So easy being a columnist, no?

Gah, I give up. I tried - impartially at first, then with growing impatience - to see what all the fuss was about Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan. I mean, Come On! Quite apart from the blog being not that great (okay, that's her business, but STILL), the lady has taken to writing columns in newspapers, and that I take serious objection to, because the lady wastes half a page every Monday in both HT Cafe and Mumbai Mirror. And also because she writes tripe.

Or putting it mildly, she writes a lot of tripe.

Ms Madhavan pens A Column On Being Single In The City, titled 'Ms Adventure' (Miss Adventure, geddit? *Poke in the ribs, poke poke*) and the very first one was good. Then the standards of writing (if any had been set in the beginning) fell with a crash before you could say Yawn.

In today's MM column, Ms Madhavan concludes a two-part advice column on Some Basic Guidelines for being Single in Mumbai. Must say by the time I reached para 4, I wanted to move on to better things, because a) I am not single, b) Being single is not a disease that requires intervention from self-proclaimed Single Prats who Know It All, and c) I had had enough.

Sample these:
Continuing the theme, this week I'm going to go on with the Single Guidelines-making not being in a relationship as hassle-free as possible.
What a GRIPPING start! Can't wait to read more because I LOVE free advice. Also did not know that there were only two dimensions to living in Mumbai - Being Single and Being in a Relationship. And here I was, thinking having a good job and loads of laughs everyday actually mattered. My eyes have finally opened, but only for two minutes.

But two Bloody Marys on a Sunday afternoon down, and I'm filled with sentimentality for my women friends who have seen me boyfriend after boyfriend, have never judged -- at least not within earshot -- and who are the perfect wingwomen.
Two Bloody Marys on a Sunday afternoon fills her with sentimentality for her women friends. On my weekly off, all I think about on my Saturday afternoon after a good lunch and two glasses of water, is whether I should head straight to bed or go for a pedicure. Not once do I think of my women friends (not that I have very many). I am so shallow.

As you get older though, and more foolish, and loneliness and alcohol and late night drives enter the picture and there is a special guy friend or many special guy friends (get on with it, already) who are people who make you laugh till you cry or who look out for you as you look out for them, it's harder to keep the boundaries clear.
At this point, harder also to not tear the paper and jump on the remains. Does this lady live in a beer keg kept in a car? Almost every thing she writes deals with the drink-and-long-drive motif. She has successfully put me off both. Well, but at least she realises that the F-word applies to her, as in line 1 of this piece.

How to drive a car is the third thing I'm dealing with...of course, in our awesome city (which she calls Bombay, the prat) we can take public transport pretty much whenever. Then why drive, I hear you ask. Easy, because that way, you don't have to trudge down a flooded road for a rickshaw ruining your new shoes and also, let's face it, girls who can drive are very sexy.
Kay sangtay kay? Probably as a result of not being single in this awesome city and having some modicum of common sense, I do not wear new shoes in the rains and I don't need to sit behind a steering wheel to look sexy. But then, I come from the old school that thinks Sexy is in the mind and hence in the body. Also, my mum would have something to say if I ruined new shoes and the boyfriend would die laughing if I demanded a car because I wanted to look sexy. Besides, one needs something in one's nut, apart from all the booze and boy-thoughts floating around, to know how to use public transport in Mumbai. One cannot use new shoes well in public transport and there's no need to be sexy all the time, we're not Sophia Loren.

If you're the shy and retiring type, you can make yourself look mysterious and enigmatic by just smiling a little bit at introduction and then sitting somewhere in a room or at a table, crossing your legs and not saying very much.
Note to readers: Do the above also if you want to look slightly demented. All the women I've seen smiling a little and not saying much have always seemed like they were thinking with pleasure of their next hatchet job. But of course, lil ole unimaginative me equates enigmatic with Smita Patil or J K Rowling. Stupid only.

When you do decide to participate in a conversation, make sure it's something you have an informed opinion about or you'll just be dismissed out of hand.
No wonder I always dismiss Ms Madhavan.

Gawrsh, I need to lie down.

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