Posts from — November 2002

Simply barbaric!!

Just the other day I was awaiting my turn in the barbershop, ogling at the actresses in the well-worn magazines. All of a sudden a sense of enlightenment illuminated my cranium. I realized that if you ask a man to list down the people he trusts the most, then one entry would surely be common to many people’s lists. That entry would be “the barber”.

What??! A barber?!

Well yes, a man seems to trust his barber tremendously. How else can you explain the fact that he coolly submits his head to be manipulated a stranger who with his other hand wields razor-sharp instruments for use on that head. Plus, it’s a fact that men rarely change their barbers (something to chew about for those marketing type yuppies who talk about brand-loyalty and some such stuff). I think this is what prompted Mark Twain to declare, “All things change except barbers”.

My earliest memories of visits to barbershops are those of sitting atop two cushions on the barber’s chair and looking into the wall of mirror in front of me. The barber was a kindly person who snipped my hair with gentle finesse. And if I behaved well in the chair then I would get a lollipop at the end of the haircut (which was quite a treat at that time since lollipops and other sweetmeats were a rarity given the now-you-see-one-now-you-don’t condition of my teeth). Whether it was the lollipop assured at the end of the ordeal or the sweet smell of various creams and lotions on the shelf, I would look forward to these visits to the barbershop accompanied by my mother.

A few years later, having outgrown the phase in which I considered lollipops as treats, my father started taking me along with him to his barber. This gentleman was quite different to the earlier one. He was a stern looking person who would envelope my young head with his huge hands and turn it around while the other hand snipped away with military precision, the errant wisps of hair which dared to stand out of place on my head. The end product of these visits would be close-cropped hair that had me looking like a very young recruit into a military school. I hated this look!

As I entered my teens, I scouted around and found a decent barber who would not have me looking like a porcupine whenever he was finished with me (well, vanity is a big thing during the teens!). All throughout my teens and quite a few years after that I stuck with this barber, which bolstered my belief that, men never change barbers. Every month I would make the visit early on a Sunday morning to the barbershop. I would sit down on the chair(now without any pillows of course). The barber would wrap a white cape around me and spray water on my head with an atomizer. Then he would produce combs of various shapes and sizes from the drawer and place them alongside scissors. Then, the ‘master craftsman’ that he pretended to be would start to ply his trade with adroit precision, snipping away to glory. Being a short and portly figure, he would bustle around me trying to give attention to all the parts of my head. As the clickity clack of the scissors started, I would close my eyes and let the barber take over completely, my neck, pliable and willing in his hands, as he twisted and turned it like a corkscrew. The songs on the radio or the cassette player would almost lull me into a light slumber. My eyes would open only when some cool spirit would be splashed on the back of my neck and behind my ears, ostensibly in an effort to sterilize it before the razor was applied. The razor is used to banish even the littlest outcroppings of hair under the hairline perfectly carved by the able hands of the barber. I would then regard myself long and hard in the bank of mirrors before me, turning my head this way and that. It is essential to be mentioned here that my hairs though abundant in volume, are an unruly lot. They refuse to settle down and stand out from the scalp making me look very much like a porcupine with long quills. For this reason, the barber would keep my hair longer than he normally would, citing the reason that it would be difficult to comb them if they were shortened. As a result I would not look much different after the haircut than before it. Grudgingly then, I would nod my head in response to the barber’s inquiring stare. Happy to have satisfied his customer the barber would then proceed to give a small expertly executed massage to my head, which would relax me completely.

As the times changed, the barbers and their tiny barbershops changed too. Slick, air-conditioned parlours replaced the dingy serviceable shops, the barbers themselves started wearing clean and pressed uniforms and started calling themselves hair-dressers or hair-care-specialists… (and other such mighty sounding names), the unnamed powders and lotions changed to branded products, the old instruments changed to shiny new ones, the whole atmosphere in the barbershop changed to reflect the times. What however did not change was the trust that men had in their barbers. They still go to the same barber even though he charges a lot higher now than in the past and expects a tip every time without exception.

How often do YOU change your barber?!

cheers!

A crib, a boast and a loopy bridge!

[crib] Today has been a bit more hectic than normal. One member of our project team resigned and my boss thought it fit to ask me to takeover the responsibilities from that person who resigned. This meant a series of meetings in the afternoon as I was handed over the charge of 4-5 new tasks. And as if this wasn’t enough, the formal handover process would last another week at least… which means some more hectic times ahead! [/crib]

… a crib followed by a little bit of boasting!…

[brag] All these new responsibilities and the offer to lead the team sounds good… especially since I’m the newest member of the project team and I’ve been chosen over the existing, more experienced people in the team! I guess that has something to do with the outstanding rating that I recently got in my annual performance appraisal!! *nose lifted high in the air* [/brag]

… now for the spoiler!

