Summer & SIM's

For the sterotypical Indian male (SIM) the arrival of summertime heralds the (I can almost imagine him rubbing his hands in glee) onset of sleeveless tops for Indian women most prominently of the teens to mid age spectrum (high degree of political correctness being employed to avoid trouble from any women I know reading this and falling in this category). I dont know what the fascincation is all about, its just a few square centimetres of skin being displayed near the shoulder. I mean you probably see most of the armthe rest of the year, for 3 months you get a chance to see it completely. And yet serial ogglers will continue to well oggle while the others might just let an accidental glance linger for that extra second, these 2 categories being the way the stereotypical Indian male is divided into.

Maybe they (the sterotypical Indian male) think they are making up for the cold winter months in which women covered themselves from head to toe with tops, sweaters, stoles and whatnot and not a trace of skin could be seen. Maybe they are just being guys. Maybe they believe that they are only appreciating natures creations and I think it is fair to say that women do the same when it comes to guys.

Which is where the whole 'Hey I think I saw that guy give you a second glance' (a genuine compliment) versus the 'Lets no go there, those idiots are leching like its their last day on earth' (which is when you wish a bus load of policemen get off a bus surround the cheapos and beat them black and blue) discussion crops up. Disclaimer : the following applies to both sexes for the sake of correctness.

Type 1: The shameless of the shameless will openly admit to leching which includes checking out the other persons physical attributes in a negative manner whatever be the time, place or occassion.

Type 2: Then there are the casual lechers who will ordinarily not stoop to such levels but given the right time, place or occassion they wont stop themselves from having a casual glance.

Type 3: The third type is those who genuinely would think now that woman is pretty/attractive/ any-other-adjective-for-a-woman or guy is handsome/cute/ any-other-adjective-for-a-guy. Which doesnt mean they keep staring at every person walking by admiring and appreciating but i believe they would do so in moderation. For some strange reason I tend to compare such people with wine-lovers. Dont ask.

Type 4: Fourthly there are those believe that appreciating/admiring/harmlessly checking out/leching etc for those few seconds or minutes wont make a difference to your life and hence dont bother with the entire effort. Their argument does have some degree of reasoning - after all seeing someone on a bus, train, in a mall, in office or anywhere else for a couple of minutes wont really change your life unless you really believe that you can emulate Bollyowod's heroes who can woo a woman who hates them by whisking them away to some snow capped mountain where they will dance while being under-dressed for the biting cold. (How do these heroes transport them from Bombay to Switzerland and bring them back the moment the song gets over anyways ..... hmmmmmm but I digress)

Edit : Type 5 - Came across a new classification today while chatting with the guys - 'the lighthouse', used to describe a person who will check out someone and strain his/her neck while only looking at that person until they are out of sight (which doesnt necessarily result in out of mind but still....) Usually involves a 360 degree rotation of neck + body, hence the name.

So how does one draw that thin line between whats acceptable and whats not? I really dont know. I guess you will have to ask the stereotypical Indian woman(SIW). Which is one topic I know nothing about.