Drive anyone?

Greetings!

Darlings, did you know that your driving style can reveal secrets about your sex life? For instance:

Sitting hunched over, hands clenched over the steering, fumbling at the gear stick?

You are nervous, unsure about yourself and tend to be a submissive partner.

Sitting at ease, but with hands clenched on the steering, fisting the gear stick changing gears?

You like it vigorous and violent.

Holding the steering wheel in the traditional 10’o’ clock or 2 o’clock using only your palm or tips of fingers to use the gearstick?

You are confident, know what you like, and are good at it, but definitely a difficult person to get physical with. You really don’t like anyone coming too close.

Are you are a fast driver, holding the top or bottom of the wheel, and really stylish with the gear stick?

Wow, you sure like calisthenics in bed and love flamboyant partners.

Incidentally, in India we have few gearless cars, which makes driving, particularly in our erratic traffic, quite a challenging experience. Skilful Indian drivers, male and female, therefore invariably tend to be intrepid, confident, and daring. (You do know what I'm talking about?)

Now darlings, if you don't believe me watch your partner while he/she drives and tell me if I’m wrong.

And if you want help in making a decision on ' to do or not to do' just go for a long drive.

You have fun.

Looking at the "other woman"

Greetings!

This post is about a friend I've known for years. She is, ostensibly at least, happily married with two grown-up children. Since 1995 she has been in a relationship with a man who is not her husband. When she first met him, he was married with young children and her younger child had just been born.

Today, even after 14 years, their spouses have not discovered their relationship and are happy in their respective marriages.

What I find most astonishing is not that their

illicit love has lasted, but the fact that both she and her lover could keep their families happy for so many years.

When I had asked her this question some years ago, she had said, "When we fell in love and got into a relationship we decided that we would not break up our homes. So we meet when we can and when we meet it is wonderful, but always, we put our families first. Besides," she added frankly, "because we both feel guilty we put in a lot of extra effort into our marriages, and also perhaps, because we are anxious they don't find us out."

"But how can you make love with your husband when you love someone else? "I asked

her. "Doesn't it involve a lot of lying?" For me, this seems to be the impossible part.

"Yes, " she said simply. " I have to steel myself to sleep with my husband. But I would put up with worse to keep the happiness I have with my love."

I met her yesterday, after a long time and over coffee and pakoras, asked her if she has ever regretted it.

She smiled. "Sometimes, I do feel you know, as if my life has been a lie. I don't think of the man I live with as my husband, and the man whom I think of as my husband is someone else's. But I don't regret even a minute. How can you expect me to regret that I have so much love and that it has lasted so many years?"

"What is it about your love that is so special?" I asked her a little jealously. (Read that "very jealously")

"That we talk. I don't have that with my husband. We spend hours talking about everything and anything. You know, Rose, it's not about sex. It's just that we are so comfortable with each other."

I believe her, but wouldn't she have been happier married to her lover?

"I don't think so," she said thoughtfully. "I think, you know, marriage might have killed the magic. Besides, who knows if our love could have survived the guilt of breaking up two families?"

Now who am I to argue with an expert?

Almost everyone who knows them is aware of the affair, but the relationship has in true Indian tradition been kept from the spouses of both parties. Many of the women in our circle avoid her. She knows it and hardly socialises. She tells me her world for so many years has only been herself and him. She does not care what anyone thinks of her. Walking the tightrope between keeping a happy home and loving her "other man" keeps her more than occupied.

To me, she was and will remain a friend. And yes, definitely a good woman. Loving someone she is not married to, cannot make her otherwise. She works hard, has brought up her children well, has managed to keep a husband happy and is even religious. (She says she agonises when the pastor talks of adultery but even her fear of hell is not enough to keep her from meeting him.)

She has a word of advice though, for us unfortunates. "Don't fall in love with a married man. Even when you know he loves you to bits, there is just too much heartache. And if you do happen to fall in love, try to remain just friends."

That's mean darling! What's sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander?

Of chaddis, Hugs and so on...

Greetings!

The Week That Was-

There was the “pink chaddi” campaign, there was the free hugs campaign and then there was Dev D.

If the pink panty offerings were all about Indian women asserting their right to pub; the free hug campaign on V-day, was about their right to love.

And what was Dev D about? Frankly, their right to f***.

Men out there are you ready for the new urban Indian woman? One who is not ashamed to flaunt her sexuality? It’s going to take some getting used to.

Many gentlemen came out in support of all of the above. Sanjukta Basu from Bangalore a fellow blogger and tweeter told of one gentleman who stood on M.G. Road with a placard saying he promised his daughter, that she should have the freedom to choose her way of life. But there are also many 'gentlemen' who think protesting by sending panties and offering free hugs to men, is in poor taste and something ‘not done’ by good Indian women.

And there are those who think Dev D is obscene. (After all would any Indian woman take her mattress out to the fields and invite her lover to sleep with her? And would any Indian man show the finger to his woman? All this is not in our culture, no?)

I have a friend, Arun. He’s gone through a number of girlfriends. When asked why he didn’t settle down and marry one of them, he replied that it wasn’t he who didn’t want to marry; it was the women who didn’t want to get married.

“All they want,” he wails, “is to have fun.” Just when I’m beginning to feel sorry for him, he goes on to ask me out and when I refuse, he, (what else?), questions my sexual preferences.

You go for the jugular, girls!