I can live without food, I can even try to survive without water, but for me to part ways with my phone… even if it is only for a couple of hours, is an unthinkable idea. A phone is no longer just an instrument to answer calls and talk to people. It has now shrunk my world by keeping me connected to people all around the world, 24×7. From the moment I open my eyes to a new day, till I crash exhausted into bed, my phone is my constant companion.

I need to check it every few minutes, even if it is just to confirm that I haven’t missed the message beep. I can’t ignore the blinking red light for too long, that signals a message awaiting me. And I never know who might be calling, or which life saving message I may miss by ignoring my phone.

Speaking for myself, I love my phone, as all my friends live in there. I used to often wonder if I was the only one. But I’ve realised that is not true! Everywhere I go, I see people glued to the screens of their cell phones, oblivious to where they are or what they’re doing, or should be doing. Even students and professionals find ways and means to check their phones every few minutes, whether they are in class or in meetings. Teachers and bosses do it too, why else would they look down at their laps and smile so much. While I’m a self confessed phone-fanatic I know that it has changed the way we socialise.

Outings have individuals and groups specially posing for pictures to post on their Facebook profile. Updates are instant, and as you are having a good time, or at least pretending to do so for the pictures, you want everyone on your friend list to know. Busy servers at restaurants now have an additional task at hand, to click pictures from each phone of every guest at a table. And God forbid, if the picture isn’t right or a particular person was clicked from an unflattering angle, the entire photo-clicking exercise starts all over again. No one asks for business cards or phone numbers anymore, your Twitter handle, BB pin or being Facebook-ed is all that is now needed. If you have no idea what either means, be prepared to be stared at like you’ve just crawled out from under a rock.

Social networking sites have also unknowingly given a big boost to the economy, as no woman wants to repeat her already worn, photographed and world telecasted outfit and accessories for another photograph. So it has to be new apparel and accessories before they consent to be clicked.

Ever noticed women going to the bathroom in pairs or in a group? Wondered why? Apart from freshening up and gossiping about other women, going to the bathroom together is just another excuse to photograph each other, and then put it up as display pictures and status updates.

Not to mention, a relationship is no longer officially official unless it is publicly declared as, ‘in a relationship with’, ‘engaged to’, ‘married to’. And when good times turn into rocky times the entire friend list knows ‘it’s complicated’, status even before the partner in question can find out. As what is life without a minute-by-minute update to the world, about how you are, where you are, what you are doing, what you are feeling, what you are wearing, what you are eating and whose company you’re sharing it with!

Recently a signboard outside a church read as, “No, I’m not talking about Twitter, I literally want you to follow me”—Jesus. Sigh! Even God needs to compete with social networking to attract your attention.

Then again, if you thought that broadcasting about your own life was the only purpose of social networking, you couldn’t be more wrong. Social networking is also another way to keep a tab on people you don’t wish to associate with on a day-to-day basis or those with whom you wish to come across as extremely disinterested. For instance, to spy on that ex, who didn’t know what s/he lost when they lost you. Punch the air with glee when you see the weight they’ve put on or the hair they’ve lost. Or sigh with envy at their perfect family holiday pictures even as you sit alone in front of your computer screen working your way through a tub of ice-cream.

Haughty mother-in-laws who behave like they couldn’t care less, spy on the lives of their daughter-in-laws through their social network pages. Underhanded daughter–in-laws, well aware of their astute mother-in–law’s send out subtly pointed messages to them through their status updates. Techno challenged parents reluctantly join networking sites to keep an eye on their children’s lives while mortified and tech-savvy children find ways and means to block parents out of their pages.

Taking a moment away from updating people about our lives how many of us realise that we are looking at each other through pictures, gauging and sharing feelings through status updates and tweeting about our current thoughts. Relationships and friendships are now formed and nurtured online, with little time to meet personally. A silly doggerel that keeps running through my mind that fits this trend:

Let’s pretend to be friends and talk about things we hear and see.

Discussing the weather, the world, the news,

Everything, except you and me

Let’s pretend to be friends as we carve time from hectic schedules, To meet once in a few months… a few weeks and talk about our busy lives.

