Short or Medium??

Getting my hair cut, is usually a self decision. Although it starts off with Amma very subtly pointing out my not-so-subtle mane growth, it is a self decision.

Some days of resistance and convincing, of the need to be different, or the attempt at a new style, follow, but a look in the mirror convinces me that its time.


After the undertaking, comes the actual visit to the Salon. The Salon, mind you, not any other salon. The search for the Salon is a long, enduring and a challenging journey guaranteed to make you hair stand on end, with its endless traps and trickery. Loud mouthed barbers and unchanged blades are the prime villains among others. This is certainly not for the bald pated.

Now to those who naively question the search for the Salon, like" Pah what’s the big deal in choosing barber and all? It’s the same scissor and same half broken talcum powder box, no?” I curse them to visit Unisex salons and pay exorbitant prices for hair-styling+marriage-fairness-face-pack+ear-cleaning packages for the rest of their condemned lives.

"Kanna, My hair growth is self-regulated and changes with the different characters, i portray. Hope Balakrishnan doesn't mind..."

Its a different mane game altogether. Its needs patience, diligence and a keen eye. From my experience of having it done at 4 different places before settling down to the current one, the following factors should be looked out for:

1) Ambience: Plush interiors with Gillette shaving cream cans on the shelf, translates to one thing alone. The hair dresser is unskilled, so he is banking on the brands to lure you. Beware of such fellows, for you will be charged Rs.20 more than area average to refill the Gillette can, and end up with a bad hair style for your friends to laugh at. This doesn't mean that you visit shady ones with misspelt boards, but try to find a compromise. For example, the place which has a good balance of imitation and genuine products must seal the deal.

2) Magazines/ Newspapers: Although this might sound trivial, it really hits you when you have a dog eared copy of Star Dust of February 1993 with a Ravenous Raveena Tandon on the cover for company, while you wait your turn. A recent edition of the same or a respected newspaper at the very least, (if not The Hindu) should be present.

3) Television: Everybody wants to know how Claudia is faring in Bigg Boss or the formation of Telengana from the idiot box, barbers included. Even though you might enjoy the occasional Dr.Raj songs while getting your hair cut, the attention of the barber is not on you. With small cuts behind the ear and the nape, i stand as testimony against these fellows. Therefore radio is the only contraption of entertainment that he can possess. With Docomo ads being aired every other minute, he will be fully involved in giving you the best hair cut.

4)The after hair-cut "plz-sir-it-will-relax-you" head massage: The snip snap is done. You feel light in the head and the barber starts right away with the massage, without registering your protest. The karate chops land on your scalp with increasing rapidity and angle variation, leaving you to regret the oncoming headache. Its like paying to watch 2012. A sorry state of affairs.... So find the one, who understands your predicament or the one who massages in the true sense of the word.

After these important factors are taken care off and the list of potential hairstylists have come down to a handful, only then can you start insisting upon hygiene, voluntary change of blade for the straight razor etcetera.

 "No Hair Cut, No Cry..."

The salon that I visit, is one of those not-so-flashy ones and yet well-to-do. It’s minimal, with the right balance of products as mentioned before. The owner of the shop is unobtrusive and a gentleman. We exchange pleasantries and local gossip, while he tries hard to come up with a decent hairstyle that suits my odd shaped head. That I chose to go on Tuesday helps, because the superstitious types don't believe in letting their hair down on this inauspicious day. This saves the effort of having to read through his reasonable magazine collection, as I am served straightaway.

 

I mention "Medium", to the query, “Medium or Short?” and settle down, for him take over. The blade for the straight razor is voluntarily changed, which makes me feel content, on having made the right choice. The haircut is done, so is the customary massage, the sprinkling of powder (whose logo-design seems familiar but not the brand), the brushing of the residual hair and the admiration of the new style at different angles in front of the mirror.

The Salon is an important place in a man’s life. When the mundane things in life like shaving and dyeing one's hair, is being performed by an expert on you, who wouldn't feel pampered? And besides, which other place offers you the thrill of playing around with the elders back home, by threatening to touch something before the bath…??

"#$%^&@* nodkondu oodsu guru"....("*&%$#@!, watch where you are driving...")

Before i begin this post which concerns driving a vehicle, let me seek the divine grace and blessings of his holiness swami boneywasawarriorananda, the omniscient when it comes matters of driving vehicles of 2,3,4....n wheels. My mistake of mentioning the relative motion b/w clutch and accel. in the prev post led to a lot of chiding from his holiness. My sincerest apologies swamiji... ;)

YenPeeEss once said:
"You see there are two kinds of drivers. The perfect ones and the imperfect ones. The former need the latter to really feel they are on the roads. The latter need the former to say to others 'hey at least we make someone proud'. Well they are indispensable to each other, they balance each other, like ying-yang .....(and a Honda activa made an imperfect collision with him)

I was formally inducted to latter's hall of fame last month when i suffered a minor accident. It went like this. I was on my activa traveling somewhere around the speed of 45-46kmph. There were 3 indicas ahead of me in the same straight line. The leader of the pack didn't feel the need at all, to show any sign/signal that he intended to take right turn at the next junction and the stops out of the blue for that purpose. The rest (including me) faithfully crashed in to each like some long last buddies[pile up is the word technically speaking].....

