I spy with my li'l eye...

I spy with my li'l eye...

Let's get back to the gay lexicon, and one particularly brilliant word. To all the uninitiated yearlings, gaydar is a clver enough combination of two words gay + radar = gaydar. Talk about homo ingenuity. It's a term meant to signify how good (or bad) your sixth sense is, regarding any odd man on the street being gay or straight. There are some members of the Family who are keen bloodhounds, with a nose and gaydar so strong that they can sniff the gay soul through the straightest and drabbest of grey clothes. And then, of course, there's me.

:-)

Me of the flabbergasted expressions and woeful sighs, who can never decide or decipher a man's gaze. Of course, I could excuse myself by saying that it's all the more harder these days because straight men tend to act and dress very gay these days - but that argument pales fast, against the track record of the greatest gay bloodhounds of Bombay. In my case, I bumble about, and if I actually ever bump into someone on the street who is gay, it's a blue moon in China.

So, there was Martini the other day, who was reading a book on the rise and fall of the Roman Empire in a neat little bookshop in Kemps Corner. At which time, a certain tall and strapping young man saunters over and casually asks him whether he might pass him a magazine. Martini and Strapping Young Man start chatting, and laughing, and of course, because both their gaydars are attuned to a high pitch, they walk out of the bookshop with each other's numbers in their cell phones and a dinner date the forthcoming Friday. I've been to that bloody shop umpteen times, and never has any Strapping/Unstrapping Young/Old man ever come sauntering up to me, though.

Then, there's this department shop in Bandra, six stories of retail therapy, which is supposed to be frequented by Family members. Whenever I visit the place, I try my utmost to look ultra chic and casual, taking my time in the trousers and casual shirts sections, lingering over the innerwear floor, hoping to catch a glimpse of, or perhaps interlock fingers with, a faceless young man with oodles of charisma. Never happens. But I always hear tales later of how so-and-so bumped into such-and-such on the damn third floor, while I was busy canoodling on the fourth.

Anyone know of a cheap place which overhauls antennae?