What girls hate about boys

• Cannot hold his drink.
• Grouchy with compliments.
• Fights to show his strength.
• Show offs.
• Loud mouths/ eternal braggarts.
• A smoking geek.
• Two timing.
• Unmoved by sensitive movies.
• Has no respect for the opposite gender.
• Considers friendship with a girl as just another feather in his cap.

Fashion notes for every woman

Available today are scores of fashion magazines, both foreign and local, containing suggestions, illustrations and advice on how to be well dressed. As a result, it is heartening to find that a large percentage of women do spend time with their appearance and manage to achieve results that are eminently satisfactory. Colourful, gay and smart, they grace any occasion and are indeed a delight to behold.

However, there are other women who still find the business of getting an ensemble together difficult or nerve-racking, and who would, therefore, welcome a few practical hints.

With the vast assortment of fabrics—silk, cotton, wool and  man-made textiles—to choose from, and priced to suit every purse, there is no reason why good dressing and good grooming can not be achieved by each one of us.

No longer need the working girl envy her more fortunate and wealthy sister, for with sound commonsense, an eye for detail, and a little guidance, she too can be chic, confident and poised— secure in the knowledge that she is not a whit less attractive.

Though good taste and the ability to dress well is inherent in some—like a talent for painting or music-nevertheless those minus this gift can cultivate it and thus overcome any errors of judgement they might otherwise commit.

Despite the fact that America and England too are now going in for high couture and have their own fashion designers, yet France remains the leader in this particular field—with Paris as its hub.

In the West, exquisite and expensive custom-made clothes are the prerogative of the wealthy. We orientals have the advantage over them in being able to order ‘the tailor round the corner’ or one’s favourite ‘darzee’ to ‘run up’ an elegant dress or a cute choli in no time at all and at very little cost! The really good ones are surprisingly able and proud of their fine workmanship—seen in the beautiful finish given to the garments they make. And they are competent and will produce for you an exact replica of a Paris gown or a Chinese dress—in fact, just, about anything!

There are many who believe that a woman should fit herself to the prevailing mode and thus always be in fashion. This theory is fundamentally wrong, for certain styles are extreme, and look well only on the willowy mannequin—with the ideal figure for modelling and showing off clothes to advantage. Unfortunately, most of us do not fall in this envied category. So, the best thing we can do is to study ourselves and dress accordingly, instead of following the dictates of fashion blindly.

One can allow the general trend while modifying or eliminating unsuitable features so that what one wears is becoming to one’s own particular self. Thus, the world of fashion has finally arrived at the decision that the woman is more important than the dress she wears!

Pierre Balmain, French expert on women’s clothes was iodized by the elite of Europe for his magnificent ‘creations’. His ideas on points which we should remember if we are to appear elegant and attractive, are excellent guides to good dressing. We pass them on to you:

He says, ‘Fashion does not seek to change the woman. It is the changing woman and the clothes she requires for her mode of life that causes fashion to alter.’

Therefore, let your activities rather than your age govern the choice of clothes you buy.

But here too he feels that discretion and good taste are essential, as that which is suitable for a young, lithe teenager would hardly do for an elderly woman even though she is slimmer and spry.

First create the basic colour scheme of an outfit, and then introduce touches of colour to break the monotony and lend drama. ‘The more colours you put together, the more knowledge you need to do it successfully’, says Balmain.

The woman with a limited amount of money to spend on a wardrobe should go in for a few super ensembles—plain but smart. Ring the changes with a variety of interesting accessories.

The combination of colours in dress and choice of accessories is a fair indication of a woman’s personality, for they reflect her taste.

‘A small piece of real jewellery of good quality is better than a large piece of inferior quality’ insists Pierre. He also suggests that costume jewellery when used should be large and lavish.

Then, as a final word on the subject of fashion, Balmain admonishes that ‘a woman should never relinquish any of her weapons’ if she is to appear utterly feminine and desirable! This, I agree, is especially important as women today work side by side with men in business, profession or career, and it would be dull and tiresome if both sexes wore pants and swaggered around with a masculine air!

Decision –making

Decision-making is an integral part of life. We are all, consciously or subconsciously, constantly involved in decision-making. This means choosing from among two or more alternatives. It involves identifying and evaluating alternatives, selecting and implementing them and then following up on there.

Our decision-making behaviour is determined by the anticipated result of our actions. We operate according to well-established modus operandi that are not always appropriate. Most of us have a narrow vision of the alternatives available and are simply afraid of trying something new. Daily life is a constant process of decision making. Which range from out trivial and mundane ones, such as what to wear or eat, to crucial and important ones like whom to marry or what position to accept.

We feel our judgment is imperfect because we are prone to make poor decisions, even under the best of conditions. People become losers when they make a basic mistake at a turning point. A crucial error predisposes one to repeat the same mistake. Having gone in the wrong direction, we continue that way, going farther and farther away from our goals.

