Madhuri Banerjee

Dear Love Guru
My husband refuses to pay attention to me. During the week, he's busy with work and on weekends, he either plays golf or sits and watches TV. Please tell me how to break out of this rut. Deeply Disappointed
Dear Disappointed, It seems your husband has not transitioned from bachelor life to married life. He still feels it’s his life and you need to adjust to it. What you can do is start getting involved with his life. Take the initiative to go out for dinners and movies. Pencil in sex every now and then. There are two types of men in the world, the silent ones who like doing things, and the talkative ones whom you can sort issues out with. If your man is more the silent type talking to him about your feelings is only going to piss him off. Plan vacations when you know its holiday time for you, drag him for the movie that you want to see, treat him to a nice hearty dinner without asking him to eat healthy. However, let him be some weekends to sit on his couch and watch TV…

Dear Love Guru,
I broke up with my boyfriend and now he is dating my best friend! I just want to kill them both. How could they betray me like this? Sincerely, Double-Crossed
Dear Double-Crossed, Anger is ok but revenge is sweeter. There are two ways of going about this. One you can give them your blessing and be thankful that you’re not with such a jerk. You know he will make the same mistakes with her as he did with you and soon enough she will come running back to you to ask for advice on his stupidity. Then you can gloat and maybe even giggle with her. ALTERNATIVELY, you take revenge on them and satisfy your evil streak immediately. Here’s what you do - you need to date your best friend’s brother or someone very, very close to her just for a brief enough time for her to be enraged. You are not allowed to fall in love with this person otherwise you’ll be stuck with an ex- best-friend- but- now- mean- step- sister- in- law forever! If she doesn’t have men in her family whom she is attac…

Dear Love Guru,My boyfriend still hangs out with his ex. I am very jealous and don't know what to do. I don’t want to lose him. Please help! Sincerely, Annoyed Anita Dear Annoyed Anita,
If only all of us become so understanding, the world will be a much better place! As I see it, you can do two things. One you can rave, rant, and tell him he can never see her again. This might result in him going behind your back and seeing her or anyone else. Alternatively, you can let him know that you know about it and leave it at that. Then you can go into a plan B where you rope him back to you. Start behaving less like a wife and more like a sex goddess. Go out partying with your best friends. Make calls in front of him to your male friends. Wear your best clothes and some amazing perfume. Let him walk in on you watching porn but walk away before doing anything. Show him new lingerie you plan to wear but don't wear it for him. Make plans and cancel dates. After a few days, you can show him t…

Dear Love Guru,
I’m a little on the plump side and my husband keeps telling me to lose weight. I have been trying but it’s getting harder with him insisting every day. What should I do? Completely , Miss Piggy

Dear Miss Piggy, Oho! Is your husband George Clooney? If he isn’t then he has no right to tell you how to look. Tell him to get to the People’s magazine of Sexiest Men and then you’ll really be on that diet. Men really need a long, hard look at themselves. WE give them too much importance and put them on a pedestal in every sphere of our lives. If we stop asking for opinions and ignoring their advice, they might treat us better. Tell him a few of his flaws. Actually, tell him ALL his flaws. Then tell him you’re with him despite all of them. If he still insists, tell him you won’t have sex until you finally get a word of praise in for how you look and who you are. Be confident. Men flock to women who are self-assured and have self-respect, with all their flaws. Oprah used to weigh 25…

Dear Kaveri Love Guru, I’ve broken up with my boyfriend but I have all these presents that he’s given me in the last two years of our relationship. Should I return them or burn them? I just don’t know what to do with them! Yours,
Baggage
Dear Baggage, Have you lost your mind completely? You keep them! Especially if they are expensive and come in a nice velvet box. Returning gifts to a boy who doesn’t want them will only mean he will give it to another woman or throw them out. You might think that by giving them back you’ve let go completely and “cleaned” him out of your life. For him, it’s junk returned. If you have to remove all elements of him in your life, take the stuffed toys, cards and other cheapie stuff and donate it to an orphanage. If you are still feeling guilty, you are most welcome to send the expensive presents to my address. Just remember you have also invested your time, effort, and energy into a man for the last two years. That’s far more valuable than any present a man c…

http://epaper.asianage.com/login.shtml


Dear Love Guru, I've been married for some time now but my problem is not new. My mother in law insists that I cook for the family. On top of managing a job, a child, a husband, and a house she wants me to cook! Pl tell me how I can kill her and make it look like an accident! Yours, Full Time Stress
Dear Miss Stressy, I completely relate to your problem. My mil also wanted me to make hot, hot rotis for her son whenever he came back from work saying a cook can never do things with love as a wife can. But the husband hardly cared as long as he got food to eat. It was only the mil who bothered. I could never master the art of rotis but one thing I learnt was making breakfast. A few diff types of eggs, two or three chutney and cheese sandwiches, potato rolls, poha and upma. I topped it with lassi, cold coffee or a hot cup of tea and it was a new breakfast everyday or at least on the weekend when I was free and felt like making it! You could try that as…

Dating in India is very different from dating in the West. In both cases, there is a 5 Step Process. The West is more; meet each other often, fall in love, live together, meet the parents, and then walk down the aisle.
In India it is more like; parents meet, grown children feel shy, a week of wedding celebrations, finally fall in love, and then go out for dinner.
However, things have been changing recently and the new generations have been pioneers in bringing about the new rules of dating.  Here's what they are!

