The Truth about A.S. HOLES

This is a message, no, a plea to all my soul sisters to beware of the A$$ holes (for the sake of brevity lets refer to them as AHs). Sorry, before I launch into my tirade cum lecture cum advice lemme just clarify what an AH is and what does he do.

So AHs are those heart breakers.... those evil scheming waste of human beings who will play with you emotionally and then toss you aside when they are done. Emotionally stunted, commitment phobic or plain bloody tharkees they are all different genres of the same theme.

Now you know what I am talking about don't you? Yes I thought so.

These AHs are very smart and their game is good. But ladies we can beat them. We can make them fall flat on their face and we can protect our hearts and minds from getting royally screwed.

In my "vast and varied experience" (oh I am going to copyleft this phrase I love it so much) the most classic modus operandi of an AH is the veneer of charm mixed with fake vulnerability. The beauty of this trick is its simplicity.

So, step one - AH thinks "hmmmm here is a nice innocent girl I can play with".

Step 2 - full charm cavalry assault. He makes the girl feel like she is the sexiest woman he has ever met. So vain girls that we are, we start feeling attracted to the AH who is evidently so.... so.... enamored by us. The key here is to note that you are not really attracted to the guy but you are attracted by the fact that he appreciates you. sooooo.... STOP BEING A SUCKER FOR APPRECIATION!!! GET OVER IT ALREADY!

Step 3 - ok so now you are hooked ...enough to give some amount of bhav to the AH. and now .... and now ladies...... this is where you are going to get rooked. The card of vulnerability ...tsk tsk...... the undoing of many a smart sisters!!

The AH will spin a story about how he is emotionally screwed up by either a. the relationship between his parents or b. his relationship with his father c. his relationship with his ex who was the love of his life or d. a combination of the above. He will say he cannot commit or that "I cant give you what you want because I is in pain....I is messed up".

So you will, like a prize idiot say, "no no.....I will set it right for you. I will ease your pain and I will make you whole again.... yada yada yada".

Then he will say "NO!! you have to leave me ....its not your fault...its mine....i am the one to be blamed".

And fooled by this display of magnanimity you will probably stick around the AH. You will feel sorry for him, you will care for him and you will give him all you have because he is in pain and he is messed up and he is soooo generous telling you to go away!!!!

You think you can be the one to fix him ........you believe that this lovely charming guy can be yours for the taking if you can patiently give him some loving concern. ha... ha ha ha!

Ladies.... stooopidest effing mistake ever! They will tell you in human psychology 101 that we run after whatever we are denied - simple application of the "when it kicks, you lick" formula. So please do not fall for this claptrap!

Next time you hear any of these phrases from an otherwise charming guy, please for heavens sake, do believe that the guy is messed up and beat a hasty retreat. GET THE HELL OUT!

If you don't...... you are doomed. You will keep wondering what the hell you are doing wrong. In a worst case scenario, you will start questioning your own lovability and awesomeness. And finally when the AH has had enough of your emotional drama he will cut you out....quickly and efficiently. All you will be left with is questions - why? why not? why like this?

So you ask me, how do I know about all this? Now did I manage to get such an insight into the AH game?

Its quite simple really, so simple that it is beautiful......once upon a time, I was an AH myself.

