Being nobody to anybody - a ride to Pondicherry seeking inspiration for art

I had an item on my bucket list ever since college. I wanted a solo vacation to some place where I have never been before, all in solitude. Being nobody to anybody. If possible, living a whole new life for a few days in that place. What if I had only enough money for travelling one way to that place and had to earn the money to come back? I can wait tables, work as salesman in bookshops or do whatever that I must/can do to earn my return ticket. Well, that grand plan is still in the bucket list. But very recently, I managed to draw a dotted line on this item in the bucket list.

Back in college, I discussed this plan with friends and a few were actually curious about the idea. One such friend who even contemplated this escape into anonymity is now lined up for a wedding and I am skeptical if he would ever get to take this vacation. Quite recently, a few rounds of routine overdose in life was pushing me for an escape to recharge and come back. Plus, I can just wake up one morning and pick up my bike's keys and go. Thus, I started riding three days back. Pondicherry was in my mind. Not a very long ride to boast for a biker from Chennai but a scenic ride along the ECR and definitely in the list for an unwinding ride. Of course, I had enough money to return back. I am not taking that adventure yet :-)

In solitude, I started riding to Pondicherry. Whenever I go on long rides like this, I imagine myself as playing a long Test match innings like Rahul Dravid. Patience and focus and enjoying the ride. I ride at a steady pace, always focussing on only the next turn and covering short stretches mentally. You need to pace your ride just like you pace an innings. I was curious about Auroville for some time and I had it in the back of my mind. I even crossed sign boards to Auroville even before reaching Pondicherry. Nevertheless, I entered Pondicherry. I rode around the streets aimlessly wondering where to go and what to do. This is where a crazy idea stuck me. Remember the part about living a new life, just for a fleeting few days?

I entered a stationery shop and bought a few chart papers and basic painting kit. I rolled the charts and kept them in my bag but still visible outside. I decided to call myself an artist. Disclaimer: Prior experience with art for me is limited to drawing the mountains and sea and the house with the adjacent coconut tree in third standard. Still, in a stroke of imagination, I became an artist in Pondicherry seeking inspiration for his art in solitude. I decided to reduce conversations with people as much as possible and experience peace. I rode around the beach and sat on the beach for a good hour. A group of youngsters asked me to take a pic of them. Looking at my bag they asked if I was an architect since I was carrying charts and all. I told them I am an artist looking for inspiration for my art. "Paathaale theriyudu boss" - they replied and went along. See? It is simple. Go to a new place. Tell them that you are a rocket scientist. They will believe. Who bothers? (By the way, as I sat there in the beach staring into the horizon, a poem bubbled inside me. I penned it in Tamil later. It might be an interesting read if you are into Tamil and poetry.)

As I was strolling, I spotted a boutique run by Auroville and I walked in to check for any accommodation. Fortunately, the man there suggested an irresistible place for me - a guest house in the middle of a quiet jungle at Kuilapalayam village en route Auroville. A few calls were made and my halt was finalized. The guest house, I must say is a step closer to bliss compared to any other place I have ever been to. That much silence! That much peace. I stayed in the first floor portion with a huge balcony, surrounded by trees and birds with one hanging rope chair tied to a tree. Wow! Of course, I introduced myself as the artist in solitude there too.

For two days I stayed in that guest house conversing mostly with trees, birds, flowers, my bike, sea and very limitedly to humans. In all, I would have spoken around fifty sentences in total. I did not switch off my phone. I wondered if I should do that, lest people spoil the adventure. I just chose to let it go and observe. In total, six people called me and just one person texted me. That's all! Two whole days. Only we think we are always busy and we will get hundred phone calls a day. Slip out of the routine silently for a short while and nobody will observe.

Living up to my new identity, I even tried my hand at art. I just enjoyed playing with colours and tried something new without bothering anything about the results with a child-like curiosity. I managed to do three abstract pieces of art - that's how I would like to call them. Art in a language that only I and the paper will understand; a language through colours and direct thoughts. It was an amazing indulgence.

