Playboy , or SRK

Till a few years back I faced a big social disability -it was tough for me to be comfortable when talking to girls. In a way this is a problem with many techies in India, with such skewed sex ratio in engineering colleges. And I did my grad from a place with near zero sex ratio. In a way this social disability starts much earlier. In schools and colleges in conservative places girls always move together in groups, sit together and eat together during recess.

But that was a different time. Today girls acknowledge, even complain, that I am a big flirt. Without ego or pride I would like to say that yes I am. Of course I haven't reached the level where you can bring orgasm to a girl just by talking to her, but still I am not bad.

Myths and Realities
It is said that flirting is an art. Yes and no. Flirting is both a science and an art. It is a science because there are some basic strategies that flirts use. It is an art because every woman is a piece of art. Everytime you flirt with a woman you flirt with a different person with different thoughts, different figure, and different looks. Hence a good flirt has to adjust his flirting for every girl.

Some people consider flirting in a negative sense. According to them flirting is a strategy to manipulate girls and ultimately to take her to bed. Its an unfair game in which the ones who are genuine but do not know flirting lose out. In the movie Bachna Ae Haseeno, Randhir Kapoor is the charming hero who sweeps every woman off her feet, uses her, then ditches her. Kunal Kapoor, on the other hand, has genuine feelings but can't get his wife's love because he can't express himself. At one point he accuses Randhir of using girls and leaving them hurt just because he has flirting skills. Such movies reinforce the negative perceptions of flirts. Flirting can be dangerous. A good flirt can make a girl fall in love with him in minutes. Not every girl, but the teenage girl who hasn't seen much of the world. And a girl in love is in danger. She can do anything for the man she loves.

So now I introduce the concept of ethical flirting. Filrting is defined in Wordweb as "Talk or behave amorously, without serious intentions". I contradict. Flirting is about making a girl feel special. It is about giving genuine compliments to a girl. women are the most beautiful things on this planet. Every woman is beautiful in her own way. An ethical flirt understands this. He knows that if he is in the company of a girl he is lucky to be in the company of that girl. And in return for her company he should let her know how special she is.

Another myth: either you are a born flirt or you are not a flirt. There is nothing like a born criminal or born genius or born hero (even Harry Potter was marked by Voldie after his birth) or a born flirt. Yes its true not everyone can learn the art of flirting. Not everyone can learn the art of drawing or singing; similarly not everyone can perfect the art of flirting. But if you can learn to express yourself to the one woman who matters, you are not a bad flirt.

As regards the art, it comes with practice. But for practice you need exposure to girls. Because of the deprived social conditions in schools and colleges many people avoid girls. Girls are an altogether different species who arouse anxiety; so you avoid them. What's the use? There is just one problem: you got to marry a girl. But in Indian society even that is not a problem: mom makes my food, mom has stitched my dress, mom has helped me choose my career, mom will get me a woman. Many who have the potential to be great flirts do not get a chance to be so because they do not give themselves the opportunity.

Be a flirt, if not for yourself at least for the women in your company. They deserve the best.

The science of flirting

This is addressed to Mr Dummy. To be a flirt, first make some assumptions and believe in them. Girls are dumb, and there are no exceptions. This is not empirically proved and this need not be true. But it should not stop you from assuming so. Why I ask you to believe in this otherwise sexist statement is because it will increase your confidence, your self-efficacy. If you think a girl is sophisticated or smarter you have already lost half the battle. This is mostly the case with small town guys in relation to city girls. You see a babe in funky dresses and parlour make up who speaks good english and walks like a model and you immediately think: she is way out of my league. So remember dummy. Girls are dumb. You are a dummy. They are never out of your league.

Now some guidelines as to how to start flirting (remember, this is not exhaustive):

Every woman is beautiful. Not everyone realises that. Read my blog on maals and you will know how derogatory men's attitude can be towards a girl who does not look attractive. Problem is in our society atttractiveness is measured by how fair, or how slim a girl is. This will take you nowhere. Look closely at a girl and you will find a hundred positives about her. And you can do so only if you have that kind of attitude.

Start appreciating things. Things include everything around. Appreciate the beauty of nature, of the busy city road you travel, of the grocery store owner, of cute old people. If there are positive vibes coming out of you it means you have a charming personality. Secondly it will help you appreciate things. To be an ethical flirt you first need to appreciate the girl. Some people have the art of lying, but most are not convincing liars. Besides this blog is about ethical flirting.

Be expressive. Try to be frank. When talking to a girl, take liberties. And stop thinking what she would think of what you say. If she does not take something in a light spirit explain your perception to her. She would appreciate your frankness if she understands you. You have to make her understand you.

