What is Sexy?

Sexy. It is one of the most thrown around words of this generation. (Ofcourse, after 'Gen'. A universal one word answer to any question. Could well be a boring replacement to Sexy for all these questions).

Q: Hey dude, how was the movie 'Dark Knight'?
A: Sexy mann.

Q: Hey machan, how is the Masala dosa?
A: Its Sexy da.

Q: Mama, how is the latest chiru song ra?
A: Sexy undi ra baabai.

Q: Oye, tera iphone kaisi hai?
A: Bahut Sexy hai yaar.

Guess there isn't a definition of what being Sexy is. And god knows what it has to do with the three letter word. So, I pondered a while on what does it take for anything to be called sexy.

First, is being sexy about meeting the expectations? Or exceeding them. Second, are the expectations realistic or do they have significant dosage of fantasy.

In the case of things, almost always the sexy thing lies in the midway. You know that your fantasy device is a good decade away, but what you have in your hand is something which shows promise. You would want a 5 MP SLR quality camera with Bluetooth, Wifi, GPS, dual-touch screen, media player (which plays all damn formats in 3D surround sound and HDTV clarity) & all those fancy features (Yes Mr.Bond, we do have Satellite Missle Control & for the ladies version, we do have a Virtual online make-up assistant as she smiles at the camera). All in a small box. Oh yeah!! it should be able to send & receive voice calls. Mr Graham Bell & Scarlett-O-Hara would be proud to call this gizmo 'Phone with the mind'.

But what we get is an iphone. Still we call it sexy.

Sexy music calls for different faculties. Subconscious mind probably looks for mathematical patterns when ever it listens to sound. It could activate the pleasure center in the brain if it finds a definite series or a neat signal which could be harmoniously split into specific frequencies (we all unknowingly thank fourier this way). Its no surprise that a melodious vedic hymn in the praise of Lord Krsna also contains value of pi to 32 decimal places. With this universe full of patterns & signals, comprehending a speck of it takes you one step closer to god and no wonder music is a straight forward path in understanding the divinity.

MS Subbulaxmi probably doesn't know Mr. Fourier; Nor does AR Rahman or Harris Jeyraj. But they do tune-out sexy music.

Food can be sexy. A perfect combination of the acids & bases available in your mom's kitchen is guaranteed to bring out the wholesome feeling in you. It gets sexy when the taste buds are excited in the right proportions at right times (and you thought Cooking and Math never intersect! How about a subject called 'Culinery Calculus'?). Those grandma recipes getting passed on from generations are nothing but the counter-parts of solutions to the Quantum electrodynamics or collected papers on Nonlinear physics.

Trust me. Nothing can get sexier than a well prepared Dum biryani, masala dosa, bisi bele bath, Paneer butter masala or Rosogulla.

Dark Knight was indeed a sexy movie. Few can disagree (Few=females). Movies depicting tragic history (like in schindler's list) in a graphic way or those dwelling in a fantasy world with real emotions (ala LOTR ). Like those showing utter terror using innocent characters ( Mr. Norman Bates in Psycho) or dealing with the variations of human psychology (One flew over ..or Forrest Gump). Most of them evoking the deepest of the human emotions.

Many disagree, argue, fight over what makes a movie sexy. I could not find a common denominator among Hitchcock's thrillers, Martin Scorsese's influential films, Hrishi da's art works and K ViswaNath's Classics (Sorry Yash Chopra & Karan Johar, romantic movies are nice and warm but cannot be tagged Sexy). I give up and leave it for the audience to decide.

For human beings, leave aside the most stereotyped physical definitions of being sexy (exaggerated Shoulder-to-waist ratio for men & magic 36-24-36 vital stats for women), and the 'Golden Ratio' for facial beauty ( which says we all pay homage to Mr. Fibonacci when ever we are on the prowl for mating). Being sexy is thought to be as a matter of attitude these days. I think its again a culmination of fantasy and reality. Someone could be pictured with some charactersitics. Being sexy is that person actually having them all. What seems sexy to me might seem 'whattt?' for you. Whom you consider 'god/goddess' might not evoke any emotion in me.

For a man, the wife could be traditionally sexy when she is clad in a Kanchipuram Zari saree after a ShiKakai head bath, her long hair wrapped in a wet towel and heading for Suprabhatam. For this lady, it could well be her man, hearing the sound of her anklets, jumping onto her from his lethargic Filter-Coffee-sipping-Hindu-Newspapaer-reading pose to take a whiff of Mysore Sandal off her shoulders. Or as western as his woman in a white negligee with a red wine glass in one hand; Jazz playing in the background and the other hand inviting. And for her it might be a neatly shaved man in tuxedo reciting shakespeare willing to do a waltz jig.

Tomes of stuff can be written about this topic. All points to just one sentence. Reality meeting fantasy. The fantasy could as well be the almighty. Appreciating his brilliance in creation. We all try to understand universe through the sexy things around. All I can conclude is Sexy is the closest description of god.