The ride to Pondicherry - Art by GS

Thrice a day, for food I came out of the jungle to the nearby village and there I enquired the locals about Pichavaram Mangrove forests, a place I have only heard of. I fancied a ride to Pichavaram as a crescendo for this trip. It sounded like a short ride from there. So the next morning, I bade farewell to the guest house and the trees and started riding. Rahul Dravid mode again. Pondicherry to Pichavaram (closer to Chidambaram). I reached the boat house as early as 8 30 AM in a Kadai epo saar thorapeenga style. Boats were just beginning to go into the backwaters and I joined with two interesting men from Bangalore who were very jovial conversationalists. Our boat's driver, a strong man who rowed the boat with his hands, explained to us about the forests and the place and took us on a two hour boat ride. We spotted a few characteristic animals and birds of the mangrove forests and spent the two hours in a very interesting casual conversation with strangers. I needed this conversation to come out of the enforced silence of the past two days to fit back into the society.

By noon today, I started the ride back to Chennai with the road and my bike for company. In a decent ride of around 250 km, I reached Chennai by evening. Photo stoppages were here and there of course. Tomorrow is a monday morning and I hope this little escape will put me in good shape back into the routine. It all looks like a dream for me to recollect the trip now from my study room. The artist may perhaps emerge sometime later again in another escape into anonymity.

As I narrated all this to the room mates this evening - the silence, anonymity, artist bluff, Pichavaram, solo ride - a friend gave me a long stare and said that I need to go and visit some psychiatrist. Of course I am crazy. I am proud of that :-)

Cheers
GS 

This is how people reacted at a real accident scene

A couple of days back in an unforgettable midnight, I witnessed a road accident. What moved me greatly was that I could do more than being a mere witness. I could be of real help in saving a few lives. What inspired me greatly was that I was not alone. I had company. In a godforsaken highway lane at midnight, I had company to help injured people and calm them at their moment of panic. I was part of a crowd. I am proud to be part of this crowd.

Quite recently, several videos on apparent 'social experiments' which capture the reactions of people to emergencies and distress calls were doing the rounds on social media. Most of them were hard-hitting and showing the cold side of human negligence. A friend of mine recently wrote on his wall that the society in stead needed a lot of positive examples showing displays of empathy and humanity coming out of such 'social experiments', because deep inside, constant exposure to videos of negligence and apathy may slowly make the mind numb to situations and trick it into believing that it is okay not to act when a person is dying in front of you. This kept me thinking. Positive examples. Real examples. Reactions of real people in a real situation where people need help.

I believe that what inspired me will inspire several minds. I believe that what reinforced my faith in humanity will also touch several hearts and reassure them that humanity prevails. Hence I write this today.

I was travelling by a bus from Madurai to Chennai on a Sunday night and I was fast asleep. I was woken up when my bus halted roughly and for a few minutes I could not realize what is happening. In a few crucial minutes, I saw people getting down from the bus and running out and I could make out from broken words and conversations that an accident had just happened in front of us. Quite unsure of the happenings, I stepped out of the bus, still a bit sleepy. Once I was out of the silence and darkness inside my bus, I quickly realized adrenalin shooting up inside me.

Just a few metres ahead, I saw a tumbled mini bus. People were running here and there. Along with my bus, another bus had also stopped and passengers from both these buses were already rescuing the injured people out of the damned mini bus. The bus was lying on its side and people were being pulled out of the windows. The front windshield of the bus was cracked into pieces and some of the passengers entered the mini bus through the windshield and were lifting people out of it. Glass pieces were all around. Blood was all around. Panic cries were all around. It was horrible.

Dream Factory

Balaji is a confident young boy who studies at a Corporation School in North Chennai.  He is never shy of talking to strangers and elders confidently in his mother-tongue Tamil. He has seen several foreigners talk fluently in English and has never got an opportunity to talk to any of them. Given a chance, he would try!