Rules of Dating:
1.How to Meet:Now while in the west, there are many places where you can meet single people, in India if a man goes up to a woman in a bar, it is considered excessively `forward’. That is why there are wedding sites. Under the guise of looking for the correct person, wedding sites gives one the opportunity to meet several people while checking up on their profile and background. People also use Facebook, chat rooms, dot coms and friends of friends to hook up…

It's Diwali already!
Can you believe the year is almost over? How quickly it has passed and I'm still wondering about my New Year Resolutions. The ones I made in the beginning of this year.
Have I done anything worthwhile? Have I made a change? Can I still start today?

As I see the houses lit up with diyas and lights, I wonder if we have all made an attempt to light up other people's lives as well. I'm not talking about the poor and charity and all that. That's all an individual take and I hope each one of us is doing something for it. I'm talking about if we've been nice to people. If we've become a little wiser, a little more patient, a little more tolerant and a little more caring. Do we smile more? Or do we brush people off.

Why do we wait for an occasion to celebrate people in our lives?

I hope this Diwali, we all do something more than just play cards and gorge on those sweets. I hope we find light in our hearts to love, forgive and give to p…

“What do you do?”
We have all lauded Anna Hazare’s efforts, supported the movement through blogs, tweets, facebook updates and the more intrepid amongst us have attended rallies, candlelit marches and chanted slogans while wearing the “I am Anna” cap. We all want corruption to end and hope that India truly shines. Corruption is the bad word and we support all means possible to eradicate it.
But sometimes the choice to eradicate it is easier said than done. In the middle of the night, if we lie in bed can we truly say that we are not “corrupt”? Are we as pure as we think we are? And can we now stop being who we are and stop doing what we did for so long? Can any one of us say we have not done at least one of the things to get our way?
1.Jumping Traffic Lights – You are in a terrible hurry. The bus moved ahead of you and you did not see the light changing. You will have endless excuses when the cop catches you. But both of you know the truth. The important question is “What do you do?” Y…

1.Time = Distance x Potholes. No matter how fast you go, which short cut you take, and how much Power fuel you put in your car, you are always going to be stuck in a jam. It’s really not your fault. The 10,000 potholes on every road will make sure that you will take the same amount of time every day. Everyone in Mumbai has a game plan. They figure, if they leave at sharp 8, they will make it by sharp 9 to their destination. Or, if they beat the traffic by leaving from wherever they are at sharp 5, they will get home by sharp 6:15. It does not matter if it is AM or PM. And the best word they use is “max.” As in “Max, it will take an hour and a half.” Alternatively, “Max, I’ll be 15 minutes late.” However, be warned this is not the case. No matter what time you leave, no matter how much you pray, you will always take the same amount of time to reach from point A to point B as you did the day before, and you will tomorrow! You see that tempo to your right? It was there behind you two sig…

All women want to know everything about a man but the minute they reveal everything, the women find him boring. It is also vice versa. That is mainly the reason why so many marriages break up. Soon enough both partners crave the excitement of something new. The trick in every relationship is to keep the mystery going. Once the spouse has revealed everything, there is no mystery. The fascination dies. There is no point in flitting from one relationship to another to find mystery. The success of long and happy relationships is to find mystery in your relationship over and over again!
How To Keep the Mystery & Romance Alive: 1. Secret Rendezvous - You want to find another partner to date because you are bored of the current one. But why not just ignite the spark again? If you live in a joint family, pretend as if you are meeting a new person and you are very excited about it. Only you wife and you will know that you’re meeting each other. Let the rest of the family keep guessing. Even …

Grazia August issue quotes me and Ira Trivedi on our conflicting views.

Every day you try to do something great with your life. You try because you think you will become great if you could just do that one thing that gets you noticed. It might be a ppt that you made in office. Or that idea you thought was brilliant. Or whatever it was. And then you look around. And no one is applauding. Wtf. Wasn’t this supposed to be your moment? So you either shrug your shoulders and try better tomorrow or you convince people that it was a good thing in the first place. You go around thinking you ARE brilliant. Then you start doing the same thing again and again. Until people realize that wow – that is some cool shit. And the people who are opposed to you even though they might think differently will say, what the hell, let’s just say it is cool shit! And soon you’re known for it. Soon, people start recognizing you for it. Soon people start believing in it. And it is awesome. Because soon enough other people start doing the same thing. And it spreads. The same thing goe…