Let’s pretend to be friends meeting for coffee

And smile delightedly for pictures we’ll put up for friends on our list to see.

This was first published in the February 2013 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

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Gift of gab

Okay, so you are already rolling your eyes even as you wisely nod your head in agreement to the fact that women love talking, and how. How could talk be related to a feeling of wellbeing, you wonder? What good can talk do, more so the incessant 100 words per minute prattle of women? As most women will vouch for, talking has benefits that radiate a sense of wellbeing. Talking is an exchange of thoughts, words and ideas, and a great way of communicating. Talking is therapeutic, as it is a way of venting out your feelings and emotions, which could range from complaints of the mother-in-law to the neighbour who keeps losing weight [without even trying] and everything in between.

While most men prefer giving monosyllabic answers, and nodding or grunting when they are feeling vocally generous, women believe in using their gift of gab to the fullest.

Whether they realise it or not, by talking incessantly they help men become better listeners and save energy, keeping them healthy in the process. Women are aware of the power of words and realise that talking politely or sternly when needed, gets things done. In social situations, conversations help one network and make contacts. Unburdening their hearts to close friends and loved ones helps them feel better, and gives them a perspective unlike their own. Term it gossip, idle chatter or anything else you wish, but women’s need and style of communication works for them. Furthermore, they’ll never shy away from telling you all about it whether you ask about it, or not!

Retail therapy

Now, now shopping is not just a mission to melt credit cards, choke up the wardrobe or another pastime to get over boredom, as it has been thought of till now. As, from the point of view of women at least, shopping too has far reaching wellness effects. Here’s how women shop and feel good. The cashiers ring up the purchases and feel good. The store owners rake up a profit and feel good. The retailers register a profit and feel good. The economy goes up a notch and, well, feels good too.

Women don the newly shopped clothes and accessories and feel good. People compliment them and they feel even better. So you see shopping is not just about shopping. For women, shopping is an event that helps in spreading the feeling of wellbeing far and wide. Furthermore, because women are great at multi-tasking, shopping doubles up as a great exercise, in more ways than one. The process of walking from aisle to aisle, browsing and frequent trips to the trial room to try out numerous outfits burns calories, making women happy.

Like all this wasn’t enough, talking, comes in handy to help while they shop too. No matter where they shop, women wish to get the best [read economical] deal and have realised that only bargaining can get them that. And bargaining is an art form most women have excelled at since the time they were old enough to shop. Certain vendors don’t wish to sell lower than the price initially offered, then there are some who will gladly do just that for the only reason that the women would just stop haggling. In this way shopping brings about an overall feeling of wellbeing to not only the women but to everyone who helped them shop and is not just a frivolous pastime, as you thought it to be! A small side-effect of shopping is that the husbands too become happy to be left alone if the woman shops alone.

The beauty bonus

Blame it on Cleopatra. Rumour has it that the Queen of Egypt, known for her exemplary beauty, took hours to get dressed. Subconsciously or consciously women still seem to be influenced by this trait of the most beautiful woman in the world, because centuries later, most women still take hours to get ready. However, much thought and analysis has gone into this, as taking time to get dressed almost always has good results. With good results one looks good and elicits compliments. A compliment makes one feel good and raises the confidence level of the individual, which is always encouraging. Plus, when taking your time dressing up has such great results why not continue doing so, blissfully unaffected by the husband impatiently tapping his feet or friends calling up frantically every few minutes and annoyed children throwing tantrums to leave soon?

So you see, with talking, shopping and getting dressed—simply being themselves, women achieve the overall wellness of mind, body and spirit.

Told you we were the smarter beings, didn’t I?

This was first published in the March 2009 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

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Gifting roses and chocolates

Kohl-lined and mascara-ed eyes roll at the merest mention of roses and chocolates stated in the same breath. So you can well imagine what women, whom they are gifted to, think about them. Roses are overrated, is the common chorus. Moreover, with exotic and exclusive flowers now blooming from the bucket of every flower vendor in every city, town and village, roses are simply passe. Roses are a sign that the person gifting them has no imagination and is terribly old-fashioned.