Ahmed is a cute and shy young boy studying in Balaji's class. He has an Aryan origin and his relatives stay in the northern parts of India. He stays with his parents in Chennai. He could not figure out where he belongs- not only geographically! He had a problem with memory, communication and confidence. A deadly trio! Any one of these three problems on its own is adequately sufficient to pull someone firmly down to the floor while trying to spread one’s wings. Ahmed was pressed hard by all three of them. His wings were slowly becoming numb to ambitions.

Balaji and Ahmed came together in a group at ‘Kanavu Pattarai’ – a 4-day residential camp that Nalandaway, an NGO, facilitates in association with the Government of Tamil Nadu and Dakshin Chithra – a south Indian heritage centre on Chennai’s East Coast Road.

On the fourth day of the camp, they were standing behind a table with a lot of painted charts, paper masks, balloons, colour papers and their fellow group mates, putting up a display of their learnings and creations accomplished at the camp. Adrenalin levels were soaring high in both their bodies. Their school mates had set up an art exhibition full of their own works and the public touring Dakshin Chithra were invited to drop by and have a look. This is where they met James.

AtoZ #21 - Unknown

Unknown

Sought the unknown. Dived. Bottom missing!

- GS

Image courtesy : Nektarios Sylligardakis

Curious? Check out my introduction to the AtoZ blogging mission of six-word stories. 

Cheers,

GS

AtoZ #20 - Third party

Third party

Chicken or egg. He prefers biryani.

- GS

Image courtesy : gluemoon

Curious? Check out my introduction to the AtoZ blogging mission of six-word stories. 

Cheers,

GS

AtoZ #14 - Negotiator

Negotiator

Heads. I fuck. Tails. You suck. 

-GS

Image courtesy : Swarm Gallery Oakland

Curious? Check out my introduction to the AtoZ blogging mission of six-word stories. 

Cheers,

GS

Under the stars with the homeless and the pseudo-homeless

Photo courtesy: Fountain_Head

I stayed at the Chennai Light house MRTS railway station last night with a bunch of about 50 volunteers who chose to participate in the India - Under the stars event and about the same number of truly homeless people, for whom it is the regular bunking place. I chose to join this event, majorly driven by a curiosity to understand what it feels like to be homeless and to witness in person a few interesting stories. The experience gave me several interesting insights. Hence, I share.

Being single

Have you ever felt that you want to change your relationship status from ‘single’ to another type of ‘single’? Have you ever felt that ‘single’ is too ambiguous for a relationship status? Have you wished for more clarity in being ‘single’? This article will tell you about the seven different categories of being single. Identify which type you are!

The third eye that hears - about Neil Harbisson

I live with a few friends in a bachelor bunk and we had a small screen TV at our home. One fine thunderous night, it lost its ability to show colour and typically impeded by the bachelor negligence, none of us cared to get it repaired or replaced. Every time when India plays a cricket match, we assemble in front of the TV and make a resolution to do something about the TV within a week. And thus we spent almost a year! We were so used to watching TV in black and white that when we finally replaced the TV with another one, we were collectively amazed by the phenomenon of color. It almost brought tears of wonder to my eyes to see a familiar movie song in TV but in colour for the first time. That one year taught me what magic colour can do to your senses.

My grandfather witnessed the magic when black and white movies were replaced by colour movies. My father witnessed the magic when black and white television sets were replaced by colour TVs. It was a magical experience for me to see colour display in a mobile phone after being used to the black and white displays of the early phones. What I witnessed in Neil Harbisson's speech recently took the magical experience of color to the next level.  This is stuff taken straight from the sci-fi stories! But in reality!

Neil Harbisson delivered this speech at the TEDxGateway Mumbai in 2012 and Franklin Templeton Investments partnered the event. 

