The two kiss dilemma!
How you greet people says a lot about you. That’s actually true, though it’s just not relevant right now cos given the social situation that I’m taking, how you greet is really just a norm – step one in a huge list of steps in the procession of a “social” evening.
We all go to them and if you’re a city dweller you can’t run far from the air kisses and the whole shabang! And after years of partaking in the whole nonsense, I’ve come to accept it as just what it is - we play out our roles as is expected of us and the whole night runs like clockwork.
But that’s not what this is about.
It took me a while to evolve and master “the greet”. Having been brought up in a place where EVERYBODY was a friend and you said hi just like you would, I was a bit lost when I was suddenly thrown into this place where you met girls in a whole new way. I became aware of the slight-lean-in-and-cheek-to-cheek. Nothing too fancy, nothing too scary or invasive, just enough to say hey and not push any comfort buttons. And that I could handle. Mind you, those, too, can be tricky. We’ve all had those moments when you lean in when all of a sudden, the greeting party holds out her hand!! Or then there’s all kinds of things that can go wrong when it comes to the hug – you may go in for the hug and then the little cheek to cheek with accompanied muah sound while she may do the hug and that’s it! Oh the awkwardness!
Guess what I’m trying to say is that we’ve all got accustomed to the hug n kiss routine and everything’s fine. Then why the hell would someone go and rock that whole system and come up with the kiss on both cheeks thing!!?!
As grand high pooby (read as supreme being!) of ineptness in social situations, I cannot tell you the kind of havoc this relatively new practice is wreaking on our delicate social systems…cos all of a sudden you have these girls who have suddenly decided that one leans in for the first cheek, and then the other! and the greeter is somehow supposed to know this via some astrally connected network. So what you see (and experience especially if you’re me) is someone who leans in, kisses one cheek and steps back – only to see that the girl has turned the other cheek (forgive me gandhiji!) and is still in mid greeting! And then you smile sheepishly and lean in for the second one while the girl mumbles “two kisses” as if you’re supposed to know that!!
And on the other hand, one might say that just to be on the safe side, you yourself should initiate the “two – kiss.” Well let me tell you, please do so but tread verry carefully, for you could find yourself in an equally embarrassing situation where you could be greeting a “one-kiss” girl!! The disaster writes itself
I guess the main reason why I’m rambling bout the greet and the potential danger at this stage is cos while the greeting may not say a lot about you in these semi-real social events, they damn sure make the difference between a pleasant chat (or more who knows!) and hours of standing around awkwardly trying to find one’s bearings all over again.
And so I’ve decided that there’s gotta be some sorta sign! Something to say “hey, I’m a two-kiss greet kind of girl.” Happiest time for me (for this stuff) was at a family wedding some years ago where the girl’s family was French. On day one, they said “we are French, so we say hello by kissing on both cheeks.” Till date, and for the rest of my life, saying hi to them will be stress free and great (great cos there’s a certain small kick one gets when conforming to so called sophisticated customs smoothly!). Of course one can’t hope for that always but there’s gotta be some system. And maybe that’s what I’ll have to evolve over hours and days and years of meet n greets. Tirelessly I will move from party to party forever searching for that hint! And hopefully all you future greetees whom I intend to at least embarrass once in the process, forgive me! I am, after all, like all of us, a work in progress.
Thursday
Saturday
Chickens are doomed!!
lets face it, chickens are screwed!
throughout history (or as much history as i have gathered through years of schooling, tv documentaries, and good movies!) the chicken has always sufferred.
For one thing, no religion in the world protects it. Cows are spared and even worshipped in India cos of their being regarded as holy by Hindus. Pigs are spared by muslim countries as they are considered dirty.....but thats it. no religion says "the chicken is sacred." Even through ancient times, paegan rituals, roman / greek / barbarian religious practices all involved sacrifices and all but wouldnt you know it, chickens (amongst other birds) were right up there with all the buffaloes and goats on the sacrifice blocks! I mean sure cows and pigs and all other animals do get killed but they are relatively better off.
a little while back it looked like there was going to be some respite for them with the outbreak of SARS bringing about an overnight decline in people eating the bird (i suspect that the whole SARS thing was an undercover mission carried out by the special chicken task force to stop the continuous massacre) and guess what? that actually ended up messing them up even more - thanks to the outbreak, a whole mess of them were down with a killer virus, and the rest of them were torched just in case!