Chocolates are wicked. They first tempt the women into devouring them and then loose calories which make them put on weight. To drop which, women need to work doubly hard at the gym. So chocolates, along with the blooming roses, no longer top women’s ‘Things I am impressed by’ list.

A walk on the beach, followed by dinner

The person who coined this idea as romantic surely must be a man. Walking on the beach means wearing heels is out of the question. A woman without her heels feels like a policeman would without his gun, or a chef without his knives. In one word—powerless, which is precisely what any sensible woman doesn’t wish to feel like. Heels and power aside, the salt-laden sea breeze does have this knack of frizzing up hair, especially painstakingly blow-dried hair. And if it does that to hair, imagine what sea breeze does to make-up. Messes it up along with making the face look sweaty and gritty. And dinner followed by the walk on the beach? Forget it! Clothes being whipped by the breeze, hair following the same route, sand flying into the food—a romantic atmosphere and romantic emotions after feeling like that? No.

Candle-light dinner

What’s so romantic about a candle-light dinner? I mean, for all we know it could have first taken place when electricity was either not invented or was a precious luxury. Coincidentally something romantic must’ve transpired and probably worked out during the ‘candle-light dinner’, starting a trend which still continues. That seems to be the only plausible reason, doesn’t it? Why else would someone prefer to dine in light so dim, where you can hardly read the menu card to order what you would like to eat, and then barely see what you are eating?

Gifting stuffed toys and perfumes

Like, really? Stuffed toys are apparently so outdated that even kids resent being gifted with them. Do I hear you saying, girls love receiving them as gifts? Of course some of them still do. Gifting perfumes is interpreted as a subtle and clever way of telling the person, “You smell so bad, I wish I was olfactory system challenged!” This idea stinks!

Of course, the above doesn’t hold true for all women. There are some women who adore the above gestures just as there are others who simply abhor them. So what is it that women like, appreciate and want? The day I find the answer, I’m going to speedily patent it before I reveal it to anyone. As, besides a zillion curious people, even God is in the queue to know the answer, I believe.

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Understanding Frenemity

The term ‘Frenemy’ is being increasingly used to describe two or more people who are apparently friends, but are actually enemies. As we all realise, at some point of time or the other, friendships are not always friendly. Nor are they as simple as they seem on the surface. I guess Frenemies become friends because both desire to keep a close eye on the actions of the other, following the quote, ‘Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies even closer’, very literally. This may be because in a friendship, people feel the need to keep up appearances, or because they do not want to lose mutual friends. Often, both people know they are in a Frenemy-style relationship, while sometimes, only one person feels that way.

Devil in disguise

So, how do you recognise a Frenemy? A Frenemy criticises your loyal partner, turns her nose up at your favourite outfits and induces feelings of paranoia and self-doubt—all this under the guise of ‘friendly’ advice. Your first instinct when you run into this person is to slap her, but somehow you always manage to stick around with a giant fake smile, and kick yourself for doing so later. You may vow to drop the Frenemy at the next given opportunity but a volte-face by them, when questioned or confronted, usually leaves you feeling guilty for doubting them in the first place. You immediately flagellate yourself, mentally, of course! And so your life and times spent with the Frenemy soon starts resembling a soap opera with a new twist and turn in each episode.

The Frenemy fad

By now, you may have correctly assumed that any sensible person would immediately disassociate herself from a Frenemy as soon as s/he is identified, right? Wrong! Having a Frenemy, or a few, has become such a fashion statement that women seem to have stopped coveting the latest designer shoes, bags and whatnots. They desperately wish to have their very own personal Frenemy instead. Why? Because having a Frenemy, or a few, seems to be the latest status symbol [You can close your mouth now].

