My stomach is spazzing painfully at the moment. I fear the lukewarm puri with curry I had for breakfast. I like to think I have a sixth sense about food infected bacterially. That I can see into my meal and analyze it molecular essence and that this is my super power. Such delusions help me when I am traveling and eating and chai-ing from roadside table stalls. Anywho. I had many adventures this week. I will tell some stories and try to do pictures next week when the cyberworld is less clogged with orkuters.

You know what’s surprising about life (at least to me)? It doesn’t stop sucking just because you’ve been though a whole lot and deserve a break. The best you can hope for is that you learn from Life and manage to handle the new suck better so it doesn’t get as bad as before. Here’s hoping for the best.

Walking down Brigade Road, I passed the usual stock group of boys hanging out in front of the mall. Today. I also saw a Muslim woman in full parda chillin’ with the boys. Her legs wide apart, arms rested on her knees, dark kohl-rimmed almond eyes blazing out. Un. Expected. Made me smile.

I blogged about the 1930s husband/wife scale before.

Well, it’s an internet quiz now. I pretend to be a wife AND a husband to mix it up. Smiles The results are umm… interesting. I swear I wasn’t trying to be clever with this.

Take the test

My scores:

-1 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Poor (Failure) Take the test!

73 As a 1930s husband, I am Superior Take the test!

Umm. I can’t think of a more accurate title for this guy’s difficult-to-believe douche-like consistency.

Via Wikio

I love this picture. (Via Daily Dish)

Quote of the Day:

He needs to see how bad it is down here. — Bush Survivor

For those moments when home feels so far away and so long ago, and my heart shrinks from the largeness of what it has to face.

Via La Chola

Precious Lord, take my Hand

Precious Lord, take my hand
Lead me on, let me stand
I am tired, I am weak, I am worn
Through the storm, through the night
Lead me on to the light
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home

When my way grows drear
Precious Lord linger near
When my light is almost gone
Hear my cry, hear my call
Hold my hand lest I fall
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home

When the darkness appears
And the night draws near
And the day is past and gone
At the river I stand
Guide my feet, hold my hand
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home

Precious Lord, take my hand
Lead me on, let me stand
I’m tired, I’m weak, I’m lone
Through the storm, through the night
Lead me on to the light
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home

Video: Mahalia Jackson

… is lame.

I have little doubt that in our universe, women who enjoy sex are considered un-trustworthy. Odd and limited in number. Our society doesn’t much like women making their own choices about sex, and if they do, they better not have as much fun making them as men. If women have multiple partners, they have low self-esteems. Porn stars and sex workers don’t enjoy sex—they are oppressed and exploited. And women who enjoy sex are “sexually aggressive” and a freaky oddity. Right?

The idea of a woman who has a lot of sex and enjoys it is still fraught with worry. There is the whiff of an old fear that if women’s sexuality got too potent, we might take over the world with our voracious vaginas. Not to mention bulging wombs. My personal fun theory of this fear is that back in the olden days, it freaked somebody out when a human being emerged out of a woman. Ever since that day, we have insisted on re-telling the event with all this sacred, purpose-of-life narrative, dictated by some of the most strict guidelines.

But I digress. This post is about orgasms.

I was watching Seinfield last week. Elaine was pink with pride as she talked about how in the past, she has faked orgasms convincingly. I realized that this is not an uncommon meme. In our popular imaginations, women routinely fake enjoyment during sex. There is the infamous scene in When Harry Met Sally with Meg Ryan climaxing after her pie. In both these instances, these characters are meant to be sexy somehow for their theatrical absence of pleasure. And it annoyed the crap out of me.

I have no clue if this is true in real life. I don’t know if there is a horde of women out there routinely faking orgasms. If anything, I am sure it’s not true. But it doesn’t really matter. What is floating around is this idea that faking an orgasm is a clever move. This—in my non-sexpert opinion—does several insidious things.

For one thing, it furthers a myth that women’s orgasms are mysterious and difficult to come by. It discourages honest discourse during intimacy. And worse, it suggests that women are selfless and good sexual partners by faking.

When in doubt if something is problematic, oolta the gender. Can you imagine a guy bragging about how he couldn’t achieve an erection? About how he was so tired and bored during the act, that he just faked the finish? Is that sexy? Clearly not. It’s a source of concern. A problem that needs a solution. Not the logical solution to a problem.

I walked right into it this afternoon. An innocous phone call to a friend asking if he wanted to have lunch turned into a menacing walk through a mob of angry protestors outside JC Nagar’s police station. You know that feeling? You are walking around, head-bobbing to Missy Elliot’s “Get your freak on” on your i-pod and suddenly find yourself in the midst of communal violence and police in your neighborhood. Or maybe that’s just me.

Nothing too terribly exciting happened. Thankfully. I do dumb things, and I should stop. Like walking into a crowd of angry, riot-ready mob while remaining female. And ipod-wearing. A group of dudes stopped me, and suggested I turn around. I could see the clear road ahead a few steps away. So I said, it’s okay I will just pass through. There were a lot of police around who did nothing to reduce my nervousness. So I passed un-bothered, un-molested and un-harmed. A free pass. I consider myself fairly fearless which is, in fact, a synonym for stupidity. Things change in an instant. It can get crazy scary so quickly. I could have lost my i-pod.

Apparently some sadist painted or poured pig’s blood all over the mosque near our neighborhood. Fucked up. Anyway. No big deal. It will pass.

Update: Here’s the only news article I could find by googling. Which is…WTF. The Section 144 slapped on JC Nagar just means a curfew. It’s a lot less exciting than it sounds. This is the first time I am hearing of any torched buses. I did hear that someone got knifed in Shivaji Nagar–Unconfirmed. Everything is fine this morning though. There’s less of a clog of people in the JC Nagar Main Road, and more traffic elsewhere in the city. There are random police hanging around looking pointless. Otherwise it’s buisness as usual.