Neil is a colour-blind person who had a tough time adapting to life in this colourful world before becoming a cyborg. Colour-blindness is never considered to be a very serious physical handicap by us but an affected person like Neil would know what it means to live off-stream. The world speaks in colour. We have colour codes in traffic signals, national identities, food labelling and several other areas in everyday life. Colour-blindness is like touring a foreign country without knowing its language. You are very much there but never there! The painful fact is that the colour-blind ones have to spend all their life as a mere tourist in this colour-speaking world. Neil has made the Cyborg technology his permanent visa to stay in the world and be part of the mainstream with a greatly unique identity to himself.

The 6-word challenge

This post has been published as a part of Chennai Bloggers Club's (CBC) 6-word memoir tag initiative. It is an interesting challenge to sum up one's life in 6 words. It also adds up as a superb relay of introductions to more interesting and exciting people around us.

I thank Somu - the erstwhile poet - for introducing me through his memoir yesterday and passing the baton to me. His blog is a collection of random thoughts and poems in a chronicle mode. Of late, he has shifted his interest from carving words to carving wood and he writes about it in his blog.

Now, to my challenge. As I think of six words to sum up myself, I can come up with this. Two of these six words are positions that I have spent a considerable part of my productive life to achieve. The rest of the four words define my character that made me achieve the first two words.

Entrepreneur. Author. An eternal incorrigible optimist.

I co-founded a creativity hotspot - Spark n' Beyond - with a bunch of equally crazy and passionate creators in 2010 and since then I am living the life of an entrepreneur. It is a life filled with its own ups and downs, joys and pressures, pride and frustrations, a sense of freedom and a standing risk of nobody willing to offer me a bride. It has been a great journey in my life so far and I have invested a lot of my life for this one word. 

The other major half of my life is invested for the second word perhaps. I am a 1-book old author now. I have released a collection of short stories in Tamil- named முதல் போணி. Books fascinate me big-time and I also developed an aspiration to become a writer. Thanks to a few lab-rats who read and reviewed my earliest writings, I can claim confidently that I am no mug with words now. 

The other four words in the memoir define me. I firmly believe that this trait has enabled to me continue in the miles-to-go-before-I-sleep journey with energy and enthusiasm. 

Thanks for expressing interest in knowing me. As is my duty, I pass on the baton to Santhosh Kumar, who is most likely scratching his head for his 6-words now!

Cheers,

GS

Image courtesy: mariachily

Beach cleanup for the olive ridley turtles - Tiruvanmiyur - with CTC and EFI

On February 10, 2013, I chose to wake up early on a Sunday morning and ended up feeling very contented for the decision eventually. Chennai Trekking Club had partnered with Environmentalist Foundation of India to organize a clean-up morning at the Tiruvanmiyur beach, Chennai. This initiative was to keep the beach in a welcome position for the olive ridley turtles that are soon to migrate in masses to these shores to lay eggs. The cause intrigued me and I signed up for the project and managed to convince 2 other friends too to wake up early that day. 

At around 7 AM, I went to the beach and there was already a lot of activity going on. Around 50 volunteers were actively picking up all sorts of garbage from the sands in a particularly ear-marked space in the vast beach and dumping them all in a common place to be collected later. All volunteers were provided with gloves and garbage was collected in many plastic buckets. There was another pile of black garbage bags filled with waste cleaned up on the earlier day. It was pleasing to see the spirit of people participating in the mission. 

The bald truth about cynicism

One question before you read anything in this post. Please take a paper and pencil and list down the ten most cynical men you have met in your life. He can be a famous cynical celebrity; your school's principal; or even your distantly related uncle who has staunch doubts about the Indian economy and your company's future in particular (though he thinks that the MNC where his son works is well hedged against all risks). Now that you have written down the names, count the number of bald men in this list. How many did you get?