Make her comfortable. Now this is not possible if you yourself are not comfortable. To be comfortable you need to be confident. No fumbling business here. Again stop worrying about what she thinks about you. She is keenly watching your body language. So be confident, be yourself. This is an area in which even I lack. But if you can make her feel comfortable you can talk just about anything with her.

Depth. Oh yes girls like depth. No generalization but girls, even the ones who don't understand what depth is, prefer guys with depth in them. So talk to them about issues you strongly feel about. If you have had a former relationship do mention it. Exaggerate yourself as the victim who loved but did not get love in return. This has multiple utilities:
  1. You show her depth of your feelings
  2. She pities you
  3. Now that she knows your history (which is actually your version of your history) she thinks she understands you.
Look into her eyes. Now I am moving on to behavioural aspects of flirting. It is said that eyes are the route to a person's soul. I am not the kind of person who believes in that soul crap, but then, most flirts talk a lot about soul. If you believe in soul try to search for it in the girl's eyes. And appreciate her eyes if they are worth appreciating. Does it remind you of someone? Do you see your reflection in those eyes? Do you find the eerie? Yeah even if you find her eyes eerie or frightening do tell her. A flirt can romanticize anything and everything. You still make her feel special. She is the witch who has flown into your life on a magic broom. She may be a boon or curse. Only time will tell. By telling this you foster a special relation with her that of witch and the bewitched.

Your eyes. You are not good at words? So what, you can still be a flirt. Your eyes convey a lot. If you have seen Unbearable lightness of Being, you would know how Daniel Day-Lewis influences women just by looking at them. Flirting is just about appreciating a woman without being ashamed of it. Have you looked a girl closely from head to heel? Take her on a walk and gaze at her. Look what effect this has on her. You make her feel that she is the only thing worth looking at in this wide world. And trust me, you don't have to act. You can look at a woman for hours, yet won't get tired. Her nose, those lips, the hair, that figure, her fingers damn all of it you can keep watching for long hours.

Timing. With girls timing always matters. This again is a weak area for me. Must say I have an average sense of humour, but am little slow. So witty comments aren't my piece of cake. Another arena where timing matters is in doing dirty talk. Girls are way open to dirty talk than we think, but there is a timing to it. When you talk dirty with a girl for the first time, she needs high comfort level and lots of privacy. After the first time she is generally comfortable.

PJs. Girls like, nay love, poor jokes. Sorry, this is not just a stereotype but also a sexist accusation. So pals you find out for yourself. But if your girl loves PJs you don't really need that sense of humour she wants in her man. What she calls sense of humour is actually sense of cracking pathetic jokes. Perhaps that's why PJ king Vaibhav Jain is more popular among girls than you are.

Attitude towards women. The female gender has been an oppressed and deprived section of society for a long time. Since birth they have been treated differently from boys. They always have a lingering question in their mind: why these double standards? Owing to this common sentiment, women usually identify with issues of the female gender in society. So when you talk about dowry, rape, molestation, eve teasing etc show some sensitivity. A girl might make some funny remark about rape or working women, but don't you fall into that trap. Show some concern (need not be genuine).


I will be adding some more guidelines later. Remember these are just guiding forces that my gurus told me about flirting, and those that I found useful. That's why flirting is a science. There is a way to go about it. But to be a really good flirt, you need to develop that art.

The art of flirting

Now dude this is where I cannot help you. Let me tell you why with an example:

You look like a dream

Now if a guy tells this to a girl what does it mean? A girl is a girl. She is made of flesh and has eyes, hands, legs, a pair of... you know; and a dream. Its a dream. It is in your head. How can you compare a girl with a dream? That is what I used to wonder on a friend's favourite pick up lines. This is where you go abstract. A person cannot be romantic and realistic at the same time. A romantic person necessarily has to be abstract. Because he is abstract he can see the connection between a dream and a girl; or a girl's eyes and the deep blue sea; or her forehead and the wide sky.

Regarding the art of flirting I have just one advice for you. Be indulgent and exaggerate. A good story writer, it is said, is one who writes reality. But then what makes him good? He exaggerates facts to make it fiction. Similar is the case of a good flirt. He marks those little things that a girl does, appreciates them, thinks about them, and exaggerates them.

So dude, be the flirt...

