Meaning

Today, I was introduced to yet another joy of facebooking - Controversial comments! Ahem, and I apparently made one such disgusting, demeaning and un-parliamentary (so what does this word mean anyway? something that is not appropriate to use in a parliament? - if so, why do they often compare ours to the fish market? I wonder aloud!) comment about women belonging to a certain state. I looked at one of these wedding pics a dear friend posted, looked at the stunning bride and said in all genuineness, that "Malyalee girls are hot!" Before I go further, I just have to acknowledge that I am not the kind of person that would say something nice or otherwise without meaning it. I had the good fortune in recent years, though I was mentored by a school of Malyalee Nuns in my childhood, to realize that these women are well read, well bred and good-looking all at the same time.
Enters a man who e-shouts at me - that the OCCASION doesn't warrant such comments and I should 'understand' this as a 'woman'. At first I thought there was some miscommunication - since the ever wordy yours truly who cannot say a simple phrase in less than 500 words happened to reply in all the lengthy glory, which contained a lot of negations to convey an utterly positive observation, as a response to the friend's playful feedback to the alleged unparlimentary comment.
Then, I panicked - I think - ever so slightly, since what my general physician said about my recent jaw pain and doc's visit was ever so slightly true and I do, in reality have some mild anxiety that comes as a side effect of having a over active toddler and a job that offers no fiscal benefits and loads of physical deficits, or because I have this OCD of a guilt complex that only a fellow sufferer of 'middle child syndrome' could empathize with.
I read and reread and then took the aid of the kid sister who chanced to call at the same moment when the concoction of ever so slight panic and middle child syndrome occurred. "The dude got offended by your "Hot" comment she offered which put me in a 'lack of reaction' mode. I could not, for once, figure if I had to laugh my heads off or feel sorry for the self appointed etiquette police on planet Facebook.

My brother once came home, post the 'Slumdog' fever, form a trip to a shopping strip in San Francisco and related to me a story about a co-shopper, who walked to him, confirmed that he's indeed Indian, and told him that "The hot little thing" in Slumdog is giving him sleepless nights and in his 'halo effect' mindset and said that he wants to go to India and fall in love with all the women! My brother managed a thank you I guess - and came home and told me the story as if he were Aishwarya rai's brother and was just relating to his sister, the extremely memorable and endearing compliment a very enthusiastic fan had urged him to convey. He didn't see anything unparlimentary about the words, hot OR little thing - and neither did I. I am thankful - since, had he been the self appointed police of 'saving the grace of Indian women' the guy would have though very highly of the Indian Gentry :-D
I feel the necessity to mention here, that on a site like facebook, where every one and their neighbor's forefathers have more friends than humans I'd ever seen in my three decades of living, you say a thing and it gets noticed more often for what it is perceived to be, than for what it is. I have this extremely funny younger friend who finds endless humor in 'gay' related statuses and comments. Though I am not a whole generation older, some of his observations come across more as 'cheeky' than funny. Like I said, I have an OCD guilt complex and often wonder how a 'fighting with the sexuality, still in the woodworks person' might get effected by that humor. I once happened to watch a telugu movie that was a mega hit in it's times for a comedy that ridicules speech impediments. By a strange twist of fate, we watched it with a neighbor that had stuttering issues and I could not, for the life of me, get to understand how a full house could go into a mass hysteria of laughter that is aimed at a handicap. I am probably in the minority and would be branded as a 'holier than thou' snob but Back on track - I would personally not make humor targeted at a certain group, but I do have the dignity to keep my opinions and judgments to myself when I am not asked for them and when the said 'comedy' is being expressed on people's own walls and blogs. So, why would anyone get offended if I called a certain group of women 'hot' in a space other than his, under a picture other than his, and a senior, well respected, head on shoulders member of the same fraternity seems to have taken it as a beaming compliment?" I fail to understand.
Like some wise soul opined in one of her blogs recently - "that people attach their own egos to what is being said - and seldom take things like they are meant to be, or it is just the fact that we are so engrossed in finding faults with every thing we set our eyes on, that we forget our boundaries of grace. I say that being judgmental is the worst thing anyone could do - and I just did that worst thing by saying what I just said. But Hey, I am trying to make a point here - meaning, like beauty, lies in the eyes and mind of the beholder.