life through pink colour glasses: The Genius of Miss Marple

Thursday, September 29, 2005

The Genius of Miss Marple

Being a detective, I believe, is a job best done by women. And not just because they’re smarter, have the gift of female intuition and can ask sensitive questions with, well, sensitivity. Men, I’ve observed, suffer from a startling lack of curiosity. A quality I’m sure is essential when it comes to detecting.

Take this exchange between my husband (will refer to him as H for the sake of laziness) and me for instance.

H (uninterestedly): Remember Bunty? Bunty and Babli are getting a divorce.

Me (leap out of my seat with concerned excitement. I have after all met Bunty once, never met Babli and had no idea they were married. There’s a lot to catch up on.) : What?? How come? What happened?

H (studiously changing channels on TV): Well, they weren’t getting along.

Me (with all the patience I can conjure, it’s too early in the conversation to start screaming.): Obviously they weren’t getting along. But what happened? How long were they married?

H (clucking in disappointment at the lack of good television shows): Not sure…probably the same as us.

Me (delighted with this piece of information, vague as it is.): My god! Were they staying with his parents? Was that the problem?

H (sees a ray of hope on Discovery Travel and Living’s ‘American Choppers’): No. His parents are in the States I think. Or Siliguri. Anyway, they’re not here.

Me (realising I’ll have to use this method of elimination to reach the root of this marital discord): So has she moved out?

H (damn. He’s seen this episode before): I don’t know.

Me (dying to grab that remote from his hand): Didn’t you ask him? You guys didn’t get much time to talk eh?

H (ah! That gladiator movie he’s seen 85 times is coming.): Actually we had lunch together.

Me (slowly counting to 10): So I guess you guys aren’t too close. You didn’t want to ask him personal stuff.

H (settling into a comfortable TV watching position, whilst continuing firm grip on remote): Oh! We’ve been friends since class 4. He’s one of my closest friends.

Me (grab cushion so I can scream into it.): Muffled aaarrrgghhh!

Such an abysmal lack of information is appalling and inexcusable. Now don’t think I’m nosy but I promise you, had I been given half an hour with Babli, I would’ve found out exactly what had gone wrong between the two of them, who was to blame, given sound advice and participated in some healthy name calling.

Men however don’t seem to feel the need to ask questions. H and Bunty probably discussed sports, property prices in various parts of the city and how the Swift isn’t that great a car actually. And all this while one of them is going through a major personal crisis. Like I said before, inexcusable.

This lack of thirst for knowledge is not the only reason men make lousy detectives. Another thing they’re severely missing is imagination. And we all know part of detecting is to imagining different possibilities of what could’ve happened. Women on the other hand have the skill to read between the lines, to process information in order to find out what it really means. Since we never say what we really mean, it goes to reason nobody else does either.

Another example to illustrate what I mean:

Sunday is my cook’s day off. And since we ordered in the night before and will be eating out at night, I figure I’ll give cooking lunch a shot. After giving it many minutes of thought I decide rice and chicken curry is a tasty and not-so-cumbersome way to go.

So around noon I drag myself out of bed (Sunday is my only day off, by the way. Just so everyone understands the supreme sacrifice I’m making.) and waltz into the kitchen. Throw the rice into the rice cooker and pull out my handy pack of Kitchens of India chicken curry paste. Clean chicken, add it along with the curry paste to the cooker and set a 20-minute alarm on my cell phone. Twiddle my thumbs for 20 minutes and sharp at 1:30 a delicious home-made lunch is served.

Scene at dining table:

Me: So what do you think?

H: It’s really good. Thanks baby.

It’s really good? That’s it? On television men make much grander gestures when their wives cook them good meals. Where are the undying protestations of love and how I make him happier beyond anything else? Where’s the offer to take me shopping so I can buy anything my heart desires? Why isn’t he even kissing the hands that have made him this gourmet meal? Obviously this means he doesn’t like the food. He thinks I suck as a wife. Marrying me was the biggest mistake he ever made. Just two years and already the love has gone from our marriage!

At this point I sulk, leave my food and walk off from the table, leaving H to grudgingly leave his lunch and the Amitabh movie on TV and come after me to figure what he did now.

Which man would ever be able to reach such perceptive conclusions on the basis of one sentence?

Clearly there are some essential qualities missing from men that render them completely inept at the cerebral art of detecting. And if you’re thinking of a certain Belgian with a head shaped like an egg, don’t forget, his creator was female.

Posted by that girl in pink | 6:37 pm | 5 comments

5 Comments

at 1:57 pm Vijayeta said...: The 1 hour was promptly reciprocated! (Not at wrk) but sitting before the computer with a steaming mug of tea and the rains pouring outside. What i liked? Yr love for Bangalore, (was there for a year, made lovely friends and loved the city!), Yr "ability" to write long posts (like me) and the "higher calling" (I'm struggling with the weight battle too, sticking to a power yoga routine now). But been there, done ALL that u've mentioned ;)
Oh My God, i've even managed a really long comment!
THAT MAN & THAT WOMAN shall return in a day or so :)
V
at 2:07 pm Vijayeta said...: This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
at 8:55 pm Vijayeta said...: LOL @ The Importance of Packaging! I so agree :)
Have also posted something a while back. Await yr comments :)
at 3:18 pm Vijayeta said...: Trust me, some things, "OBVIOUS" as they are, are not dead giveaways. The Metrosexual Man surfaced in our unsuspecting routine lives and toppled the stereotype 2 yrs ago. Just like The Raymond's Man did! And men fall to such advertising generated pressures rather quickly in that long, never-ending pursuit of "getting some"!
My point: There's NO metrosexual man! (Just like there's no Raymond's Man! And the guy in the ads is probably gay!)There are either the Straight Gay Men or The Gay Straight Men! AB was the former.
Hmmm...shall elaborate that soon. This gets curiouser and curiouser... :)
at 4:40 pm Anonymous said...: hey pink!
absolutely love reading your blogs. everything we discussed about production, styling, interiors... forget about it!
i think you owe us one everyday!
neha.