A few days back, some friends and I decided to head down to the Furtados shop in Mumbai to buy a brand new, shiny guitar for another friend of ours. His birthday was coming up in a few days and he's destined to leave for the States by the end of July, and as we aren't gonna meet him for at least a couple of years, we thought that the guitar would definitely be a great birthday/parting gift!
So we caught a train from Thane to CST, and then walked the remaining way down to Furtados. The shop looks pretty awesome with guitars, drums, keyboards and other instruments all over the place. While we were there, we saw a guy playing an electric guitar quite well while a girl sat next to him gazing at him with this love-struck expression in her eyes.
Watching this particular scene immediately brought to my mind the image of Lord Rama with his bow in his hand with Sita next to him, gazing at him imploringly with affection. The times may have definitely changed but certain elements clearly haven't. There's still the man, there's still the shiny, stringed instrument and there's still the woman with the nauseating gaze. The purpose of both instruments are obviously different, but they do seem to have the same effect on women. You've gotta admit, there is some sort of hold that a man with a stringed instrument has on a woman! To me its just simply incomprehensible.
Anyways, after some pointless haggling over the price we did finally purchase the guitar that we wanted (it was a Granada acoustic with an electrical attachment thingy) and I volunteered to carry it on our walk back to CST. On our way back, as we passed St. Xavier's College, I found myself getting many stares from both sexes...women more than men! A few raised eyebrows and a few repressed smiles later, I realized it was the guitar on my shoulders that was creating such an effect.
Women do have a strange affinity to the guitar and I sure as hell don't understand it. Its probably the same reason why band groupies give initial preference to the guitarists over the drummers. Anyways, my friend loved the Granada guitar!
I wonder if he'll experience the same effect when he goes to States......