If you are at any stage of balding yourself, I bet you will cynically complain about the purpose of this exercise, question my sanity and move on to the next complaint. If not, there are bright chances that your answer contained more than half of names in that list. Why did we do this exercise? Let me take a little detour. I had a recent conversation with a very cynical man on a very sensitive topic. What started as a conversation turned into an argument before culminating in a long 'there is no hope' sermon which I was forced to sit out. Thankfully though, halfway into the sermon, this sudden hypothesis struck me and it seems to grow in logic with time as I think of it. Can baldness be related to cynicism in men ?

As I thought further, most cynical people whom I know turn out to be bald, though the corollary does not seem very convincing. Most cynics are bald. All bald men are not cynics.

My bucket list of biking

Image : Thanks to Michael Wilson photography

Motorcycles and horses have a very close similarity in my thinking and they fascinate me equinely - oops .. equally ! I do not know which passion came first but they feed one another mutually with petrol and oats and a lot of dreams. I admired bikers and horsemen alike when I was a kid and as I grew up, I learned to ride one of them and the other one still remains a distant admiration. Considering that I had to wait till I was 18 and officially approved by the state to ride a bike as per my uber-cautious parents, riding a horse seems quite a distance away in my life yet. But I still have a strong hope on the fuel prices and I am just waiting for the day when I can ride my own horse to work :-) If I were to make a bucket list of things to do before I die, horse-riding will definitely figure in that list (the Marina beach horse rides are only teasers and they strictly do not fill this bill). So, that sets aside the status and story of one passion for now. As you read on further, you will be introduced to my bucket list of biking - things that I have planned to do at various stages in my life associated with motorcycles and my current status for them respectively.

(V)ada paavi !!

Foreword: This post is about a sticky situation I experienced in a North Indian city. To be precise, the city is Pune and I recently understood that people there tend to feel bad when some Southie calls them ‘North’ Indians. Well, please remember what Einstein had to say: ‘It’s all relative, brother’. I am a Hindi-illiterate South Indian whose Hindi knowledge is limited to a few movie names (courtesy: The Khans); ‘Keval ek run milega’ sort of cricket commentaries (courtesy: Doordarshan); some swear words (courtesy: Virat Kohli and Harbhajan Singh) and the ABCD stuff like ‘Thumara naam kya hai? Mera nam blah blah blah hai’ (courtesy: Margoschis Matriculation School , upto 7^th standard). Apart from the poor farmer who lives in that famous Hindi village – some Tamilians say his name is Ragu Thatha – I have no acquaintances either in the Hindi speaking land.

You might have read a few open letters in the blogosphere before and my introduction would have already created the urge in you to grab the nearest available Vel Kambu or lathi -depending on your location-  to prepare for battle. If that be the case, I kindly request you to drop them immediately and focus your mind instead on a degree kaapi or dhai lassi – again depending on your location – and then read on. This post is about a Vada paav and an Appavi (roughly translated to a poor innocent man in Tamil) based on a small language problem. If you still refuse to embrace ahimsa, read my epilogue, make sure you forget my name and immediately close this page.  

Once upon a time in the recent past, I got an opportunity to visit Pune for the first time in my life. The northern most place in India I had ever visited prior to that was Bangalore.  The city threw the usual surprises at me as any new place would do for a first timer. Only Pune seemed to have a unique style and flavour of its own to do so – the paan! It was omnipotent, like God. While I could see paan stains everywhere, I also witnessed another feature of the Almighty through my mobile phone. Just like God, my mobile service provider’s network signal also teased me in that big city. It would never show itself to me and just when I start to lose heart and contemplate atheism, it would give me a fleeting vision and then disappear. There was no network coverage even in the city’s main locations. Even if every friend is important to me, this restricted me from calling any of my friends when I am in dire need of location or translation assistance.

The unusual Vijay fan and the leap of faith

People-watching is a term I used to refer to observing interesting characters who cross you in your daily routine. To read my earlier post on people watching, please click here. This post is a quick bite extension of people-watching adventures. For convenience sake and for some commercial sake, let me call such posts "Anthronicles" from now on...I plan to write a bit more frequently about Anthronicle experiences in here under a separate label..