It’s like this. Having a Frenemy apparently signals to the world that you are popular enough to have lots of friends and naive enough to not realise that some of them are enemies in disguise. So, women hope, wait, and pray for a Frenemy to materialise at their next tea party, lunch or let’s-max-our-credit-cards shopping spree. And after all the hoping, waiting and praying they remain Frenemy-less, they start looking at their friends and their motives with a magnifying glass, hoping to triumphantly unearth a Frenemy among the home team.

The hunt continues…

Reading between the lines becomes frequent. ‘Wonder why she backed out from joining me for the art film I was dying to see. Learning more about mourners would be so educating and enlightening, wouldn’t it?’ Friendly advice gets minutely analysed, ‘Why did she not let me buy the purple dress with the fluorescent yellow and pink flowers on it? Did it really look like I had wrapped myself in a curtain, like she pointed out?’ Every move of the friends gets monitored, much like a spy in a Bond movie. ‘She urged me to try the restaurant’s trademark cocktail but she herself ordered the iced tea! Does she want me to gain weight, even as she loses hers?’

In the process of the foolish desire to acquire a Frenemy, there is a chance that keeping tabs and questioning motives unnecessarily may cause some serious, really well-meaning friendships to end. When a friend lets you down or acts insensitively at times, it doesn’t necessarily qualify him or her for Frenemy status, much as you may wish it to. Let’s keep Frenemies a fad and not let it turn into an archetype. Let’s not become one or let our craze to acquire one rip our genuine friendships apart.

So if you’re confused about your friends and friendships ask your self this: ‘Do I love my friend[s]? Do I hate them? or Do I love to hate them?’ The answer then will make things easy, cause the first one’s a friend, second is an enemy, and third is a Frenemy.

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The process of watching the stages of first assembling the ingredients and then chopping, peeling, dicing or whatever needs to be done to the ingredients, so they can materialise into yummy looking dish, fascinates me immensely. Since I was so greatly inspired by all the shows with my orbs [eyeballs] constantly glued to the TV, I decided to put all the ‘expertise’ gained into practice, and one fine Sunday afternoon stepped into the kitchen to bake a cake.

Cake walk

As I gathered the required ingredients, I imagined putting the finishing touches to a perfectly gorgeous cake. I hummed to myself as I went through the process of measuring and sifting the ingredients and imagined the reaction of my family when they saw the perfectly gorgeous cake. The sight of which would leave them wide-eyed with admiration before they took a bite, a bite that would have them licking their fingers as they asked for more.

Oh, how that pleasant thought made me smile, until I looked down to find out in horror that the egg and sugar mixture I was manically whipping away at, had curdled. Wait a minute, that wasn’t how it was supposed to be! On the show, it had looked all creamy and fluffy!

Nevertheless, I enthusiastically whipped away some more and when done, added the remaining ingredients and slid the cake tin into the oven and blissfully resumed my train of fantasies where words of praise for my perfectly gorgeous cake had reached far and wide by now.

When I peeped into the oven a little while later, the cake batter was baking all right though it seemed rather flattish. It looked nothing like the puffed up golden dome it had looked on TV. When I finally slid the tin out of the oven, I realised that my to-be perfectly gorgeous cake was anything but. The cake sank, and along with it my hopes of becoming a cooking whiz.

I did realise though that I thoroughly enjoyed the process of putting together the cake. It was an amusing experience imagining myself to be a celebrity chef on TV. At least it gave all of us at home something to laugh over together as we sat around trying to salvage even a tiny edible bit of the cake. In retrospect, and after I finally got over the embarrassment, I could honestly conclude that even though the cake did taste like an old shoe, I had fun baking it.

Fitness goals

Food is my weakness and just so that it doesn’t show, I working off the calories in the gym, when I am not inventing crazy excuses to miss workout sessions, that is. To egg myself on, I befriended two of my fellow gymmers and we decided to become workout partners. The two sisters and I vowed to monitor and motivate each other to reach our respective fitness goals. Though the sisters looked very alike, the differences between them couldn’t have been greater. One enjoyed her time at the gym, by relishing every step of her workout, being open to suggestions from one and all and befriending acquaintances, [she so reminded me of, Happy, who was one of Snow White’s Seven Dwarfs]. The other was her complete opposite, she marched into the gym, extremely focused and rather sullen all the time, and went through her workout furiously and mechanically, [reminding me of Grumpy, another of the Seven Dwarfs].

