Personal ads, part 2

[Part 1 here]

More on personal ads. This time some delightful ones like this -

"My finger on the pulse of culture, my ear to the ground of philosophy, my hip in the medical waste bin of Glasgow Royal Infirmary. 14% plastic and counting -- geriatric brainiac and compulsive NHS malingering fool (M, 81), looking for richer, older sex-starved woman on the brink of death to exploit and ruin every replacement operation I've had since 1974. Box 7648 (quickly, the clock's ticking, and so is this pacemaker)."

That ad is from this book titled "They call me Naughty Lola: Personal ads from the London Review of Books". Read this Salon.com piece on the book which compares the LRB personal ads with those from the New York Review of Books - such as this

"LITHE, LOVELY. Vivacious, passionate, successful concert singer (Lincoln Center, Carnegie) ... Cool (but not cold) blonde with an enviably high metabolism -- witty, classy, quick to smile -- a mix of Angelica Huston/Cameron Diaz. Argentina-born, Paris (Sorbonne) educated and fluent in six languages (including Catalan -- ¡j'estim Barcelona!). Graceful, athletic, and encouraging. Laughs often and much. Can't live without: Martinique, lobster rolls, squash (the sport), and the miso black cod at Nobu. Habitué of Telluride, Napa, and The Vineyard. Well-fixed financially, looking for same. Inspired by Mozart, Stravinsky, Ray Charles, and gamelan music. Seeks intellectual, nonsmoking, fit, successful, sophisticated, not fully retired, man, 47–67."

Gaah. Now I know why I continue to love British humor.

So, before I leave, sample another ad from the Lola book - this time, woman seeking man.

"This column reads like a list of X-file character rejects. Woman, 34, able to bi-locate and start fires with the power of her pre-menstrual tension. Seeks human/Jovian hybrid with whom to start genetic processing plant (Bicester). Must have own car. Box no. 5258."

Personal ads, part 1

I found this finally after searching for the blog where I first saw it. That blogger J.A.P. had posted it here, calling it scary because it was mostly true. I can see why. Here's why.

DICTIONARY FOR WOMEN'S PERSONAL ADS

40-ish..............................49
Adventurous......................Slept with everyone
Athletic............................No tits
Average looking.................Ugly
Beautiful..........................Pathological liar
Contagious Smile...............Does a lot of pills
Emotionally Secure.............On medication
Feminist...........................Fat
Free spirit.........................Junkie
Friendship first ...................Former sl*t
Fun.................................Annoying
New-Age...........................Body hair in the wrong places
Old-fashioned....................No BJs
Open-minded.....................Desperate
Outgoing...........................Loud and Embarrassing
Passionate........................Sloppy drunk
Professional.......................B*tch
Voluptuous........................Very Fat
Large frame.......................Hugely Fat
Wants Soul mate................Stalker

Part 2 to follow

PS - J.A.P. - my apologies..I should have linked your post earlier. Argh.

Men - they're not all the same

So, here's my first try at uploading a YouTube clip. This is really hilarious.

In all fairness

“Gore rang pe itna gumaan na kar, gora rang do din mein dhal jayega” Song from the film Roti, pictured above. Loosely translated it means, don't be proud of your fair skin, it'll vanish in two days.




And now a fairness cream for men. Emami has launched a fairness cream for men called "Fair and Handsome". With a name like that, Emami leaves nothing in the dark. Clearly, their marketing people as well as the geniuses at their ad agency spent long nights to carefully craft this well-thought out and utterly brilliant, path-breaking strategy for a product that promises to ligten up the faces of dark-skinned men. And where's the best place you'll find them ? Aha ! master-stroke #2 - launch the cream in - you guessed it ! - Andhra Pradesh.

Our legendary obsession with fairness has spawned off an industry worth Rs1,000cr (US$200m+), led by HLL. All this for the Indian man's fairness fetish that has always been and will always be so damn unfair on the woman. That Indian women are the most beautiful in the world is fairly (pun intended) well proven by our bevy of Miss Worlds, Universes, Solar Systems, etc. I don't need inane beauty pageants to certify that - take a look around you. Indian women rock. Even white-skinned Caucasians visiting India drool over them.

But back home, bride-seeking families are shameless enough to demand a "fair" woman in matrimonials. And groom-seeking families flaunt their daughters as "gori" (worst case, wheatish) in the same columns. Where did it all start ? Was it an inheritance from the British ? Or as my colleague Mahesh mentions, perhaps its got to do with mythology ? Remember a scarred Zeenat Aman in "Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram" singing about Lord Krishna asking his Mother why he's dark and Radha is fair.

Get over it guys. Remember Bipasha ? or Rekha ? Or Zeenat ? or Rani ? Ah naaahh, you prefer Kareena and Preity ? God ! they talk so much, and they aren't even as amply endowed! Even if men don't accept it, at some point of time they realise that its always the inner beauty of a woman that matters. But they have to get over their baser instincts to bite that bullet. Till then, they will continue to fall for fairness. Thankfully, intelligence and sense of humour don't have a colour. And like your skin, you're born with them.

Dribble, dribble, drool

ZeeSports :: AIFF

My prize for ad campaign of the day goes to "ZeeBras" (yes, don't miss the capital "B"). In an effort to promote domestic football (at a time when cricket crazy fans crib and cringe on the crying shame the Indian team has become), Zee will have 8 models ("ZeeBras") as cheerleaders at the Federation Cup this year.

If spaghetti straps did wonders for Indian cricket, it was because Mandira Bedi wore them. The good part is that Zee has realised that the only way to get anyone to watch its channel is to get pretty women with zebra tops and hot pants to advertise the event. Well, if that can do wonders for Indian football, what the hell. Yes, the taste of the ad and the imagination, or lack thereof, can be questioned, even criticised, but if these are the hoardings I'll see spread across the city, I say "yeah baby !".