Sheeeeessshhh

Some wise man had once said that to learn a new language, there are four major steps: first, learn how to greet girls in that language. Second, learn its slangs. Third, learn commonly used words, and lastly learn the grammar. This wise man may not be absolutely correct (may be because the wise man I refer to is me: this is my theory) but makes a strong point: the importance of slangs to a language. Language survives culture by being a common means of communication between people of that culture. While languages are as varied as cultures are, there are some similarity between various languages. One of these is the nature of slangs.

In every language you find slangs... and there are similarities of semantics cutting across language barriers. For instance, the fact that the mother-son attachment is special in all mankind, a common slang in all languages is mother-fucker, or what they call mader-chod in Hindi, lanja kodaka in Telugu and aii-zhavedaa in Marathi. Yet, the display of slangs in public, or in literature, varies from culture to culture. The usage of maderchod in Hindi is as widespread as motherfucker is in English. Yet, the mention in Hindi literature, and films, of slangs is very low. This may be because ours is a hypocritical society. For instance, we talk of karma and dharma, while at the same time engaging in inhuman activities towards untouchables.

My first brush with slangs

I was then in class seven... or may be six. I learnt the word "Bokka" then. Anything that is a taboo always arouses curiosity and excitement in children's circle. No wonder, magian had the same effect. At first, we knew not the literal meaning of the term. Then slowly the meaning became clear, as the dawn of adolescence drove away the ignorance of innocence. Then I learnt other Telugu slangs, and later hindi slangs. It was fashionable to swear at a friend, just to show that you dare defy the taboos of society.

Both in school days and +2 days, I have marked that Hindi and Telugu slangs suffered from an inferior status to English slangs. Those who prefer to swear in english seemed to believe that they are more polished and refined, and that vernacular slangs are the stuff used by street children and the illiterate. It is unfortunate that while Dick and lauda mean the same thing, one was fashionable while the other was looked down upon. Perhaps the colonial hangover of English favouritism hasn't even left slangs: slangs, which mean the same thing cutting across barriers of caste, creed, race etc.

College Days

An individual from middle class background best understands the real essence of gaalis -bhasas -in an engineering college. You get to know that there is more to a slang than the semantic meaning. The word maderchod, for example, assumes several meaning depending on the feelings with which it is expressed. If someone cracks a seven-digit-a-year package in campus placement, you say

"phod diya be maderchod, phod diya"

If someone cracks a PJ, or spreads some funny gossip, you fondly say

"Hat maderchod, shut your chut mouth up"

If someone is shagging behind closed doors and you want to spoil his bliss, you bang on the door and say

"Nikal maderchod. Abe that porn star looks like your sister"

If you want a favour from someone, you affectionately say

"Mera homework kar de na maderchod... I will treat you a maggi at Cheddies"

And pat will come the reply " Mujhe chutia samajh rakha hai kya... itna chuda hua code and just a maggi? Nothing less than a mader dinner in LS will do" Here the word means four-course.

As my friend satyanand  says, slangs are an expression of feelings -both positive and negative. Ironically, in engineering colleges slangs only imply positive emotions. If you want to insult a chap and you blurt out the word maderchod, the whole dialogue gets diluted. Hence, never use bhasa when you want to really hurt the person concerned. Use shudh, pure language.

Besides maderchod, there are two other common gaali specializing on the incest: behenchod and betichod. This is where Hindi diverges from English. In English you don't find common slangs like sister-fucker or daughter-fucker -nor do they sound like good slangs. But behenchod and betichod are quite cool gaalis. For instance, if there is a chutia around who thinks it is really bad to use the gaali maderchod, you can use the word betichod for him (just see to it that he doesn't have a kid). These are usually the people who have been over-socialized into values and morals by their parents; they would even feel guilty if you say they fuck their wives, and strongly deny the accusations.

Now, do you know when to use the word behenchod? I mean, I have often seen people use the word maderchod at places where behenchod is more suitable and behenchod at places where maderchod sounds better. The advantage of behenchod over maderchod is that you can screw the syntaxes to produce varied sounds. For example, there is behenchod, and there are versions like vhanchod, bhaaaanchod, and benchod. Due to this, the effect of behenchod is more than that of maderchod when you intend to have a dramatic stretch.


Colours of Gaali

Psychologist Carl Jung had once said that there is a collective unconscious that pervades throughout mankind. This collective unconscious is a psychic entity that an individual inherits from his/her previous generation. Most gaalis, I believe, are archetypes of this collective unconscious. In every language you will find slangs concerning mothers (she got knocked and preggie before marriage/ she is a slut/ whore/ she has incest relations etc), and genitals. Yet, it is incorrect to state that Dick and Lund mean the same thing, or Dick and Dong for that matter. It is not just the semantic meaning but also the feelings attached that finally make a word. Lund, chut, gaand, and their derivatives have multiple usages in Hindi grammar.