This particular episode is that of an unusual Vijay fan. For starters who do not know Mr. Vijay (well, I want to write actor Vijay or at least Dr. Vijay but my conscience pricks. However hard I try, that leap of faith seems tough to me. Watch this leap and you will know why) Until yesterday, whenever I think of Vijay and local trains together, I immediately go to an elite feeling of pure innocent joy caused by unadulterated humour (Ok I accept.. not unadulterated ! heroism 20 % humour 80%)

Harley Davidson and the two underwear stories

Out of sheer boredom on a sleepy sunday, I went to the Chennai Elliotts beach alone for some people watching today. (People watching  is a term different from sight-seeing/figure watching/bird watching which is a far vaster terminology inclusive of the latter too). In those four hours, I met some very interesting people who crossed my life. They were only passing clouds and I did not even speak to any of them nor did I see them for more than 2 minutes but these were clouds that formed vivid interesting shapes that stuck to my memory. One by one, here they come!

A story of exams in colleges told in pictures

Cheers
GS

The atheist I admired at the Luz temple

Let us leave the arguments on which side I am going to be in for now. For now, I am neither an atheist nor a theist. This post is about a poor, cheerful, sentimental atheist whom I admired at a Ganesh temple in Chennai recently.

It was the birth day for Ganesha and the famous Luz Pillayaar temple was bustling with cars and crowd like his pot-belly. The time was around 9 30 PM and I get down from the 29C bus and walk towards my shelter at Luz Corner ie five blocks behind Ganesha. As I was crossing the road, I see a cyclist pedalling parallelly to me. As per the theory of relativity, he seemed to be static with my frame of reference as we were both travelling at approximately same speeds. But as per humanity, I sensed a different sense of relativity with the man.

He was pedalling with an old lady in the carrier, whose face was filled with joy and pride. This cyclist was talking to her as he was pedalling and I overheard the conversation as thus: (roughly translated into English)

"Look ! Look at the number of cars and the number of people here. All are people like you...Devoted to God. But not like us.. they are rich. Their biggest concern will be their posh cars and parking spaces even when they are waiting in line to be blessed inside. We are not like them .. We can walk in carefree and drop a prayer or a hello and walk on......

Look at the crowd. Look at the energy and life in this. Forget rich and poor. The festival is for all. What are you doing with your small 'pillayaar' (Tamil name for the Lord Ganesha) at home? If you want to pray and celebrate Chathurthi, do it in style amidst the big fellows in the famous temple.. Won't I take you here ? "

I thought at that moment that he was a pious god-believing mother-loving young worker-class man. In the next few minutes, half of my assumptions turned out to be right and this paradox increased my admiration for him. He stopped his bicycle amidst Corollas and Santros. There was no room to barge into the temple but the sanctum santcorum was visible through the grilled windows outside.

The cyclist finds a position with the best view for his short mother outside the window and talks on...

"Here you go. Now pray and talk to your God. Ask him everything except for making me believe in him. Don't try to go deep inside the crowd. They will squeeze you in the excitement.

If you want to pray, I will make you pray in style. Doesn't matter whether I do or not. I will go buy some stuff and come. Wait here after praying. Don't go inside. I won't be far. I will be within eye-shot only"

Now, hold on,  I thought he too wanted to wish Ganesh when he pedalled his old mother here. What made him bring his mother, who was praying simply in her home with her small clay 'pillayaar', to make her stand amidst the city's top richies at the Luz temple? What status is he looking to showcase? From his talks, I understood that his home must not be in a normal pedalling distance from the temple. So , why?

Whatever, I admired him for respecting his mother's (or anyone's) belief in spite of his atheism. For I know a lot of people who force their opinions on others in sensitive issues- be it atheism, religion or even an IPL team.

I admired him for taking the effort to provide the best Ganesh Chathurthi experience to his mother. How many sons at his social class would bother to make his mother feel 'a part' of the big society at least for an hour?