[spoiler] Leading a team and all means zilch in our project team since we are a R&D kind of a project with a hierarchy-less structure and everybody having to put his/her nose to the grindstone and slog their asses off without exception! [/spoiler]

Well… that was just me being a royal bore… trying to blow my own trumpet!! (but then… if we had a trumpet, why wouldn’t we blow it?! … I mean its no use having a trumpet and keeping it unused and going about borrowing trumpets from others just to blow them!) :-|

Not much today from my side! (hmmm… I can hear a few exclamations of “Thank God!” from the people who found my previous post to be very long and boring!)

Ok… but just before I go… here’s a bridge that I wouldn’t mind crossing! ;-) … http://www.freewebs.com/supersam5/images/scenic4.jpg

Fancy a ride across it?!

Ok… on that note… I put on the One ring and disappear!!

cheers!

Back!

Well… I’m back! … after a brief hiatus of three days during which I did not blog, I’m back!

So, what did I do in these three days?! … Hmmm! … I had been to Oxford… of the East!! … a.k.a. Punyanagari … a.k.a. Pune!

I took the day off on Friday and drove down to Pune (with my parents) taking the fantastic expressway. In just under two and half hours after leaving our doorstep in Mumbai, I was opening the lock to the door of our house in Pune… (I can never overstress the joy of driving along the expressway, especially after the slow-as-a-snail drives on Mumbai roads!).

My main aim while in Pune was to get a few things done at the new house there. The walls needed some painting and the floor needed polishing. But, as it turned out eventually, only the paint job could be completed while the guy who was supposed to do the floor polishing never turned up even once during the three days I was there! :-/

Most of the day on Friday was hectic, which saw me running around trying to get the painters to start the paint job. These painters were one lazy breed of workers. They did some work for 15-20 minutes and followed it up with an hour of break followed by another brief spell of work. This weird work cycle seemed strange to me at first since I could not understand the logic behind it. After a couple of questions I learnt that these poor guys had been hired to work in night shift at a neighbouring construction site where they painted all night. So it was but natural for them to be exhausted during the day for the want of sleep. But they had no reason to slack for nearly 5 hours out of the 8 hour day-shift they worked on. Totally inexcusable! Common sense and sympathy prevented me from hollering at them. But when they stopped painting an iron railing halfway through the job, because it was 5:30 PM (end of shift!), I blew my top and gave them an earful… a very loud earful!! Needless to say… the railing was painted without any further cribbing from those painters! … (it was a case of… “Beware the fury of a patient man!”) *LOL*

Saturday was a waste! … the entire day was spent in watching the painters paint the walls… followed by waching the paint dry! Have you ever watched paint dry?? … Try it once… there’s hardly any activity more wholesomely fruitless and inane than that!! … but its good time pass! ;) … I have to warn you that the smell of the paint might give a kick to some people. Its alright if you are interested in sniffing things to get your kicks but for the less-than-exciting personalities like mine… the smell is revolting… especially after being forced to sniff it all day long!

Sunday dawned and brought with it a slight bite in the air… something that had been missing before. The view from our balcony is panoramic. In the distance, from the left, the Bombay-Bangalore highway enters into the field of vision and continues along the base of the hill until the hill is no more. Then the highway curves gently to the right, hugging the hill till it passes out of view, behind it. A little further to the right, a serene Pashan lake breaks the monotony of landscape as a dense, luxuriant growth of trees defies the heat to provide a verdant relief to the eyes scanning the brown, scraggy landscape…(The lake looks especially wonderful at night as the interplay caused by the moonlight and the gentle nightly breeze cause silver shimmers on its surface. The mornings however are an entirely different thing to behold as thick layers of mist cling to the surface of the lake giving it an appearance of a vast snow covered plain!)

Coming back to where I left of… Sunday dawned with an air of anticipation. I was gonna meet people. Some of them after a gap of 3-4 years, while others for the first time. After a quick breakfast I left the house to meet two of my college friends whom I hadn’t met for the better part of three years after graduation! It was wonderful to see both of them after a long time and we spent the better part of an hour catching up on old times and recalling some of the events that made our college life so wonderful!