Bin tere sanam dil nazar jaan jigar

I love cheesy bollywood music. Especially from the 1990s when the heroines wore plain yellow sarees or cake coloured dresses with puffy sleeves. Remember Madhuri in Dekha hai pehli baar sajan ki aakho mein pyaar....dhan ta na na dhan ta na na from the movie Saajan? or innocent Bhagyashree in Dil deewana bin sajna ke maane naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa from Meine Pyar Kiya. I hate Salman for ruining it for me by agreeing to make Meine Pyar Kyun Kiya with the lunatic brother of his....whatshisname......uff cant remember!
There is no Dum in todays music. Kahan tujhe dekha toh yeh hana sanam aur kahan aye kya bolti tu?! There is no comparison I tell you. Lyrics should be such that they pierce right through your heart and the actor's pain should become your pain. Its all about dard in pyaar. Wah wah!
Bhai I toh love my hindi music from the 1990s. Its kinda sad that I have lost my tapes and my compilations. Shit shit shit! Ok NOT.... I know you are a closet Bollywood junkie so stop cringing. You know the songs of Khel, Sadak and Baagi and what not and you know the mukhdas and antaras of some nasty ones.
Toh bata ... whats your favourite? Which songs brought tears your eyes when you were pining for your crush at age 17? Now now....dont shake your head and shy away.
Bhai I am toh ready to list my favourites. Lets do it the Superhit Muqabla way ... from 10 to 1. Yaar my favourite Superhit Muqabla host was Baba "Danda pakad ke khada hua hai Manjula" Sehgal.
Number 10 - Ashiqui .... saso ki jaroorat hai jaise
Number 9 - Dil ....mujhe need na aiye....mujhe chain na aiye... najha ne kahan dil kho gaya
Number 8 - Pattar Ke Phool....... kabhi tu chaliya lagta hai...remember?
Number 7 - Deewana ...... sochenge tumhe pyaar kare ki nahi yeh dil bekarar kare ke nahi
Number 6 - Kabhi haan Kabhi na .... awesome SRK movie... Anna mere pyaar ko na tum jhootha samjho jana sanam tujhe paa ne ka yeh tha sara bahana!
Number 5 - Meine Pyar Kiya...... and Chandni .... I have tere mere hootho pe on my Ipod and its still so romantic.
Number 4 - Qayamat se qayamat tak...... man how i wept when I was in my first LDR....when i listened to aye mere humsafar...ek jara intezar...sun sadayee de rahi hai....manziiiiilllll pyarrrr ki.
Now the compitition is getting tougher. Kaun sa gana ho ga sar taaj?!
Number 3 Saajan ....... for a compilation which consists of Bahut pyaar kar te hai, Dekha hai pehli baar, Mere Saajan, Tu shaayar hai mein teri shaayari
Number 2.... without a doubt... Ram Laxman's (who is that) best work till date..... HUM AAPKE HAI KAUN! Please dont ask me to pick a favourite song from that album.... i swear i am going to dance to didi tera dewar deewana at NOTs wedding.
and finally.... *drumrolls* is Number 1 ..... DILWALE DULHANIYA LE JAYENGE.......*trumpets* *canned laughter* ..... Na jaaane mere dil ko kya ho gaya .... abhi toh yahi tha abhi kho gaya!!! wooooo hooooo...... Can I confess something? Last weekend, I was watching old videos on youtube and played Tujhe dekha toh yeh jana sanam and my heart soared and I smiled like it was actually happening....that I was Simran and I had found my Raj! sighhhhh! The innocence and uncertainty of that moment when Simran is in front of Raj and suddenly she is not sure because she doesnt know why he is there.....she doubts whether he loves her and sings this song and embraces her and that it......no more doubts. Sheer brilliant heart tugging romance! awesome! Ok control your emotions Angstein.
I must make also make a special mention of some crazy songs I like.... Saudagar from the movie Saudagar, Tama tama from Thanedaar, Jumma Chumma from Hum, Tera naam liya tujhe yaad kiya from Ram Lakhan, Saathiya tune kya kiya from Love, Aaye ho meri zindagi mein from Raja Hindustani...... and on and on ....koi roko na .... deewane ko.... dil machal raha kuch gane ko!

