisoner to the outside world. He took a deep breath, searched his mind for appropriately profound last words and said, “Alright, be quick with it.”

Where have all the sperms gone?

A question to which most people reading this will answer ‘Down the drain’, I suppose. But no, it’s not the masturbatory habits of the Indian male that elicits this lament from me, but an increasing number of alarming news articles which gives one the impression that the human sperm is an endangered species, placed somewhere between the Bengal Tiger and the Polar bear in the Red list.

The latest in this series of events happened this morning. Seated lavishly in the BMTC Volvo, the Bengaluru software engineer’s chariot of choice, I took a peek at the ToI the gent who sat ahead of me was skimming through. Regular ToI fare of skimpily clad actresses cribbing about the US Foreign policy and a random astrologer predicting Baby B’s future was snorted at, before my attention was arrested by a heading on the Science page (Yes, ToI has one).

‘Browsing the net on a laptop with wifi will kill sperms’.

ToI headlines being ToI headlines, the first thought you have is that the possibility of a sperm owning a laptop, let alone have a wifi connection is rather negligible. Then, the realisation kicked in. What the fuck. You might as well tell me breathing kills sperms. I mean, I spend more time ‘browsing the net on a laptop with wifi’ more than anything else in my life. Before I could read further, the bus pulled up at Ecospace, and I had to get down, with a disturbing piece of half-baked information. Which is arguably what you get even if you read the ToI in full, but still.

Coming back to the topic, there is no doubt that we are witnessing an alarming trend with respect to sperms. Anything and everything is supposed to make you infertile. Sperms can’t be blamed if they become fucking paranoid and think everybody’s out to get them. Because everybody is.

The first time I noticed this was when I was in school and all of a sudden, there was an alarming lack of eggs in my diet. My mother, who used to take the NECC ad where the scrawny kid breaks Sachin Tendulkar’s- REALLY! – hand very seriously and fed me bulls eye for breakfast, Omelette for lunch and Egg roast for dinner, seemed strangely against eggs all of a sudden. My habit of reading anything and everything strewn around the house, including strict no-nos for gentlemen such as Vanitha and Manorama weekly, was what helped me find out the truth eventually. I read with much amusement and some indignation, a passionate article on the evils of hormone-infested chicken which flooded the market today and laid the hormone-infested eggs which would make our children childless. I shrugged and turned the pages to Dr.Narayana Reddy’s column where he wrote about the curious cases he had come across in his illustrious career. They were, more often than not, well illustrated.

A few years later, I was lounging around in a family wedding, trying to simultaneously avoid annoying uncles who would ask me how my CAT plans were coming along and even more annoying aunties who would ask me to guess their names before soliciting free career advise for Monu and Sonu who would be in 4th and 6th standards, respectively. As always happens, I was discovered lurking before too long and was dragged into a well fed group of aunties who had just finished a hearty lunch and were looking for something juicy to chew on. Cue me.

The usual discussion on how engineering was of no use these days ensued and I stood squirming in the middle, trying to eye some of the more desirable female contingent milling around. In my impatience to get away, I palmed my phone and started fiddling with it. Suddenly, curve ball.

“Mone, Where do you keep your phone?”

“Uh? In my pocket.”

“Which pocket?”

Somehow, I had a hunch of what was coming.

“Shirt pocket.”

”Atha nallath. Don’t use your pant’s pocket, okay?”

Huge laughter ensues. I manage a weak smile and slink away as a new victim is ushered in. He is older and closer to marriage, so his ordeal would be longer and more terrible to behold.

Again, a year or two later, during my brief dabble with cigarettes, I’ve been told, “Never mind your lungs, kuttikalundavilla ketta?”. Open-mouthed smile Least of my concerns by the time really.

So, there you have it – mobile phones, laptops, chicken, eggs, cigarettes, alcohol – everything – only has one agenda. Killing sperms. If half of what you hear is true, then half of my generation will not father kids. The next generation might as well not bother to try at all.

Of course, there is a bright side to all of this. Once you are sure every last little bugger has been killed, you can bonk away to kingdom come without any fear of accidents whatsoever.
So there. We still win.

The Return

A few weeks ago, in an unguarded moment, I  told M that I had the writer’s block. From the array of sarcastic replies you would expect from his Size-40ness, ranging from the moderately cynical to the viciously caustic, I was lucky to escape with a mild “You are just lazy”. On another day, I might have been made to regret my audacity in terming myself a ‘writer’ on the basis of a few thousand words here.

Anyway, I had come to pretty much the same conclusion. In my opinion, there is no such thing as a writer’s block, really. You either write or you do not. There might be moments when you feel that the quality of your output is not what it ought to be or can be. But that’s not an excuse, at least for a blogger for whom a rigorous evaluation of his work is the least of concerns. Such moments might stretch to a few hours, or a few days perhaps. An exile from writing for months or years is entirely due to lack of effort from the writer, surely.

The other day, M and R compared my output to that of Kubrick’s. I was quick to wave away the complement, as it appeared. Unfortunately I was a bit too quick, blushing before M clarified that he was only referring to the frequency and in no way, to the quality. Another awkward moment, saved by a quick swig of coffee.

M is reasonably prolific as a blogger and R is even more so, a fact that I found out only recently, since he hardly ever promotes what he writes, anywhere. You could think he writes only for his own eyes. You could very well be right, knowing R.Anyway, both of them couldn’t understand what prevents me from writing more often.

What really eats into my blogging is my habit of rererewriting. I have to go over each sentence again and again to sound out the best way to say it, which hardly ever ends satisfactorily. Ultimately, I settle for a compromise and move on, by which time, the window and more importantly the desire to write would have evaporated. This is a blatant contradiction to Heinlein’s rules for writing, as it contradicts the first and most important 3 rules.

  • You must write.
  • You must finish what you start.
  • You must refrain from rewriting except to editorial order.

I have to push myself to trust my instincts and just be done with it(which sounds kind of wrong) , but which is what I am trying to do now.

When returning from exiles, self-imposed or otherwise, you ought to do it with a bang. Like N S Madhavan did with Higuita. After staring at a blank screen for hours, willing it to produce my own outrageous sporting figure with an interesting real world parallel, I decide to do away with the bang. For the moment, I will just slink in silently. Casting around for a topic to write on, I consider and reject from a variety of topics – Bangalore(too wide),Endhiran(too torturous),Roy Hodgson(too early),M’s secrets(too dangerous), Quizzing(cannot come close to this), my hair(too awesome) and so on.

After some more days of this, I realized I didn’t need a topic. I could just do this.