Relationships are not always about Love. Most times, they are about money. Whoever has the Money has the Power. It is the reason why mothers raised their sons to think that they need to earn to “provide” for their family while with their daughters they were more lenient as they assumed the daughters would be like them, homemakers. Subconsciously it is also the reason why mothers wanted their sons to have the power in a relationship rather than someone else who might take it away from them. Money and power are also the reason why women work. Yes, it gives them satisfaction. Yes, it makes them more than a housewife or a mother or a daughter and whatever other labels that society chooses to force on them. But most importantly, when they work they feel powerful. Money gives them independence. Independence gives them an opportunity to be in or out of a relationship, if at all. Times of India front page on July 27th stated that divorce in Mumbai has risen to 86% in the last 10 years with a s…

When is it ok to have an affair? Now the majority here will say NEVER, but think about it for just one second. Do you think we have one life to live? Do you think that in this life it is important to strive for happiness? Do you think that if we are not happy, our souls will eventually rot, and we will need therapy? Do you think if we do our duty to society and our family, we still need happiness? So if you answered YES to any of the questions, here’s a last one: Do you think happiness to yourself is the most important thing we need to strive for? What if the “affair” was the only solution to happiness? Scene 1: Married at 18, Kaaya was bored with life by the time she was 30. She had two children and she ran a business from home making children’s clothes. Her husband worked in a bank. Late hours and many silent nights later, they had nothing left in common except the children. But the children had now grown. And there was barely any conversation left. She met a widowed father online. …

The sounds of the night are lonely They creep in to the crevasses of life Till nothing, nothing remains. And makes you conclusively hollow. You try desperately to connect to a world beyond the real There is no one. There never was. There is no one left. Where did they all go? No don’t! Don’t hope. Hope is a dangerous thing. I dare not dream of a better tomorrow. What if it’s like today? Forgotten time Lost souls Heartbreaking memories A maze, a race, a quest. Let it stop The energies have changed. I refuse to be strong. Let me cling to my loneliness. In the death of night. It is my comfort. It resonates deep within me. Even when the dawn breaks… I am the Queen of Solitude.

I can see the wrinkles on my face now. The laughter lines are more prominent. The creases, the extra ness and the spots. It’s not who I was just a year back. How things have changed. You made me change. Less looking after myself. And more attention to you. The worry lines became more prominent. The anger lines a little more defined. Let it Be, someone murmured. I couldn’t. I wanted to be the BEST. The competition killed me. You didn’t make it easy. We were all vying for your time. You never had any. It was a heavy burden. It killed me. It made me bitter. And sad. And then you left. And chose another. But I was always “me”. The one you said you loved. How can I change now? I’m still me. The laughter has frozen. And the lines have set in. My face shows my burden. The etches of a torn past. If Only I had listened. If only I could have… Let it be…

Anger and Fear are the predominant emotions of our times today. We are a nation of scared people. The generation above us was scared for economic and social reasons and our generation seems to be scared of change. Contrary to what we might say, many people do not want the system to change. They hold on to things and claim it in form of tradition. I asked a Hindu friend of mine at a dinner party, “Would you be ok if your only daughter fell in love with a Muslim?” And she smiled and said, “I’m sure that won’t happen.” I asked another friend of mine, “What if your only son told you he was a homosexual?” And the man turned to me and replied, “Why even think of such things?” I asked family members who had attended Anna Hazare’s fast, “Have you ever given a bribe to get off a speeding ticket? Or to get your passport done early? Or to an `agent’ to process your license?” And they laughed and said, “Everyone does that.” So why are we not changing? Why are we not progressing? Because it is easy a…

Today I was at a coffee shop and I saw at least 4 people entering at different times, all looking like celebrities, but weren’t. So I figured that it doesn’t take much to be a celebrity nowadays. All you need to do is follow the pointers and even you can become one. Ok, not as big as SRK or Pa. But someone cool enough for laymen like me to turn around at a coffee shop and notice you. Here goes... 1.Always wear sunglasses. Even at night. Even if you’re indoor. If this is too hard, at least wear one on top of your head. Always.
2.Practice your walk. Shoulders back, stomach in, one foot ahead of another in a line. You may trip and fall at home while doing this, but NEVER trip in public.
3.Try and be slim. The thinner you are, the more fame you’ll get. Remember Kareena in Yaadein? No. Exactly. Now remember her in Tashan? Aahhh! You get my drift.
4.Never eat in public. Even if you’re invited to the most exotic parties with food flown in from Milan and Paris together, do not eat it. It will loo…

In a fast track world, it is easy to be in and out of relationships. However, the excuses for breaking up are getting old. It is no longer “I need space,” or “It’s not you, it’s me” that are doled out anymore. The excuses need to be creative, modern, and semi believable! The top ways of breaking up are: 1.The Astrologer Told Me –In ancient times, parents checked horoscopes of the couple to see if they matched. If the `kundalis’ didn’t match, it could be ominous. In modern day scenario, men have learnt to use this to their advantage. Instead of waiting for the last minute to get their astrological charts checked, they claim to their girlfriends they have already got it checked! This they will announce after a few dates once they’ve realized that this girl is not working for them. The woman has no choice therefore. No woman would want to go through a relationship where if something went wrong, he would blame her by saying,”See, I told you! My horoscope said I need space!”
2.You Saw The M…