It’s easy to fall for fiction

VITAL STATS: Thankyou ALL for reading, Emancipation of Eve touched 50,000 page loads (currently the stat counter says 50,301). Last night, a total of 202 readers browsed through here. Sincerely, thankyou for your time...now if only you were to start sharing your thoughts, I promise not to repeat posts. :D

VOTE PLEASE: There's a new poll up on what looks best on Indian women, or what they look best without. I might write a corresponding post, I might not, but what the heck, it's fun. Do participate. And for those who have no idea what Indian women look like, type 'Bollywood' and click search on Google.

Talking to a friend the other day, we were discussing why a whole lot of Complete Package women – beautiful, intelligent, non-whiny, can make a man laugh, confident, knows her mind etc – end up falling for complete jerks. “WHY do we, who are supposedly intelligent, behave like gits when it comes to falling for the wrong men? We seem to choose them with alarming alacrity,” she said. I nodded fervently. “Are we stupid?” she demanded. I denied fervently. “Stop shaking your head at everything. How can an entire generation of intelligent women keep falling for the bad guys?” I perhaps knew the answer to that one… but decided to delve deeper into my psyche to understand better. The best way was to go through the fictional characters I have liked over the ages. Rather, the fictional characters I have FALLEN for. I REALLY liked those men. Naming non-fictional characters can get rather iffy no, what with my identity out and all?

My first book(s) were these Russian fairy tales that Dad got for me. Big books, hardbound covers, with sketches in ink on the cover and inside. All princes were unanimously called Ivan and I learnt pretty early on that beautiful women were supposed to have long, flowing hair, walk gracefully, talk softly and faint at the slightest provocation. I lacked in all spheres. But nonetheless, I have been in love with books and characters for as long as I can remember. However, I read stuff that will never have anyone calling me a voracious reader. :)

(Oh my god. I am watching /hearing Fashion TV as I type this and I just saw the nicest bum I have ever seen. Also, do notice, while the camera focuses on the crotch of female models in lingerie, particularly if its lace, they NEVER focus on a male crotch. No, I am not particularly interested, but dude, you cannot have gender bias when showcasing booty, ok?)

I wished I was a vampire so bad I nearly killed some people but the idea of drinking their blood put me off. Blood I don’t mind, it was my choice of victims. All because of vampire Lestat (no, I refused to see Tom Cruise in the role, he would have spoilt it for me) in Interview with the Vampire (Anne Rice). What I liked? His love for corrupting power and the honesty that he knew he could be corrupted.

I wished I was sporty. I was always more into academics than sport, except for carrom and badminton (was school champ in grade 9 and all, heh) Er, this is a bit embarrassing, but I really liked Joe Hardy… yes, the younger of the Hardy Boys’ brothers. He loved trouble and always got into trouble. This when I used to bunk school and sneak into the library. Nearly had an accident when I read the one in which the two are F1 drivers and I wanted to race my dad’s Maruti 800 on Sikkim roads. My date with danger ended when the driver complained to dad that I was threatening him.

Then there was Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain), he is/was soooo cute. I really wanted to run wild with him and Huck Finn and not study and go looking around at what others were up to. Sigh. That was about the time I developed my Math phobia. Anyway... And Tom didn’t leave Becky alone in the cave to die, did he now? Alas, can’t say that about the men of today. Hrmph.


Robotech - The Marcoss Saga had this character called Zor Prime. I remember vaguely but he had a definite evil streak. More than a streak. I flunked for the first time in any exam – it was early semester, Physics – because I was watching him, two back to back shows the previous evening.

I hated Stephanie Zimbalist. Because I loved Pierce Brosnan aka Remington Steele. Don’t remember much in terms of his qualities but dude, he was too tasty to look at. He had a quick mouth and quicker brain. (Btw, Miss Teen USA looks older than me. Ha.)






Wolverine. Oh Wolverine. And that’s completely due to Hugh Jackman. That brow, chin, chest, pecs… those arms. Ooooof. And the fact that you cannot tame him. Aaaand, dear Hugh majored in journalism in college. GRIN. Somehow I've never liked any of the Spiderman, Batman variety…just don’t like men in masks.


Jack Sparrow, TOTALLY due to Johhny Depp. Wouldn’t kiss him though. Or maybe I would. But would be a mad adventure with him for sure, life that is. And of course the fact that he has no conscience.


Somehow, all the fictional characters I liked - except perhaps Tom Sawyer - all either had shades of grey or were completely black. Why did I like them then, as a youngster and even as I grew up, even when I could see they were negative? Perhaps they resonated with me? Or because none of them were EVER guilty about who they were or what they did? Now that I'm thinking about it, all these men/boys/characters had a hidden 'good' in them too. The term I believe is anti-hero. Moral of the story? Women like bad boys hoping there's a good side and wishing that their bad boy will be good for them and yet retain the badness. Women don't like heroes or villains, it's the anti-heroes. Moral of the story 2: Am no different from a whole lot of silly women. Damn.

PS: I enjoyed researching for this one, especially stumbling upon Robotech and Zor Prime as I had forgotten the name of the show. If you've got the time, check out the Wikipedia links, some interesting stuff there. And a sincere thanks to those who fill out the info on wiki, tis good.