I happened to glance at my watch and realised it was almost 11 AM, the time that I was supposed to meet Shuchita outside South Winds on FC Rd. My friends had to leave too, so we said our goodbyes and I made my way to the appointed place. Shuchita had said that she would wear a yellow shirt and blue jeans which would help in recognizing her. In the 10 mins that I waited I saw nearly a dozen girls answering to that description… until an autorickshaw stopped right in front of South Winds Café and a pretty girl stepped out… wearing a pink shirt and blue jeans. I was almost going to look away (lest she should catch me staring at her), when she asked, “Sameer?”. So!! … here was Shuchita! The only thought that was running in my mind at that time was, “This has got to be the pinkest shade of yellow I have ever seen!!”.

We then entered the coffee-shop and chatted over cups of coffee. The chat was basically get-to-know kind of chat and in almost no time, an hour passed! Now… it was time for Shuchita (the shy youth trying to escape reality) to leave since she had to meet another fellow blogger, Ameya and couple of others. It was a great experience meeting her and I look forward to the next meeting. I had to leave since I had to return to Mumbai immediately after lunch, which consisted of delicious chicken dish (sober chicken, I’m afraid… not the drunken variety!).

After lunch and a quick nap (induced by the chicken… and not Café Latté!), I was ready to leave for Mumbai. We packed the bags and set off from Pune… and in exactly 2 hours I was at Sion (a new record for me!!) catching almost no traffic along the way. But then it was too good to be true and we caught some really bad mass of traffic at Sion which meant that it took almost 45 mins to reach home from there… a distance normally covered in 10 mins.

So… all in all, a weekend well spent!!

Thats it for now… as you can see *pointing to this long blog*… I’m back with a vengeance after the break! ;)

cheers!

Corn Club!

Feel like having some corn flavoured humour??…

Well… I give you no choice! … here some of the PJs (groaners) that my twisted mind has been able to conceive!…

Q. Why do the local trains in Mumbai give such a good performance?
Ans. With 9 coaches, you HAVE to perform well!!

another one… read this patiently…
There is this man who has a brother. Now, this brother falls in love with a female and gets married even though there is a lot of opposition in the family to their marriage. Everyone disowns the brother… everyone except our man!
It so happens that the brother’s wife gives birth to a girl. Everyone is happy… even the family that had once disowned the brother. Our guy becomes the godfather of the little girl. Then years pass and the girl grows up to be a beautiful woman. And inevitably falls in love with a guy from her college. There is a sense of déja vu as the entire family goes against this match. Again, everyone except our guy disowns the girl. The family members constantly taunt and harass the girl on the subject of her affair with the guy from her college. The girl suffers all these taunts silently till one day she can’t take it anymore. She attempts suicide by eating a lot of sleeping pills. Thankfully, our guy finds her fallen on the living room floor and rushes her to a nearby hospital. The doctors toil hard and bring the girl out of danger. They congratulate the guy on his promptness because otherwise it would have been too late.
Now, the girl is resting on the hospital bed and our guy is outside the room, sitting on a bench looking awfully crestfallen. Just then he sees a world famous lead singer of a very famous group, passing by… a group that is one of the girl’s favourite!… Our guy has an idea… he requests the the singer to go and meet the girl to cheer her up. After a little persuasion the singer agrees. He goes inside the room and after a few minutes, comes back. Then that world famous singer, tells the guy that the girl is okay and happy now. The singer also starts singing a song.
Hearing the song, our guy nods and says “Yes!”.
…Now… I’ve told you all so much… you just have to tell me who is that singer and what song did he sing??
Ans. The singer was Mick Jagger … and the song that he sang was… “Fallin’ in love is so hard on your niece… “

*LOL*… don’t you just want to hit me!! ;)

Ok… here’s another!…
Once there were three good friends, Tom , Dick and Harry. They had a peculiar habit… that of going to a movie first day, first show every week. And they always without fail went to the movies together… all the three of them! So, now what happens is that this week they decide to go and watch the hottest release of the week. But this time, there seems to be a weird problem. All the three can’t go together. Only two of them can go to the movie. So, to decide who should go to the movie, they draw lots. It so happens that Tom and Harry are selected to go to the movie while Dick is left all alone. Tom and Harry go and watch the movie!… So, can you guess which movie it was???
Ans. The movie is ‘Company’!! … and the reason why just the two of them went to watch it is that everybody knows that… “Two’s Company and three’s a crowd!!!”

Q. Why won’t a married guy use Colgate Fresh Energy Gel toothpaste?
Ans. Bcos once u use that toothpaste… har saas bole… talk to me!! … (saas : mother-in-law) ;)

… Ok Ok… last one for the moment!!…

Take care of ur hair 2de! … wash ‘em… oil ‘em… comb ‘em… perm ‘em… colour ‘em… in short… pamper ‘em!!… why?.. you ask!!
Ans. ‘coz 2de is Baal Din!!! ;-p

HAPPY CHILDREN’S DAY TO YOU ALL

cheers!