When we compared notes at the end of three months, we realised that though Happy hadn’t lost as much weight as she would have liked to, she had a clear skin, a better posture and lots of friends at the gym. On the other hand, Grumpy, who was just half a kilo shy of her intended weight, a fact that she grumbled and mumbled about till we screamed at her to stop, had gotten grumpier than ever.

It was then that I realized that Grumpy and Happy could easily represent most of us. In most cases, we are so focused on fulfilling our goal that we forget to enjoy the journey that takes us towards it, just like Grumpy. If only, like Happy, we learnt to enjoy the journey. After all, a journey that perhaps opens up the windows of our mind and heart and brings us face to face with our flaws and virtues thus educating us should be as gratifying as reaching our destination, shouldn’t it?

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Wherever there is food, there are truths and myths attached to it. Take for example, the often heard and read about statement “Drinking water is good for the body and health” which is a truth, as drinking water allows for proper digestion, helps keep the body hydrated, flushes out toxins and thus improves the appearance of your skin by making it radiant and healthy, among other benefits. Whereas the widely believed and followed “Water with lemon and honey drunk on an empty stomach will make you lose weight” is far from the truth, as it does not aid in losing weight. Though it still doesn’t stop people from drinking it anyway, despite the sore throat, it causes in some.

It’s amazing how some people can conveniently twist truths to form myths to suit themselves and their palate. Here are my, tongue-firmly-in-cheek, answers to some highly inventive health myths food lovers would like to believe and ardently follow with a guilt-free conscience, much to the horror of their dieticians, friends and bodies.

I’ll skip breakfast when I want to lose weight.

Ever heard of a car operating with its fuel tank empty or appliances working without electricity or you going shopping without your wallet? So, what makes you think that you’ll deprive your body of the most important meal of the day and hop, skip and jump through it, eh? Skipping breakfast will only ensure that you’ll be ravenous enough to be eating from everyone else’s plate, besides your own, throughout the day. Thus you will only end up gaining weight instead of losing it. And, just to refresh your memory, the basic idea was to lose it, wasn’t it?

If I eat something when no one is watching I won’t gain calories.

I have news for you. Calories are smarter than you are. Irrespective of whether anyone is watching you eating, or not, calories cling to you. And they cling really badly.

Fat-free equals calorie free.

I was under this misconception too for a while, until my nutritionist informed me otherwise. Even if a certain food is fat-free, more often than not it is loaded with other stuff like, sugar and proteins which do contain calories. So there! Always remember, nothing edible is calorie free, except plain water.

If I talk and gesture animatedly while I eat, I’ll be burning calories.

And, probably knock over the glass of water in front of you too. You’ll also have everyone sitting around you viewing your molars and pre-molars masticating food, and hence put forward a fine display of sloppy manners. And yes, you won’t lose calories, just friends.

Dark chocolate is good for health, so I can indulge in it as much as I feel like.

Yes, dark chocolate has health values [Surprise. Surprise. ] It has been suggested that antioxidants in dark chocolate may reduce the risk of many kinds of illnesses, from heart disease to cancer. But, there is absolutely no need to eat a whole chocolate bar. Experts say that all that is needed is about one square a day [sorry to disappoint you]. And, please do note: the square should not be as big as your living room.

Hot coffee burns fat.

Putting school lessons to use, are we now? Heat melts fat, does not equal to hot coffee burning fat. So drink up and get buzzed on all the caffeine you wish, while repeating to yourself “Only exercise can burn fat.”

I can plan my own diet as there is nothing much in planning one.

I think I can plan my countries constitution too but I don’t. And, that’s because we have qualified experts to do it. In the same way, there are health professionals who have slogged away at studying for years to learn what is good for your body and your health. So, why not leave the diet planning to those experts?

Milk is healthy, so also are other milk products like cheese and ice cream.

