you are so CUTE....

How much some boys would love to be called CUTE by girls and how readily will they pour out their wallets on buying chocolate cakes and teddy bears in a failed attempt to hear this little word....

Boys are simple... you show them a girl, the Leydig Cells of the testes release the Testosterone and they are ready... if the girl smiles, they are "high", and if the girl says, "you are so cute", the heart rate of the guy has already crossed permissible limits. With girls it is more complicated. You show them a guy, they do not notice. The guy dresses up well, talks nicely, has a heavy wallet, a car to drive, he is OK; could be friends. If the guy is 'dependable' (defined as per the girl concerned), macho, heroic, out of the world, well... she might consider dating. If he is the Cupid's own incarnation, she would marry him provided he bends on his knees with a ROCK Solitaire diamond ring and says "will you marry me?" That is why you hear boys 'hunting' for girls (and not 'vice-versa') because hunting, by its very definition, means a tedious job that requires a focused approach, a meticulous plan and a flawless execution. Ask any man who has had a 'yes' after the knee-agonizing-wallet-fuming-solitaire-gifting scene and he will proudly (and sigh fully) tell you how he 'accomplished' this. Girls know that they are privileged and they do not need to run after boys. Boys are anyways running after them. In all this chase game, there are but a few respites. The adjectives like 'my baby', 'cutie pie', 'sweetoo','jaanu' are like the small Vishisht Seva Medals which are awarded to control attrition of low paid army men.

I, today, want to discuss the most frequently used adjectives nowadays - cute. One doesn't need to look in a dictionary to understand the meaning; it is the connotation which is more important. Earlier the adjective was mostly used for babies. Men would generally be honoured with "handsome", "smart" or the like. But recent trends in colleges say that "CUTE" has far outweighed any adjective hitherto used by ladies. The word carries such wide scope and universal appeal that it applies to Brad Pitt as easily as it does to Dhoni. Abhishek Bachchan is also cute to some and so is Salman Khan (they are 'cute' and 'ex-cute' to Ash). Such wide usages makes it confusing to understand the real connotation of the term. Well, one should look at real life examples. In most cases, a guy having looks and physique of Salman Khan shall not be called cute. Handsome might be a rather appropriate word. Cute, at times, is more suitably applied to sissy guys, (you know, who shake their hands more than they shake their heads while talking and their bums more than their legs while walking), but most girls today are giving up this usage. New terms are being coined for the purpose. In that case, cute is most aptly applied to a chubby, rounded, plump and clown like figure. He is vitually the humanized version of the Panda. Cute is, today, directly proportional to the visible proportion of adipose tissue (fat storing tissues) in your body and is fast replacing the adjective fat (or obese) as its politically correct synonym.

It is no wonder that when I was first called cute, I thought of myself as Salman Khan, but when I was called cute by plenty and they accompanied this with a smile or a laugh, I was compelled to believe that the latter meaning (the politically correct version of fat is intended. I have met girls rarely during my college days (thanks to the amazing sex ratio at IITs) and hence never bothered about how I looked. The four years had left me half-haired and twice-bellied. I was first called cute by my girlfriend and I was justified in thinking myself as Salman Khan. Why else would a girl who called me cute, become my girlfriend, right? Well, I was called cute again by my female friends of office. I was a bit impressed initially but worried later. I could see that their then boyfriends (now their husbands) are far more better looking than I am and hence cute, by no means, would have meant "macho" or "handsome" when it was used for me. I asked my girlfriend why she called me cute and with a giggling smile she explained me the 'real' connotation. I was broke. I looked in the mirror. My waistline was thinner than my tummy line. In vital stats, I would be something like 36-46-36 (chest-tummy-waist...perverts!!!). When I looked at my face, it felt like a miniature version of my tummy was transplanted as my cheeks with the nose and ears clumsily fit on the lump. I could be easily termed "du tho gola" (bihari - दू ठो गोला meaning 'two circles'). Having realized the real intended meaning of the word, I had no choice but to accept the honour (with regret)

It has been few months that I took a break from my job and started studying once again. After about a few weeks of classes, got acquainted with a couple of girls. They were nice, friendly, intellingent and talkative. And when one evening, while sipping tea at a roadside stall, they almost unanimously said, "CMT, you are so cute...." I was broke, once again.