Getting over the excruciating pain of betadine and mercurochrome and the sweet-sour chidings of amma and appa, i did some introspection of the happenings. Non-maintenance of sufficient distance from the car and over speeding( the repair bill of the activa def. hinted at that) were the conclusions.

And all this happened when i had return some documents to the car driving school, for my learner's license. You see i had joined for lessons in car-driving for many reasons. Primary ones emergency situation, the sheer pleasure of it, DL is a great address proof......

In a marriage interview:
Would Be Maava: "what else can the boy do?"
Appa:"well he can drive a car...."
WBM:" very good very good (lord almighty; driver can be fired..... 2 coconuts to you), may we decide on the wedding date?"

Sudarshan, my instructor, was a scraggy, kumkum-in-the-mid-forehead-putting, i-dont-know-when-i-will-explode-kinda and this guy. This was unnerving at first because you except him to flip at any slight mistake while you drive... but as the classes wore on i got adjusted to him. He changed the routes for every class, depending on what i was supposed to learn for the day, so you can imagine his dedication.

'legs on Clutchu-brake while in descent and while encountering obstructions' and 'release the clutch and accelerate simultaneously while changing gears' were among the two things that he used cry himself hoarse with. And the VTU dudess had said that car learning is baaye haath ka khel or something. Well it is so if it is Automatic transmission, otherwise its daaye haath ka khel for the right hander which is very difficult indeed :P. This took a lot of time for my feet to understand, slow learners that they are. They just refused to act as he said, as if they had a mind of their own, so either it would be a sudden release of clutch which would make the car to do a Dhadak-rev act and would invite a "you will ruin this clutch lining by the time this is done" remark from him or a vroooom from the car which would make him say"go easy, dammit". It took a lot of time and i have yet to master it with the gentle Santro Xing of ours. :(


5 classes had passed when dad decided to check out what i had learnt at school. Despite repeated attempts at convincing him otherwise he stuck to his guns. Vokay i said and we went on a short drive. A few hiccups happened initially with the clutch and gears (for i was learning with an old santro which had controls on the other side, which does change clutch length and other crap like that) and i felt this wont turn out be good. But appa was patient as he his with his patients and we continued. And a mishap occured which certainly made the imperfect drivers committee to add a gold frame to my photo in their gallery and a plaque beneath to commemorate my achievements. But in this court of Web 2.0, i will try to justify myself; my honored netizens.

This is the scene of accident, honoured netizens.(pain max to reproduce from MS paint; but i have done my best, do click on the image so as to get a clear picture of it ;) )





index: light blue fat thing -Our xing which is taking the turn.
dark blue lean thing- a to-be-delivered skoda
dark green lean thing- dilapidated scooter
red short fat thing- some stupid car

We were proceeding on the main road honoured netizens when appa told me to take the turn indicated by the lean green arrow. Now since i am at the left most side of the road, it was inevitable that i had to take a wide-ish turn which would result in me being at the center of that road. Now skoda was approaching in his proper lane and before i could avoid him and come to my proper left lane a kirrrk scratch happened to the skoda. I proceeded further to avoid the damn parked scooter and the stupid car and i ended up nudging the scooter.

Your honour, firstly father should not have asked for me to turn in that sharp hair pin turn which was pretty narrow; when he knew that the car is at the helm of a rookie. Secondly, he should have told me earlier about this so that i would have a shifted myself to the right on the main road which would have facilitated a proper entry to the left side of the hair pin. The stupid scooter owner should also know well not to park it on that silly lean road, where there isn't enough place for two large cars to go side by side. It was a split second order by father honouerd netizens and you must understand my predicament. I rest my case. i also propose making that road a one way for for causing no further inconvenience for my fellow rookie drivers. Thank you.....

He took over the car for the journey back home and i felt my confidence melting away in handling a car. Well a few more classes and a comforting advice from sudarshan made me feel a bit better. Slowly but surely i learnt how to handle tough combat situations on roads(which involves freak drivers, fresk pedestrians, freak roads and freak animals) and made myself license worthy.

RTO-West under whose jurisdiction lies RTO rajajinagar had a brain wave one fine day and built a testing track in peenya near the NH-4. Now this is the first and only RTO to have a track as such to test its DL holder wannabes and unlike other RTO tests which involves going round the shopping complex or having the instructor sit beside you controlling the car(Jayanagar dudes are surely lucky), this is really tough. I present to you the famed track.