I admired him for his individuality. Even if he was obliging his mother's wish, he did not give up his stance on God and walked away with this knee-fold lungi to the petty shop at Luz Corner , within his mother's eyeshot.

Seems there were worthy lessons of life to learn from this lungi-clad athletic worker-class atheist. Let his mother be proud !!!

-GS

When was the last time you cried ?

So I had a hunch that young men and young women cry differently , i.e. their crying behaviours are different. A study of buying behaviours can get boring after some time, isn't it? Hence I chose to do a small survey on crying behaviour. I surveyed a set of youngsters. 52 of them responded, 33 men and 19 girls. Interesting were the facts ... Lets see !


I thought men can remember more vividly when they cried last time - my logic : Tears and anger matter a lot when they come out rarely and hence will be remembered a lot. Turns out otherwise. 100 % recollection ratio in girls and men fall slightly behind. Possible logic (?) : You don't forget the last time you had breakfast/dinner (or) quite seriously ... girls keep to their emotional disturbances even after they cry it out or it is a victory memorabilia kind .. to fondly remember that i cried it out and now I am free from that head-ache and now looking for the next reason to wet my eyes.


I asked them what made them cry the last time they did. Not surprisingly, a majority of girls said 'Personal Sorrow'. Surprisingly, 6 % boys said 'Social Injustice'. What do I take from this ? If a child is spotted begging in the streets, some men cry out of sympathy for the child but the girls go a step further and cry for their pledge-related brother (All Indians are my brothers and sisters!!!) ??? Both guys and girls have admitted to venting out their anger in tears in near equal proportions. I guess they should be the heated break-up arguments between them . 

Surprisingly, men admitted to be moved to tears by a touching book or movie three times more in ratios than women. And we always thought that the women need handkerchiefs while watching tear-jerkers !

Then I asked what are the most likely reasons that can make them cry. Certain surprises were answered. Women caught up with the tear-jerker count this time. And they outnumbered men in all 'Personal' - labelled categories now. What do we take ? Women tend to cry out at personal issues and take a lot of issues PERSONAL. And men do the vice versa ?

The next question is the recollection ratio - With what accuracy can you recollect how many times you cried in the last three years? Men led at the extremes. 100% accuracy should mean that the issues had a huge foreground and background and still itch in their minds. <30% recollection is the casual 'I don't even know if I cried' types. Women  lead hands down in the 75 % recollection rate. At hindthought, we can recollect our breakfast menu schedule with almost this accuracy right ? (!)

Then we see how they respond if they were caught moist-eyed by their peers. Sounds like an embarrassing situation right? They say that too loud and clear. Interestingly, men outnumber women in feeling embarrassment, shame, helplessness and even wish to reverse the memory of their peer. I guess, women are quite cool with crying maybe. And men do crave a lot for support than women mind you ! While the women nearly match the men in all the above feelings, they show a very peculiar character in feeling angry (!) when spotted. O, we just thought they were cool with it ... O oh, they also say that women can't be understood easily eh ?

Lets see how cool they are . Strangely both of them find not many problems when their onlooker peer goes on to say to others that he CRIED and actually uses the word CRIED. I, for one, have seen many men evade the word even if spotted, blaming the dust and trivialities. Seems people are cool with it on the surface and then feel the heat inside. 

I remember an occasion two years ago in a dingy boys hostel room where nearly 30 men were packed in a lights-off room watching a movie called 'A Millionaire's First Love' (not porno , the lights-off is for the theatre effect :P ). After the end of the movie, lights went on and every single man in that room had tears in his eyes and believe me, every single man wiped the tears and blamed dust almost as a reflex action. Since everyone was on the same side, we came to a consensus of convenience that there was a lot of dust in the room and it had to be cleaned soon !

For one, men and women, though not distant as between Mars and Venus, seem to have distinct crying behaviours, distant enough to be in the opposite sides of the earth's spectrum.

So, when was the last time you cried ? 

Now say Cheers

GS