If you really loved me, you'd know!!!

“If you really loved me, you would know what I am thinking now”. That was Lakshmi talking to Rahul.

“I do love you, but give me a hint. The cricket score??”. Clatter of metal meeting human skull.

“Tell me Lachu dear. What is wrong”

“Nothing”, said ‘Lachu’.

That sweet ‘nothing’ that women throw at men around the world is perhaps the single most important omen that men should learn to listen to as a warning when their life is just about to take a very unpleasant turn. Those nothings are harbingers of impending doom for a man probably followed with sleeping on the couch, without dinner and rubbing bumps on the head caused by flying dishes. The trick of the averting danger is to detect danger at the first signs and take evasive action. But that involves a lot of reading minds and let’s face it men when it comes to reading what’s on a woman’s mind, men just have barely enough aptitude to realize that when a girl says that nothing’s wrong it’s actually pretty close to Armageddon. And that too was a skill finally acquired after much of that surviving of the fittest. I can imagine when Fred Flintstone wanted to go bowling and his wife said, “Fine, go I’ll do all the boar hunting, cleaning and roasting around here”, he must have actually thought that Wilma was actually being nice today. Well girls sarcasm has never really been our thing.

You heard how they are thinking of banning internet telephony because terrorists are starting to use that for communication. Well if you ask me it’s a blessing that there aren’t too many female terrorists around, coz if there were they would just do a wink at each other and transfer the blueprint of a nuclear bomb in so much. Try getting an interpreter in between to decode that communication.

“I can’t believe that you would doubt me like that. You know that’s something I just cannot tolerate”.

“But Lachu, I didn’t. When did I ever say that I didn’t trust you”, Rahul had by now turned to a groveling mule from the growling lion that he was when he had confronted Lakshmi on some issue which he had forgotten by now. That’s an amazing talent that girls have. When they are on the backfoot on an argument they somehow manage to change the argument into some other issue in which they know that they definitely have the upper hand. In this case it was the trust issue. Well for all you know Lachu, might have murdered her in laws but that wasn’t important anymore because now the argument was about whether Rahul trusted Lachu or not. Sadly ISO and BIS doesn’t give out certifications on that and hence Rahul’s fidelity can never be convincingly proven. The argument is lost even before it started.

Kicked out of the house even before he could put on his shoes, Rahul tipped across the graveled courtyard to his bike kept outside. Walking on his toes Rahul’s thought went to the picture he was watching on DVD the other night - Mila Kunis in Black Swan. Oh Mila, Mila Mila why are you women so cruel??

– It’s centuries of reinforcement.

Who is that?? Ohh..just the other voice in my head

They have time and again got away with mistreating people and getting their way around.

Over generations pretty women in all cultures and communities have conditioned themselves to a certain functional shortcut.

But Lachu isn’t like that. She was helpless.

The security guard outside the gate stared at Rahul not knowing whom he was talking to.

Well you can argue they she was helpless. Hell, it might even be genetic. But man, I tell you. This goes beyond your Lachu. And it goes probably to the day when men and women were born.

Think about it. Of all the depictions of the garden of Eden that you might have seen, was Eve ever a 100 kg mammoth of a woman?

She was a perfect 36-24-36 vision of beauty, and mind you this was the era before botox, epilators, skin creams and even mascara.

Oh yes. Poor, dirty and hairy Adam didn’t even have a chance at saying no to that apple, agreed Rahul. The conscience seemed to be speaking sense today. Old Monk really does suit you my man.

Why blame Adam?? I must say even the good lord had his weak moment when he dished out the punishments that day. How is that the same punishment is meted to the inducer of the crime and to the innocent participant. Anybody in the knowhow of the Indian Penal code would tell you that’s certainly not even handed justice.

Indian Penal Code?? Dude you’ve had a bit too much of Indian Made Foreign Liqour. Rahul had been trying to kick start his bike for some time now with no luck, while this train of thought was going on in his head.

Yea yea agreed, Eden perhaps didn’t fall under the jurisprudence of the IPC. But, I’m pretty sure if you really scrutinize the life of cruel and wicked men throughout history you’d find a wife who wasn’t satisfied with the jewellery he got her, or a girlfriend who wanted a bigger better Taj Mahal built for her.

But the fight today was not about anything like that…She in fact must have got me more presents that what I have gifted her.

What was it for Rahul? Tell me what was it for?

Err…Err. Rahul just could not recollect.

He remembered that Lachu had asked for a packet of curd for making kadi and jeera rice. He had instead got yoghurt and saunf. So big deal, you add water and salt to the yoghurt and instead of jeera rice you make plain rice. That’s no reason to kick someone out of the house without even letting him wear his shoes.

But then poor girl wanted it for breaking her navratri fast with something nice food. She’s been surviving on salt less food and fruits for over a week now. Oh Lachu, how thoughtless of me.

No no you shouldn’t slip. It’s just a trick..Tell me how come it’s Navratri all over again?? She just did that a few months back? Or does it happen three or four times a year. I bet she invents all these festivals just to drive you up the wall. In fact, everything with her, even her monthly crankiness seems to occur much more frequently these days.

And you know she didn’t even come to the pub with you in spite of you having begged her to. Just because she had to make sweets and stuff for the girls at the orphanage.

You see, her selfish desire to feel gratification has made her give up on quality time that she could have spent with you. And just because of her you had pay stag charges at the pub. And as if that wasn’t enough she spent the whole time cleaning up the house and washing dishes. As if that couldn’t have waited till Saturday…hmphh

And then she got into her “nothing’s wrong” mood. Amazing isn’t it. You’d think after spending a whole day thinking of no one else but herself at least she would be happy at the end of the day? She did pooja the whole day and got to eat nice fruits which no doubt was to improve the texture of her skin and then distributed sweets at the orphanage which would have given her lots of good karma and cleaned up the house so that she could upload pictures of her sparkling room on facebook. Why would she be upset just because you ate that yoghurt which she didn’t want anyways.

Somewhere between the argument Rahul figured out that he has a pretty sarcastic voice for a conscience. Or was it only this way when he was drunk? He dropped the bike on the ground and climbed on to the gate outside Lachu’s home and yelled at the top of his voice. Not a care that it was well past 11 o clock…. “Lachuuuu…I’m sorry please forgive me…..”

After what seemed like an eternity the balcony door on the first floor opened. Lachu’s glowing face appeared at the balcony... Rahul was on top of the gate…the security guard was waving his batton from the other side…

“Lachu, my dear…I must…”..he didn’t get to complete what the sentence.

A shoe came flying out from the general direction of the first floor balcony and hit Rahul squarely on his head.

Picking himself up from the ground Rahul heard the balcony door bang shut.

Amazing that she has the strength to throw like that after having eaten nothing the whole day. Goddd.. women…they do have some strength in them.

Happy Women’s Day..folks.