Day 415: It's Called Love

8 January, 2011

Totally fun day! We had called over our usual group of friends for lunch - now that the parents were in town, it was only fair that we share the good home-cooked food with them as well!

So they came over and we had a nice time chatting and eating and laughing etc. Then the conversation moved on to girls. Since my group of friends primarily consist of boys most of whom are still single and very much available, the conversation usually ends up on the topic of girls. FYI, I used to be the only girl who hung out with them for the longest of time, until one of them decided to get married and dragged that poor girl into the motley bunch as well.

Anyway, this time they were all rating a group of women including Bollywood actresses and models, in terms of their looks. 8/10, 3.5/10, 6.75/10, 7.98/10... the numbers flew left and right. After the game progressed for a while, we observed that my hubby tends to like women who look exactly the opposite of me. So for example I am "wheatish" (a term highly popular in Indian matrimonial sites, used to describe darker women), while the hubby seem to rank only fair women high. I am not exactly the most stylish of women and the hubby seemed to rank less stylish women way down in his scale and natural beauty didn't seem like his thing. He seemed to like baby faces while I have anything but that. So on and so forth.

Since the hubby's opinion would be biased towards me and since the rest of the boys loved their respective lives dearly, I was not part of the list of women who were being rated. But after this phenomal observation was made regarding the disparity of what the hubby seemed to prefer in women and what I look like, a friend decided to probe the matter further.

Friend: So Shilpa, how much do you think you would fare in your hubby's list now that we clearly know his taste?
Me: Hmmm... (giving it some serious thought)... 5/10.

The friend who asked the question as well as the others nodded in agreement. That sounded about right. Then everyone looked towards the hubby for his reaction.

We found him pursing his lips, squinting his eyes and screwing his eyebrows. His reaction very clearly said "That's too high". This was immediately followed by a laughter that tried to hide his fear - surely he is gonna be in hot soup now!

Me: Ah, indeed! So am not even a 5.
He: Nah. (still giggling and I manage a polite smile in return)
Me: I see. Then I must be one damn smart woman.
He: Why?
Me: Erm... you either fall for the beauty or the brains right? So I must be having a ton of brains to compensate for my obvious lack of beauty!
He: *grunts* (He didn't expect this. Now he was caught in a dilemma. How can he possibly admit that I have a ton of brains?! That too in front of all these friends who are now watching him keenly for his reaction?!)
Me: Well?
He: Hmmmm
Friends: Well? She does have a point!
Me: Exactly. There must be something that you liked, if not beauty or brains, then what was it?
He: Hmmmm.... I liked your....... (wait for it...)...... independence.
*SILENCE*
Me: Independence?
He: Yeah.
Me: I.N.D.E.P.E.N.D.E.N.C.E?
He: Yeah.
Friend: Dude, What does that even mean? Other girls were dropped by their parents on their first day of university in Singapore while she came alone? (For the uninformed, the hubby and I met in university).
He: Well, you get what I mean. (We definitely didn't).
Me: You need to come up with something better than that.
He: Oh. Really?
Me: Yes. "Really".
He: Oh.
Me: Well?
He: Hmmm...... OH I KNOW... I also liked that you are.....(oh, do wait for it......) .... Culturally Inclined.
Me: Culturally Inclined?
He: Yes!!!!
Me: Culturally Inclined?! (I was in no mood to spell it out this time).
He: Yes!!!! Culturally Inclined!! (He beams around like a baby who has just made his first lego house. Obviously, he was certain that he had a winner in his hands with this one. Who wouldn't love to be "culturally inclined" after all?).
Me: Erm... do you mean "talented"?
He: No. Just culturally inclined. Yeah. a) Independence. b) Cultural Inclination.

Wow. And I guess for me it must be his tangential sense of humour.

585 more to go.