Dealing with Defeat

My father's sister's husband, who I lovingly call Kaka has a pet peeve. He says - "Young people today don't know how to cope with defeat. They always expect to win and everyone cant win. Someone needs to teach them how to deal with personal failure".Kaka is a champion at rubbishing the "young people today". If he were to have his way he would lock of everyone between the age of 16 and 25 lest we cause the end of the civilization as he knows it. Which is precisely why I never paid much attention to this particular pet peeve of his. Till today, that is.I went for a play audition today. I have never acted before in any serious theatre set up. Cinderella in grade IV obviously doesn’t count. Nevertheless, I always believed deep down and all over in my heart that I have the making of an actress. You see, I love Bollywood (yeah yeah the cheesy variety as well) ....and movies generally. I also love watching plays, musicals, dance dramas. Name any sort of performing art and I love it. All my friends call me drama queen not least because I am emotional but because I am told I have big expressive eyes and an equally expressive face. I have spent hours regaling my friends with narrations of scenes from movies or real life - replete with hand gestures, mimicry and expressions. So, as I went for the auditions today, I was optimistic that with some guidance from the director, I would able to bag a part. I was wrong. Very very wrong.There were three female parts up for grabs. Shit. no. wait. That sounds gross. Lets try again. There were two female roles for which we were being auditioned. I wasn’t shortlisted for any. Not a single part. According to the director he "didn’t see me as Barbara or Mary". Barbara and Mary are middle ages mothers. The third part was of a 16 year old girl and it went to the shortest girl in the group. So basically, I was told that I was not required. They didn’t need me or want me. Khallas. I was a reject. A REEEE-JECKT!I walked out of the director's apartment with tears stinging at the back of my eyes. I haven’t been rejected in a long time so this cut me to the quick. I got a place at the best law school, I got the best job when I graduated, I got the rotations I asked for during my training contract and finally I qualified into the area of my choice. Heck, I haven't ever been rejected in my love life in these last 7 years.So I don’t know what to tell myself now. I don’t know how to pick myself up, dust myself and go for another audition. I don’t know to deal with this little (and I know this is indeed a teeny weeny tiny) failure in the larger scheme of things. The best I could do is fight with my boyfriend and ate a box of Pringles. I have been brought in the big guns (family pack full fat strawberry trifle with fresh whipped cream) in case I need them tonight as I wallow in self pity.Kaka was right – someone should have told me how to deal with defeat. How to get on with it. But maybe this is something I can learn. I thought about it and this acting thing was probably the first new thing I have tried in a long time. I went beyond my comfort zone today and did something new for the first time. Of course I was bound to suck at it. So I think I am just going to have to try a lot of new things and get used to being rejected. And when I finally get accepted, I will know how to treasure it. And to round of today’s serious and philosophical discussion, here are some words of wisdom by Mark Twain:“It is not in the least likely that any life has ever been lived which was not a failure in the secret judgment of the person who lived it.”

Jab mein bada hunga

I don't get it! Seriously.....I am dumbfounded by the stupidity and irrelevance of this one question which every HR person will ask you when interviewing for a job. Its even more comical (and in my case annoying) in the law firm context - make that a big bad corporate law firm.
When I was interviewing for this job, everyone told me to prepare an answer to this standard most wanted and most expected question - "Why law? Why do you want to be a corporate lawyer?". I am glad that I did because when I actually sat down to think about it, it took me two days and numerous redrafts under my best friends critical eye to arrive at a passable answer.
My instinctive honest answer was ..."how the F*** does that matter you moron!" or "yes when I eight years old I decided I wanted to devout my life to board minutes, shareholder resolutions, vendor due diligence and sale purchase agreements". I eliminated the second one because I figured the poor HR lady probably wouldn't get the sarcasm and might just make me an offer. And I didn't use the first answer because hey, its not really her fault that she has to ask these stoopid questions. That is also to clarify that I am indeed quite honest and spontaneous in my responses leading to many embarrassing incidents and my lack of friends.
I went to law school because I was lucky enough to make it. I wrote the exam in the first place because my mother's sisters husbands' sister's friend's daughter went to the same law school and she graduated with a fat salary....in those days 35,000 rupees per month. Bonus and free cafeteria extra. It annoys me to see people hankering after a job because of a great canteen, but that's for another blog.
This ugly cynical truth is not something you should be telling HR....of that much I knew. In fact telling the truth is inversely proportional to you getting a job. The more you show your weaknesses, the less likely that you will be signing the dotted line. HR doesn't want to know that when you were growing up all you wanted to do was to become an astro-nut. You wanted to space walk and explore some far off galaxy and look for moons and planets. It doesn't matter that demotion of Pluto from planet to planetoid made you cry just a little bit in the middle of a drafting exercise. Equally, HR is not interested in knowing that you actually think you would have made a great dancer/actor and would have loved to travel around the world performing to a different audience everyday. They don't want dreamers or thinkers. They want to know that when you were little you wanted to be a lawyer because you believed that the corporate/business world is dynamic and challenging place. You went to law school because you think you have the analytical and logical capability to understand and interpret complex issues.
In short at age six you were a goner. You tell that to HR and they will love you. I don't know why considering they know you are lying. Or at least I hope they have the sense to realise that it is a farce...a big joke that is to be taken seriously for godonlyknows what reason.
Anyway I have my mid year review tomorrow and I better go draft my response to "So.....where do you see yourself 5 years from now?"