Ooohhhh… aren’t you a clever one? And, such a smart researcher too. Go on then and load up on the “milk products”. And end up resembling the very animal the milk for the “milk products” came from.

Chocolate is good because it releases endorphins, the feel-happy hormones.

Well, so does exercise… and chilly peppers.

The post The folly of food appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

When I met my friends for lunch a while ago, they announced they were on yet another diet – The Rainbow Diet. And proudly informed me they had devised it themselves. On seeing my puzzled expression they enthusiastically began explaining how this particular diet worked. To follow The Rainbow Diet, they had chosen a colour of the rainbow for each day of the week, and strictly ate and drank food and drinks of only that particular colour. When the puzzled expression still refused to leave my face they decided to practically demonstrate, by ordering two enormous wedges of mango cheesecake each, as “yellow” was the colour chosen for the day. At the sight of cheesecake slices, a horrified look replaced the puzzled expression on my face. For, who had heard of eating cheesecake while on a diet, that too a mango flavoured one, and not one but two generous slices of it!

I was curious to know what they consumed when “blue” was the colour chosen and they triumphantly answered, “Blue Curacao!” in unison, enlightening me that they boldly “experimented” by adding the flavoured liqueur to a wide variety of foods and drinks. And, added a little extra helping of it when “indigo” was the colour of the day, even though they never really got the desired colour results, they rued. Cheesecake? Liqueur? On a diet? By now, I was way too flummoxed to ask them to explain any further and had just enough of my sanity left intact to silently thank God, or whoever was the mastermind behind it, that he/she had the foresight to not include black as a rainbow colour.

But as I have already mentioned before, my opinion on and about diets by no means matches theirs.

I wondered why this diet surprised me because it wasn’t the first, and will definitely not be the last that these two will follow, though I have to admit to it being the craziest one so far!

A little after filling their life with colour, their favourite movie star “inspired” these two friends of mine to aim to be like her – a size zero. Little knowledge is dangerous and none of it is lethal, and without any correct knowledge or professional dietary guidance, they began blindly following all that they heard about her diet on airwaves and read in the papers and magazines. They decided they would survive only on orange juice, just like their favourite actress reportedly was.

They started with drinking copious amounts of orange juice along with water through out the day, and only agreed to meet me in places where there was a toilet within easy reach.

The kilos dropped off them with alarming alacrity at first, thrilling them to bits. But it was soon followed by dry skin, brittle hair and nails, which they shrugged off nonchalantly as they quaffed still more juice and water.

It was only when the continuous absence of the required amounts of nutrition, extremely important for a human body to function well, caused their normally glowing skin to sag giving them a hollowed wraith like appearance [And just between you and me, people their age had started referring to them as “aunty”] Constant starvation caused their breath to smell so awful that people from neighbouring houses began complaining. Along with hunger-fuelled temper tantrums, which were so terrible that for once even they disagreed with each other on the topic of diets, did they finally realise that they should put a stop to this crazy “Film star” diet.

I met my friends again, at a park this time, because meeting them over meals is too traumatic an experience for my psyche. And I was pleasantly surprised to see them snacking on diced watermelon bits. They are eating healthily at last, I thought happily. Till they informed me they were on a mono-diet that allows them to eat only one food for a period of time.

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Doctors ask you to take good care of it. Most women have really fragile ones, while most men wear theirs on their sleeve. We all have one, though we each use it differently. Some use it sparingly while others are too generous with theirs. And then, there are some who almost never use their own. Then there are still others who like to play with other people’s hearts.

The heart is a favourite topic with poets and writers, with reams and reams written about it and around it. Singers sing to it, for it, about it and sometimes even against it. According to both, at different times and depending on their current state of emotions, sometimes the heart is as hard as stone. At other times it is cold as ice. Sometimes, it is filled with innocent love while at other times it is cruel, unforgiving and deceitful. They certainly can’t seem to make up their minds, can they?