and forget man's role in all this, lets look at what the creator / divine light / energy / powers-that-be / nature / gaya went and did - look at the chicken! It's a plump small bird that can't fly or run to save it's life - literally!! It doesn't have particularly sharp claws or a deadly beak, infact no real protective mechanism at all! so what chance does it have against earth's greatest hunter?!
to add insult to injury, even the damn eggs don't have a chance! I mean, even cows and goats are eaten but they do have other functions too - milk, cheese, wool etc., but our bird really doesnt have a whole lot to do except eat, screw, lay eggs so they can be eaten, and when they get bored of that, get eaten themselves!
while all these things are factors for the chicken's ill fate, the number one reason, the real driving force behind all the above is that they are frickin delicious!! and to make matters worse, its healthy too. can you imagine?? beef and mutton consumption has slowed up owing to how unhealthy all that red meat is, and now all of a sudden, chicken is a healthy choice. so no relief there! i googled chicken recipes and i got 3,840,000 results. granted that a lot of those may be overlapping but im willing to bet there must be atleast 20,000 ways to cook the damn thing. and we humans can be pretty insensitive when it comes to that too! not only do we do slice and dice the poor thing up in every which way, but we've even concocted recipes that involve shoving a big fat lemon up it's pooper! i mean come ooon...first you take this thing's life, then you strip it, and then violate it!! and what about exotic dishes like meat loaf stuffed with chicken?! the poor bird could've actually skipped being in that dish alltogether but hey! if we can find a way to add some chicken to a dish, we'll do it!
and god bless the selfless chicken for not even being an endangered species or showing any signs of getting extinct.
so people there you have it, the chicken is here to stay, and i'm off to KFC to pay my respects!
lets face it, chickens are screwed!
throughout history (or as much history as i have gathered through years of schooling, tv documentaries, and good movies!) the chicken has always sufferred.
For one thing, no religion in the world protects it. Cows are spared and even worshipped in India cos of their being regarded as holy by Hindus. Pigs are spared by muslim countries as they are considered dirty.....but thats it. no religion says "the chicken is sacred." Even through ancient times, paegan rituals, roman / greek / barbarian religious practices all involved sacrifices and all but wouldnt you know it, chickens (amongst other birds) were right up there with all the buffaloes and goats on the sacrifice blocks! I mean sure cows and pigs and all other animals do get killed but they are relatively better off.
a little while back it looked like there was going to be some respite for them with the outbreak of SARS bringing about an overnight decline in people eating the bird (i suspect that the whole SARS thing was an undercover mission carried out by the special chicken task force to stop the continuous massacre) and guess what? that actually ended up messing them up even more - thanks to the outbreak, a whole mess of them were down with a killer virus, and the rest of them were torched just in case!
and forget man's role in all this, lets look at what the creator / divine light / energy / powers-that-be / nature / gaya went and did - look at the chicken! It's a plump small bird that can't fly or run to save it's life - literally!! It doesn't have particularly sharp claws or a deadly beak, infact no real protective mechanism at all! so what chance does it have against earth's greatest hunter?!
to add insult to injury, even the damn eggs don't have a chance! I mean, even cows and goats are eaten but they do have other functions too - milk, cheese, wool etc., but our bird really doesnt have a whole lot to do except eat, screw, lay eggs so they can be eaten, and when they get bored of that, get eaten themselves!
while all these things are factors for the chicken's ill fate, the number one reason, the real driving force behind all the above is that they are frickin delicious!! and to make matters worse, its healthy too. can you imagine?? beef and mutton consumption has slowed up owing to how unhealthy all that red meat is, and now all of a sudden, chicken is a healthy choice. so no relief there! i googled chicken recipes and i got 3,840,000 results. granted that a lot of those may be overlapping but im willing to bet there must be atleast 20,000 ways to cook the damn thing. and we humans can be pretty insensitive when it comes to that too! not only do we do slice and dice the poor thing up in every which way, but we've even concocted recipes that involve shoving a big fat lemon up it's pooper! i mean come ooon...first you take this thing's life, then you strip it, and then violate it!! and what about exotic dishes like meat loaf stuffed with chicken?! the poor bird could've actually skipped being in that dish alltogether but hey! if we can find a way to add some chicken to a dish, we'll do it!
and god bless the selfless chicken for not even being an endangered species or showing any signs of getting extinct.
so people there you have it, the chicken is here to stay, and i'm off to KFC to pay my respects!
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