Calling it Quits

"Its over.....its sooooo over". Not-so-famous last words of Meredith Grey in the season three finale, spoken as she announced the sad news of Burke leaving Yang, which were also meant to convey to Derek that their break up was on! 

I cant get those words out of my head. In prime time soap, these words at the end of the season mean just that.....that a relationship is over. There is a finality. The scriptwriter can kill the romance and bury it 6 feet under the new love story of the new season. 

But in real life, how often do people really mean it when they use the dreaded words before their partners. In my vast and varied experience, I have noticed that how ITS OVER actually is the start, the start of a very painful break up process. First you try and allocate the blame and explain to each other why you are breaking up in the first place. Then comes the crying and if groveling (if you are so lucky as to be able to make the other person do that). Then you bump into each other at a party, get drunk and make out like crazy (because you haven't been getting it for a while now). Then you have break up sex for a while and then you start calling yourself friends. All this while you are also looking for your BATNA (loosely translated to your next best alternative). And when you cant find anyone else to replace the tenant who has recently vacated the space in your heart, you tell yourself that actually that was true love and that you were stupid enough to not realize it. I dont understand why people break up to come back to the same stop they started from? Bizarre! I thinks its either a. an attempt to add some drama and spice ....I mean what true love story is complete without a airport chase scene and grand gestures of candle lit heart shapes on a beach! or b. you realize you have no BATNA and you are stuck. 

So I think if people are really serious about breaking up then they should know how to make their break up work. Top tip would be to actually stop talking to that person at all. I mean no contact....none at all. No phones, no smses, no mails and no ....not even blank calls to his mobile from pay phones just to hear his voice. yack thoook disgusting! 

Next, ctrl f his name in your mailbox and then del all. Ditto with smses on the mobile. Delete all written record of your relationship. Then the next time you are getting smashed at a bar you will concentrate on hitting on a cute guy instead of reading all the old messages and feeling like shit. Another important evidence destroying exercise is to junk all his things. This shirts you slept in and then made yours....those must go first. Get rid of all the X's baggage (notice clever word play) and start afresh. 

I know its all easier said then done and making your break work is probably harder than making a relationship work but hey....a mans gotta do what a mans gotta do. I think finally, its very important to recognise the true reasons for why you are apart. And there is no shame in wanting to go back. We all do. But the idea is to remind yourself (and write it down in big bold letters) of exactly why you broke up. After that...its all smooth sailing....with the cute guy at the  bar! Maybe two...at the same time!

A new start...again

Ya I know I do this every time I have no work or not inclination to work. I start writing only to abandon it every time something new comes up - boy, work etc. But I cannot help it. I was getting slammed (that doesnt equate to banged you dirty minds) at work and there has been no time to write. Doesnt mean that the Angstein mind has been lying idle. No sireee! The thinking continues. Thats the only thing I do. Whattodo. Its a turtle attribute.
My dad named me turtle because I was slow as a child. Now I consider myself turtlesque because I am super cool and wise (ha! ...shut up). Also turtles have been glamorised by their cartoon versions in assorted Disney movies, my favourite being Master Oooogway from Kung Fu Panda (remember..."Aaawsomeness"). I also identifies with lemurs ....of the King Julian fame but I am not about to call myself a nutcase in public. Not atleast when I am sober.

Ace Grump

I come to my blog all grump and irritated. It is as if I am 16 and angsting and dont even know what is really wrong with me. I tear up at the drop of a hat. I cant take a joke and I am forever carping about how others are letting me down. And no I am not pmsing.
So I am thinking that I will write some mean bitchy commentary on my blog and be happy. I realise I have no inclination to bitchiness either. All I want to do is go home, change into my oldest pair of slacks and watch movies and have chips for dinner. Same-to-same of what I did last night.
Its 4:06 pm and I thinking I can cut from work at 5 today. Maybe I should go buy me a dress for dinner tonight. And why not. Today is the day I finally get promoted from the drudgery of traineeship to the drudgery of associatship. More importantly, this is prabably the biggest salary jump of my career - percentagewise. It is my special day. But all I want is maggi really.