Even the Gods know of its value. And the manner in which Hanuman, the monkey-God, has proved his loyalty to Lord Rama remains etched in the memory forever. The story goes as such; On being reprimanded by Sita for pulling apart a gift of a necklace of precious pearls and holding each beautiful pearl up to his ear, biting it, shaking it, then throwing it to the ground in disgust, Hanuman replied that he wanted to see if the pearls were saying the name of Rama, further adding “Only something which says the name of the Lord has meaning to me.” When Sita explained that the pearl is an inanimate object that cannot speak, Hanuman countered, “Everything that is saturated with the love of God speaks his name.” Nobody believed Hanuman, saying his reverence and love for Rama and Sita could not possibly be as deep as he was claiming. In response, Hanuman ripped open his chest and everyone was stunned to see to see the image of Rama and Sita in his heart.

According to lovers/those in love/those who have been in love, their heart has been stolen, broken, taken, crushed, betrayed and many more things. Phew! And here I imagined that all that this very important organ was supposed to be doing was pump blood to keep us alive! I think the heart might have multi-tasking qualities that are revealed only when its possessor is in love. I guess American novelist and short-story author George Dennison knew what he was talking about when he said, “When a young man complains that a young lady has no heart, it’s pretty certain that she has his.”

And going by what lovers say the heart seems to be a steady survivor too. As it is wrecked, it’s trodden on, it’s stolen, it’s cheated on but it survives it all! Albeit, with a few dents and scratches, some deep while others superficial and still others that are maybe purely imaginatory. Nothing that time, and the helping aid of another heart cannot heal.

The heart brings you happiness, and sometimes causes you pain. There are times you are accused of not having one at all, or dealing out bits of yours too freely. Whatever you do with it, keep it healthy and keep it safe. Because one thing is for sure, you can’t live without it!

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What could have been the reason for sticking false hair onto her hair? Perhaps the fashion pundits declared that long tresses are “in” this season. So our supermodel decided to just stick some on, to portray the semblance of long hair, rather than wait for her real hair to grow that long. Who knows, by the time she would get around to growing out her own rather short hair, flowing tresses would be passe and short hair would be uber-cool instead. So what better, than an instant and temporary solution if it allows you to appear fashionable, eh?

I guess beauties do need to stay in touch with the latest fashion trends, as fashion gets beauties noticed and beauties get fashion noticed in return.

Fashion gets beauties noticed

The right fashion encases beauties, presenting them as even more beautiful and glamorous. Take the case of ravishing model, actress, business woman and now, swimwear designer Elizabeth Hurley, or Liz Hurley as she is more popularly known. She was a virtual nobody till she slipped her shapely form into a Versace dress ingeniously designed with large gold safety pins holding it together and accompanied then boyfriend, actor Hugh Grant, to the premier of his film. Well, no one spoke about the film or Grant because Liz and her outfit were the only things that made headlines the very next day.

Men instantly adored her and almost certainly wished that the safety pins would have come undone. Women instantly abhorred her and surely wished the safety pins would have come undone, and stab her till she bled to death. After all, who would imagine that a chic dress designed with few fashionably and strategically placed safety pins would change a person’s life in just one evening?

Fashion influences the common man too

If you thought that only celebrities take fashion seriously, you couldn’t be further from the truth. There are many people who religiously update their wardrobes in accordance to the dictates of fashion pundits.

If red is declared to be the new black, their wardrobes are instantly splashed a vivacious crimson. And as if to make up for the festivity of wearing a bright colour for an entire season, the wardrobes are soon just about mourning the next season with grey, which has now been declared the new black. And when the fashion pundits are bored of spinning the colour wheel to choose a fashion colour, black is finally declared the new black yet again.

However, the return of this colour of mourning is surprisingly almost always a celebration, as it cleverly camouflages the unwanted layers of guilty indulgences on all shapes. Besides being known as the “safest” colour of the palette as one can almost never go wrong with it. What with the fashion mantra being “When in doubt wear black.”

