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| Man searching: Photo taken from the internet |
Let me start this piece with an
optimistic assumption.
Most of you must have read at
least one story where Sherlock or Hercule cracked a complex crime by observing tiniest
nod of head or a piece of broken match stick, connecting dots and thus zeroing
on that crucial missing link. You feel good on behalf of mankind when they
solve high octane murders (besides other crooked activities) and what initially
looks like an unsolvable crime; they help make the world a little better place
to live in, so what if it is all just fiction.
Apart from legendary Holmes and
Poirot, there are of course a battalion of famous male detectives - Wallander,
Morse, Dalgliesh, Lord Peter Wimsey, Harry Hole, Bosch, Cormoran and closer
home in India - Byomkesh, Prodosh C
Mitter aka Feluda, Kiriti Roy, Vimal among others. Having devoured books
featuring these men who can find needle in a haystack, I somehow harboured a
notion that if nothing else men are good at observing and finding stuff.
Stuff: Defined herein as basic
household items like cutlery, socks, eye wear, soup bowls, thermometer, conditioner,
paper napkins – you know the stuff you need for bare minimum survival besides
oxygen and water?
But alas there is a huge difference between fiction and the
truth.
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| Photo taken from the internet |
Being married more than a decade
has taught me that finding basic things in the house is like a small adventure
in itself. Every time you request (note to readers: not instruct) a straw for
the cold coffee or a spoon to scoop ice cream is met with a horrified look. It
is as if I have ‘requested’ for the most precious jewel kept in a complicated
password protected bank locker that only the Ocean’s series level heist can
achieve.
He can never find anything inside
the house. Never, ever. And this is not happening in our house as a standalone
adventure. I have seen the same scene unfold in most houses. Completely
clueless husbands behaving as if they are guests in their own home!
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| Photo courtesy: Internet |
We were invited recently to
someone’s house for the first time for lunch. As I went in the kitchen to get
myself a glass of water I found the man of the house (a C level exec and quite
intelligent) muttering under his breath. On asking what ails him I figured he
cannot find forks needed in the lunch table. I had never stepped inside their
kitchen prior to this but it took me just 1 minute to find the forks. Nopes, I
am not a magician. It was kept where most people keep forks, spoons. But for
some strange reason he who lives in that house for nearly 8 years could not
find them.
My neighbour cannot locate his
car keys (every morning) and throws a fit, my nephew cannot find his own pencil
box, my uncle doesn’t know where he keeps his own spectacles, a male friend of
mine routinely accuses his wife of misplacing his socks (like why will she do
something stupid like this!), a friend couldn’t find his own daughter in a
group of kids at a play area, my cousin cannot spot the laundry basket and
thinks dropped clothes will land inside the washing machine on their own and my
male dog expects me to find his favourite toy which he keeps securely in only
two places inside the house!
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| Photo courtesy : Internet |
However point to be noted that my
husband NEVER misses spotting his favourite cars even when they are half a km
away, he and my other guy friends NEVER miss spotting some really nice looking
woman a km away and the same nephew who can’t find his pencil box in his own school bag can spot a
tiny piece of his favourite leftover Pizza in an over-crowded fridge where
normal eyesight will miss spotting a small sized animal.
Just like most men have selective
hearing mode on, their vision and ability to locate stuff is also selectively
activated?
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| Photo courtesy : Internet |
