Skip to main content

Conversations : l

"My mum used to tell me. Never chase after girls. Be successful and they will chase after you", he proclaimed with all due seriousness, something that amused me given the passion with which he chased after (and successfully seduced) them.

"I am not sure if that is the type of girl I want. Because it sounds like she wants my success more than she wants me", I retorted.

He thought for a quick second.

"She did not mean it in that way. She meant have the right kind of character and you will attract the right kind of woman"

Wishful thinking or reality? As they say, only the mother knows...

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

An Ode to Marriage

I remember pondering about the need for marriage during a certain period of my life. Partially inspired by stoicism, I saw a man as an island in a big ocean, continuously being battered by the waves and storms, but holding fort and growing strong with each test. It was also when the idea of monasticism greatly appealed to me, to leave behind, for the lack of a better work, the bullshit of society and trying to attain enlightenment.  Somehow that idea fell apart after a brief meditation stint in a monastery, but the idea of marriage I resisted. The freedom that came from being single seemed too precious to let go. Furthermore life was complicated as it is. Why complicate it further by introducing another person to that life, someone who would bring her own mannerisms, rules, habits, many that might end up conflicting with your own. However, a lot of these ideas and beliefs start to die when friends of yours each start getting into their own relationships and have no more time for yo...

Sparing the Rod

 She gave me a look of deep displeasure, not very atypical of the look most members of the opposite gender gave me. “You know you can’t do that in Germany?”, she asserted with the same authority my mother used to tell me about not messing around in her kitchen.  “Yes I am aware”, I meekly responded, knowing well that any kind of argument about this would not end well, so it was better to close off the topic quietly and unlike the kitchen, I could not afford to get kicked out of Germany. She was not the first to respond with such hostility to what seemed like the most natural of things in my experience. The last one who told me the same was a teacher I had met at a party. When she sounded shocked that I was ok with it and said it was not right, I (with some alcoholic courage) had retorted, “How would you discipline them then if they do something wrong?” “I would tell them I am very disappointed with them”. I almost laughed. However, that was very much the theory of my new frien...

On the road to Brandenburg

“Aint no sunshine when she’s gone”. “Aint warm when she’s away”. The music floated from somewhere on the platform as our train paused at the station before it moved onto its final destination to Berlin Brandenburg airport. Up to that moment, the trip at daybreak had been filled with the typical unspoken marital tension. A tension that originated from differing expectations on how to prepare for a trip back home, a trip I had decided to skip this time and a trip that would be her first, alone and across continents. Though like all disagreements, the current one brought up memories of past ones, adding fuel to a fire that if left alone, would have died on its own. As even Winnie the Pooh rightfully knew, “Sometimes the smallest things takes up the most space in your heart”. So the fire persisted silently as terrible May seemed to encroach into June. Till Bill Withers husky voice floated into my ears with the lyrics I had heard countless times before. The only difference being up to then ...