Wearing colours that are in fashion is somewhat acceptable, even if certain colours might make some resemble an exotic bird. It’s when people blindly follow fashion trends in clothing, that it gets visually disturbing. Very recently cigarette pants, or skinny pants as they are called, were very “in”. As the name suggests, they are awfully slim and form-fitting pants, which look really great on skeletons or similarly formed bodies. But it is an assault to the senses to see women shaped closer to a cigar wearing them, or rather bursting through and spilling out of them. I guess if you follow fashion blindly, you stop seeing how it looks on you or to people looking at you.

Sole of fashion

Colours, apparel and styles are all very well but the soul of fashion for most women lie in, the sole. Yes, shoes feature right on top on most women’s wish-lists. The latest styles, and where to acquire them are discussed almost religiously. Women proudly strut about in the latest style of heels that are referred to as ice-pick heels or the t-bar heels [they aren’t called stilettos any longer, dahlin] and then go home and nurse swollen feet and aching calves.

Why do women’s souls lie in their soles? Because shoes don’t have prejudices, they don’t require their wearer to be thin or tall, beautiful or rich. And why do women have to have so many shoes, in spite of having just two feet? Because someone once rightly said “Really and truly you can never have too many pairs; they are all different. You need a pair for every mood – and everyone knows that women have a lot of different moods.”

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A while ago, temptation won over techno-trepidation and I finally succumbed. I signed up with a few social networking sites, the invites of which my friends had been flooding my mailbox with, for sometime now.

On their homepage, one site proclaimed “Everyone can join” and boy, were they serious! Within minutes of signing up, creating my profile page and using the search option to its optimum, I’d found old friends, neighbours, long-been-out-of-touch relatives and some old enemies too!

In an hour’s time, I had 40 people on my “friends” list. By late evening, the count went up to 63 and when I logged in to check my profile for the 1000th time in the day I had 79 friends. Wow! In a short span of time I’d found people I had lost touch with years ago, some of who now lived in different cities or even time-zones.

My profile even had “News Feed” to inform me of every development –

“Meera and Shelly are now friends”, “Ravi is out for a run”, “Arun is home”, “Alicia is the happiest girl in the world!”, “Puja has a headache” – I was amazed. I hadn’t met some friends for weeks and others for years. But, I now knew where they were, what they were doing, how they were feeling and even who they were befriending.

Besides knowing exactly what my friends were up to, the years fell away as we exchanged photographs squealing with delight [“You still look the same!/Gosh! You’ve changed so much!”] and filled each other in, on the years gone by. We chatted, even as I was munching on toast for breakfast while my friend at the other end of the world was having dinner.

I was enjoying social networking immensely and fretted about why I hadn’t been brave enough to sign up earlier, till I received a friend invite where the name sounded eerily familiar but the accompanying profile picture baffled me. The profile picture got me wondering since when did Christmas trees learn to access the computer? Turned out, the invite was from Mum’s old friend, cookie aunty, who we had lost touch with years ago, after she and her family moved out of the country. The mystery behind looking like a tree was happily explained under the picture “I dressed up like a Christmas tree for a fancy-dress party.” It didn’t end there; cookie aunty had pictures of herself attempting to imbibe two mugs of beer at once. In yet another picture, she was wearing fluorescent pink lipstick and a cap worn backwards and flashing a hip-hop backhand peace sign. I was appalled. Sometimes it is good to learn things about someone you’ve known and respected. But being too close – even virtually – can mean being too close for comfort.

I soon realised that social networking sites provide a definition of the word “friend” so expansive that it includes perfect strangers. Yet, strangers are the easy part. It can be a lot creepier to interact intimately with someone you sort of know than someone you don’t know at all. Nothing changes when a stranger invites you to be a friend. But when acquaintances or people you know on a professional level “friend” you, it’s slightly bizarre. When you see your corporate-honcho client dressed up as Superman [at his kid’s birthday party], it’s kind of weird.

Besides shrinking the world and bringing people closer, social networking has redefined the parameters of privacy. There’s no escaping friend-requests from the boss, that pest who sits a cubicle away or your mum-in-law. It also makes you feel a little claustrophobic to realise that you end up knowing at least someone on somebody else’s friend list. Avoiding people in the real world is far easier than avoiding people in the virtual world today!

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