We become inextricably enmeshed in our mistakes. Life becomes more and more twisted. The only way out is to discover our original mistake and try to rectify it.

To become winners, we must judiciously weigh the advantages and disadvantages of each decision. We must operate from a cognitive rather than an emotional framework. We must develop confidence in ourselves. This will promote the confidence to decision make right. This lack of decision-confidence results in, hesitation and procrastination to make decisions.

We must develop confidence in our decisions. This means we need to firmly decide to do something and carry it through. There is, of course, an element of risk in this. What is required is decisional entrepreneurship. We need to learn to take risks.

Learn to be happy

Satisfaction defies precise definition. However, it implies enough quantity as well as quality. Enough is a dynamically relative term. What is enough for one may, and usually, not be enough for another. There is no uniformity or universality about ’enough’ or satisfaction.

 Moreover what is enough in a given situation or a set of circumstances may not be enough in another. The reception of satisfaction is like a mirage — a psychological illusion. The closer you get to it, the farther it moves or disappears altogether. It does not exist in absolute terms. It plays hide-and-seek with us. Sometimes it is there, sometimes not. It appears to be achievable and within reach but eludes us.

Frankly, no one (at least to the best of my knowledge and belief) has actually been able to achieve real satisfaction. We do achieve temporary or superficial satisfaction from things like a good meal, desired clothes or an object. However, we are never able to achieve sustained or lasting satisfaction, as it is short-lived, ephemeral and transient. If one were truly able to achieve it, it would be the much sought after nirvana — the purpose and achievement of life. After all, nirvana is the perceived ultimate in life.

It has been the dream of everyone from the sages of ancient days, emperors, people of outstanding distinction, philanthropists, socialites and ascetics to the modern-day common person. Everyone has tried to achieve it in his or her own way. Why is it not possible to obtain it? Well, a short answer to it is that it is related to the very core of human nature, which is insatiable, complicated, devious, selfish and unpredictable. Human nature being what it is, a person is never satisfied.

More often than not, satisfaction itself leads to dissatisfaction—that is, satisfaction leads to monotony. Also, one level of satisfaction inevitably leads to the next higher level of satisfaction, and levels of satisfaction are unending. If you do not have a bike, you want one. If you get a bike, you want a scooter, you want a car. You get a car, you want a better car. You get a better car, you want two, three and more cars.

Is it possible for a person to use two cars at the same time? Yet people acquire them in multiple numbers. A common person is a normal, average human being with needs, wants, desires, dreams and aspirations—needs and wants are what really create the most problems.

Need is a felt stage of deprivation. It is the discrepancy between the desired and the actual state. Needs are necessary for sustaining life. Need creates motive—the inner state that directs the individual towards the goal of satisfying need. Need moves an individual to take action to reduce the state of tension created by the lack of something necessary and useful to return to a state of equilibrium. Needs make the world go round. If there were no need for food, would anyone toil and work? Needs motivate people to take action towards goal-directed behaviour.

The goal, of course, is satisfaction. However, even before a need is partially satisfied, another need emerges, and another, and another which demand satisfaction. With the satisfaction of each need, the satisfaction level moves up.

For the ever-ascending levels of satisfaction, even the sky is not the limit. Remember, need depends upon existing possession and a satisfied need is no longer a motivator. Only unsatisfied needs can influence behaviour. Needs ‘need’ to be ‘satisfied’. Wants and desires, of course, mean greed.

Another way of looking at it is in terms of need-based and greed-based satisfaction. Needless to say, the former is easier to be achieved than the latter. As there is no end to needs and wants, there cannot be an end to the level of satisfaction. We can move towards it only by radically changing our perception of satisfaction. We need to understand the stark reality that human nature prevents us from being satisfied. We must consciously condition ourselves to tackle satisfaction achievement pragmatically.

We must stop being dissatisfied. We must learn to be satisfied with what we have rather than be dissatisfied about what we do not have. We must begin to see the brighter side of things. We must become optimists. We must consider ourselves fortunate and be thankful for having things others do not have rather than be jealous of and crib about what others have. Satisfaction is directly related to expectation. We must learn to curb and/or control our expectations. We must not create our expectations out of our flights of fantasy or over fertile-imagination.

We must endeavour to trim down our expectations to realistic levels. We must systematically educate ourselves to be satisfied. Once we learn to be satisfied with whatever we have, subsequent satisfaction achievements would be more gratifying and satisfying. Reaching satisfaction or not is, to a large extent, in our hands. Learn to do so and open the treasure-trove to satisfaction, happiness and bliss.

JUST SEVENTEEN, OR…

Girls, they say, are fascinating creatures at seventeen. Not quite a woman, and not quite a child, but an exciting mixture of the two.