Lauda means someone who is a Dickhead, Landura means an Idiot. Ling, on the other hand, is used in reference to Lord Shiva and His hugeness, that even porn stars are jealous of. Ma-Ka-Lauda again has a reference to mothers.

Chutia is perhaps the most used slang in usage in Hindi belt of India. It really is a harmless word, meaning idiot, or fool, or stupid depending on the context in which it is used. Still it is a taboo for the simple reason that etymologically it means someone who has come out of a chut. I wonder who hasn't. The word chut itself is seldom used, though in IIT Delhi it had become a fad by the time I reached final year.

"Abe chut, why haven't you met your project guide. He is really pissed and is ready with a khada hua lund for you"

"Chutad, you don't even know how to hack into a porn site"

"That's a chutiatic comp you have. What is it, P2? It is even slower that P2 processor"

And then there were other derivates like chut-ke-dhakkan, chut-ke-baal (also called jhant), pink chut, kaali chut, chutiapa etc. Those days I used to force my friends to read my short stories. Those who got frustrated with it used to say "Abe chutiapa mat kar, ask someone else to read it. I read only Champak and Mastram"

Another word, bhonsadi, again means cunt. This word is quite popular in UP and Bihar (and areas where migrants from these states have settled) but not used quite often elsewhere. Bhonsdi wale means one who has come out of a cunt. Surprisingly, in most engineering colleges where UP bhaiyajis and Biharis have a dominance. this word is used as a title to address the dearest of friends.

At this point, I must explain the conceptual difference between chut and bhonsadi. Even I wasn't conceptually clear on this, so I referred to my friend ACIT Sridhar Dora. According to him, a burr is a virgin cunt, while a bhonsadi is one in post-delivery period. A chut is a cunt which isn't virgin but hasn't yrt delivered. I know this sounds sick, but as a scholar my job is to maintain value-neutrality in presenting facts. Also the usages of the two terms bhonsadi wale and chutia are vastly different

"This new prof in vlsi lab is a big chutia. I don't know what he is up to"
"Bhonsadi wale, he is a little strict so u think he is chutia. Trust me, he is quite sharp"

Gaand has become such a colloquial word that it no longer borders in the area of taboo slangs. Yet, the censor board is wary of letting moviemakers use it in movies: shows the kind of hypocrisy existing in our society. A band from XLRI even uses this word in one of its compositions: "Tere gaand mein danda re...".

Creativity and Gaali

If you have watched the Irish movie "lock, stock and two smoking barrels", you know how the flavour of gaalis can be harnessed to make creative prose, poetry, and motion pictures. My personal favourite in the movie is: "...cunt you make it sound as if it is as tough as climbing mount-fucking-everest?"
Unfortunately, this is an area which hasn't yet been explored to that extent in vernacular language media. Luckily, you get many chances to hone your gaali-creativity skills during ragging in engineering colleges. For example, during ragging session in a wing in my hall in Delhi, I was asked to give an innovative gaali to another wing. I shouted at the top of my voice to the fellows in the other wing,

"Teri maa ko antenna pe dalke chodunga
Tera baap tv mein dekhke muth marega"

Gaali as a way of life

There are some people for whom gaalis are a way of life. They can't do without swearing in every sentence. Take, for example, my friend Sravan Kumar. He used to start his day with the chant of Modda (Telugu for Dick) and kept using the work in every sentence till his mouth shut with sleep at the end of the day.

"Modda whose class we have today?"
"Modda I am hungry"
"Modda I need to pee"
"Modda I like that maal"
"Modda you are a good friend of mine" etc

He also used to make use of innovative slangs like ghodagian (horse fucker), mendhagian (sheep fucker), bengagian (frog fucker) etc. Unfortunately, he is married now and has reformed quite a lot. The world of slang-lovers has lost a great patron.

By the way, if u want to meet some great patrons of slang, meet some Jats from Delhi. In their characteristics accent, they make use of many colourful slangs. A Jat property broker in Delhi who had fixed me a room for my UPSC preparations used to use some sort of slang in almost every sentence. He often referred to his youngest son as a maderchod because the fellow was useless and did no work!

"...see! His elder brothers have all got some good jobs. I ask this maderchod to at least help me in my business, but he doesn't care"

(Note: I shall be back with another blog entry on this topic soon. This one is going to be well-researched and will include colours of slang in many other Indian languages. If the training classes continue to be this boring, I may become an expert in gaalis of all 21 languages in schedule 8 of the constitution)