But, from the viewpoint of this analysis, a 17-year-old  boy is a far better specimen.

We notice here too the combination of child and man. The only difference is that the 17-year-old boy is absolutely convinced that he’s a real MAN, while the girl, being a girl, might play up and act a little less than her age (mentally)—if that is possible.

Common Traits

Being individuals, people differ, but one finds some common characteristics in the ‘seventeen’ age-group.

Witness a typical day in the life of one of its members. Let’s call him ‘Anil’, though he prefers to be called Bongo. That, in the first place, is hardly our idea of being ‘manly’.

Our specimen wakes up around nine in the morning, the time varying with the hour of his late night achievements the night before.

One would be sceptical of the truth of these all-night orgies. More often than not, it is the age-old affliction of impressing the females and high-pressuring daddies.

Parents’ Threat

Bongo proceeds to wash. This is a rather elaborate process, as new harvests in the pimple crop have to be carefully detected. Being a product of the 20^th century, he refrains from reaping the harvest, and sophisticatedly dabs on some lotion.

Bongo shaves. A very ‘square’ threat from his parents to cut off his allowance if he didn’t……

Breakfast is a swallow of milk, and a disgruntled chewing of whatever else is aimed defiantly at him by parents who are worried about growing children.

Till 4 p.m. he attends college, or pretends to attend, as the mood takes him. The professors feel much safer and more normal when he stays away, for when he attends, more work gets undone than done.

Schemes to sabotage lectures vary from paper to paper, generally it is done by asking silly questions meant strictly for laughs.

Home again. Tea. Bongo roars, “Where is my tea?” This ritual being over, Bongo decides to visit a friend. Examinations are far away, so why study—the more you study, the less you know—and all that jazz, as he puts it.

Day’s Events

At his friend’s place the events of the day are religously reviewed and interpreted, ranging from the pretty ‘babe’ in First Year Arts to the latest dances, the latter being very expressively (or explosively!) demonstrated.

This session is charmingly interrupted by the arrival of his friend’s sister and the sister’s friend.

The latter looks like a real cool “bird” and our hero’s heart goes flap, flap. But being a disciple of the ‘I-don’t-care-a-jot’ technique, he ignores her and pulls at a ‘fag’ with the perfect bored expression on his face.

This lethargic situation goes on till the ‘bird’ innocently chirps: “Boys who can foxtrot these days are so rare.” A real-attention-catcher, this Bongo asks the ‘bird’ to ‘fly.’

Whereupon she giggles, and condescends to dance. Bongo is not even a mild version of Govinda or Prabhudeva.

Some Dancing

After a few sessions of stepping on delicate toes and spouting equally delicate apologies, the ‘bird’ screeches: “Are you a horse?”

The reaction is deliberately lazy: “Maybe.” But this ‘bird’ can go back to the ‘nest’ she came from, he seethes, inwardly.

Needless to say, the thoughtless remark ruins his sleep for many nights. His sensitivity sorely injured, he plunges into a murderous mood.

Dinner is a strained meal from all angles. Left hand upon nose, Bongo sits and swallows, or rather, picks at vegetables brimming over with sadly contrasting vitality. Bongo is a broken man.

But weep not, for ‘where there is life, there is hope’. Moreover, Bongo is 17—remember? A few days pass by, and Bongo’s mind is teeming with unholy thoughts of revenge.

He’s heard that it is the “bird’s” birthday the next day. Persuading his pals to aid and abet his ‘operation revenge’ is an easy task.

Sweet Revenge

And the dawn breaks. Bongo rushes around with speed putting hurricane ‘Besty’ to shame. The moment arrives. The lady arrives. As she non-chalantly drifts through the college gate, she is greeted by an insistent ‘neigh-neigh’; shouts of ‘Here comes the nightmare’ are chanted to the tune of ‘Here comes the bride!’

Someone asks how old she is and is told to get it from the horse’s mouth.

The lady retreats….silently.

After all this, Bongo expects everyone to believe that he is grown-up, a man-of-the-world with and air that would make Shah Rukh Khan and Sunny Deol retire (permanently).

Reebok, Puma, Tommy Hilfieger, Pulsar, Harles Davidson, BMW, deadly “dames,” the quicksilver red sports-car—you name it, Bongo’s got it…that’s what he thinks, or what is more likely, dreams about.

Perhaps it’s because men are only boys at hearts.

(This is not a diatribe against men. After all, seventeen-year-olds grow up one day; and then what would girls do without them!)

OF BOOKS AND AUTHORS

American novelist, Earnest Hemingway was paid £ 14,000 for a single short story.

The  detective  novelist, Edgar Wallace, earned between £50,000 and £100,000 a year.

Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, lived in a large country house, and after his death (1930), his heirs received royalties in around 50 different currencies. His stories were sold for over £500 each. A magazine in the USA even paid him £1 per word for each of a series of six 3,500-word stories.

Somerset Maugham, English author, earned two million pounds during his career as a writer.

George Bernard Shaw, British dramatist and critic, left more than £300,000 when he died; Thomas Hardy, English novelist and poet, £91,000; John Galsworthy, English author £88,000.

John Braine’s book ‘Room at the Top’, sold half a million copies and its film rights alone earned him £5,000. Eric William’s ‘The Tunnel’ was another instant success, which sold about 263,000 copies.

Dale Carnegie’s first book, ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’, was written on practical experience. He was turned down by 17 publishers. Finally, a publishing company, Simon and Schuster, agreed to buy the book. So far, about 7,000,000 copies of the book have been sold in hardback alone.

E. Phillips Oppenheim, a prolific writer, in 50 years of his writing career, published 150 books, hundreds of short stories, series and articles.

J.R.R. Tolkein, a professor at Oxford, was correcting a set of examination papers. He scribbled down a sentence on paper which was bothering him…… “in a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit”. With the sentence in mind, he started a fairy story, which is now popularly known as ‘Hobbit’ books.

Blemishes That Worry Us

No one is born with perfect features. Most of us wish we could have so and so’s eyes or have a nose just a little shorter or a figure like the girl down the block. True, clever dressing, a good hair style and perfect make-up can alter one’s features and personality. So can a cosmetic operation do away with wrinkles, shorten that nose, or remove hidden marks and scars.

But there are a few of us who suffer from certain irregularities about which we can do very little. It would be wise to accept them than moan over them. There is no truly beautiful woman in the world. Often it is some irregularity which makes us different and gives us our own distinctive personality. Here are some of the blemishes that worry us:

Greasy Skin

Pimples: These are common on the greasy skin. Teenagers and young people are affected by it. This is because of over-activity by the old glands resulting in an abundance of oil secretion that blocks the pores. Scrupluous cleanliness and diet is the treatment.

Acne: This is a skin infection and needs the attention of a doctor. You may have to restrict your make-up and use a medicated lotion or soap. It is particularly important to get medical attention instead of picking and bruising the skin.

Variscose veins: These may appear on the face though they are most common on the legs. They may appear as a spidery network under the eyes and can be covered up by make-up. Otherwise medical attention may be necessary.

Scars: Scars can be covered up by make-up or removed by plastic surgery. Surgery is expensive and should be resorted to, only if the person is badly scarred and disfigured.

Allergy: Allergy is very common and its reaction can be slight or violent. Often a chemical in the make-up or hairdye that one has used is the irritating factor in causing allergy. This is due to hyper-sensitivity. There are some women who are so allergic to powder that their face breaks into bumps and rashes. Similarly an allergy to lipstick may cause the face including the lips to swell. Avoid the item that causes allergy.

Eye Test

Red weepy eyes: Strain, headache and poor diet affect one’s eyes. An eye examination may reveal the cause of the trouble; eye drops may be helpful in clearing up the whites of the eyes. No eye make-up will look good on such types of eyes. So, prompt treatment is a must.

Split nails: Nails that break easily indicate a lack of calcium in the body, or due to a faulty diet. A packet of gelatin taken daily in a glass of water may be effective. Keep your nails short and trim them regularly.

Dark circles under the eyes: Poor health, lack of sleep and strain of any kind may cause this complaint. Certain conditions as anaemia, studying rigorously for examinations temporarily causes dark circles under the eyes. They are best camouflaged by make-up or treated medically.

Freckles: This is due to over-exposure in bright sunlight. Those with delicate skins and colouring generally suffer from freckles. Bleaching the skin with lime juice may cause them to fade a little.

Moles: These are hairy, dark birth marks, about which one can do very little. Sometimes a small mole on the face can look quite attractive, large hairy moles can be removed surgically.

Rough skin: The skin that is rough and peels off easily occurs in those persons with a delicate skin. Gentle creams or lotions applied on the skin aids in healing.

Lines: This appears to give the face or hands an aged look. To avoid their formation, it is important to be thorough in cleansing and creaming. Enriched, nourishing creams and other moisturised lotions may prove useful.

Patches on the skin: These patches may be dark or light in colour. There can be many reasons for this upset, the common ones being an emotional upset of some sort or a faulty diet. Poor eating habits and certain internal conditions may cause the formation of these patches.

Superfluous hair: This is one of the most common blemishes. Whether on the face, arms or legs, superfluous hair is an embarrassing and agonizing problem to the person tainted by it. A copious growth of hair can be permanently removed by electrolysis which is both an expensive and a long treatment. Other methods are by heat, which is temporary, shaving for under-arms and legs or by bleaching with peroxide.