Note: As you proceed for the bottom to top there is an elevation in the field of 30deg. (say). the inspecting officers are seated at the bottom edge of the pic.

On the 26th of July some 20 members from our driving school collectively left for the track to get our DL. After driving through horrendous traffic on the NH for some 15kms we reached the track at around 10am. Had to wait painfully 2 hours until the other schools finished their turn.

The audience (which included the nail biting drivers and driving school staff) regaled themselves when the others made mistakes while track. "paapa, no license for him", " hey you saw that? dont know why these people come to take test" and remarks to that effect ebbed and flowed.

My turn finally came at a time when the one prev. to me drove up the median and failed the test. Sat down in the car gingerly not knowing whether to touch the speedometer or the steering wheel first and then to the prayer for some prayer thingie. touched both unable to bear the dilemma. Sudarshan was sitting behind me, so no controls from him. This time i was on my own. "one last time nakul, do it well he said". i looked back at him and his eyes said COME ON. That gave me a huge peg of confidence and i started the maruthi 800.

If you enlarge the pic for a clearer view, i started from the bottom left (follow the white arrows) and proceeded anticlockwise, first entering the right most lane and making the big round. As i neared the starting point, i took a left and climbed up the snake turns and went round the circular patch. Then we had to stop where the red thing is and take a reverse into the other part of the V and then moved ahead to join the topmost lane. Then i returned to the starting point and parked the car in the earlier position. No hiccups where the others had in the track, i passed the test smoothly. Good said sudarshan. I walked away...

Then i brought in my two wheeler for i wanted a license for that too. Here the first part of the test is the same i.e the big round anticlockwise. Then we had enter a small [ 1 vehicle at a time] snake track, go around the 8 and come back in the same way we had entered (follow the blue arrows) to finish the test. The main challenge was not to let your feet to touch the ground at any time during the snake track drive or else it was "hehee, no license for that pille".The objective was to test your balance perhaps in tight corners maybe. That too went flawlessly. Later i ran out of the track to call up my mom to break the good news. She was happy.

I finally got my DL for both which i felt was a culmination of the efforts that went in, for learning the car (and also the activa after the accident ;)). With the smart card in hand i look forward to roof topless drives by the beaches in the highways DCH style (and to save maava of his drivers' fee)... ;)

Alai Payuthey

Vokay readers, before you come to any conclusions about the tamizh (recently learnt about the usage of zh :D) title, i felt it is very appropriate to the post since it deals with a restless mind (or so my tamizh macha says)... You better be right about this KK..

The location of the story is our own college of engineering where i have spent a year. Introducing a cast; all of them amateurs...
Hero- Ravi ,
Heroine-Sneha,
Extras- Naughty classmates of Ravi
Direction- Alai Payuthey

Special thanks- Rains, trees which bring in the cool breeze to the campus and the wonderful koochi koo spots in the college. All of which act as lintels to a relationship.
(pardon me for the civil engg. reference but cant help it, as a VTU dudess put it "dude, the depth of foundation for all your topics in BCE course is very high and unnecessary".)


Ravi was a first year mech junkie and so was Sneha, but a circuit sundari (Elec.&Comm.). The very first day he saw her in the college bus, he knew she was the spark in the spark plug that ignited his adrenaline and set his heart racing.

He then went on a fact finding mission about her. Name, where she lives, how was she in studies etc. Never in his life had he dedicated himself so completely than in this work.

1) She caught the bus at the stop previous to his.( he too would catch it there from now on)
2)Pretty ok in studies(he thanked the "lord of seven hills" for that. He didnt want his ccd sessions to be tuition classes)
3)That she was a northie caused him to call out to the "lord of seven hills" once again.

"He has a fixation with lord venkateswara", you said? Not at all. You see he had an orthodox ajji for his grandmother. You know the 4am rising, mantra patanam doing, tulsi katte rounding kind. And boy was she exacting in these matters of alliance!!

First came color, the girl should be fair (even if she is unfair in other matters) and then belong to the same sub caste let alone caste. It brought some relief to our hero that she had dropped long hair, singing/dancing abilities and varadakshinam albeit grudgingly ...And with all this one mention of north indian beauties to her, you would be a proud spectator of a rendition of the ear clasping , eye closing , "rama rama" chanting scene straight out of any 60's,70's,80's movie of any wood for that matter.

So this was a cause for concern for Ravi for he had been witness to this when the family was involved in finding match for his bro . But those matters were secondary advised his naughty class mates. They prepared him for his first encounter with her.

There is a Kool Korner in campus, a student-friendly (you say "no money uncle , can i give later" and you get a smile as answer), everything-under-the-sun available and a place where you find 50% of college in the 11-11.20am break. She was there and so was he. After much goading from his friends one day, he gingerly went towards her. His Heart beats were audible to him, perspiration and hand shaking...." uh... hehe" ....he was ruining the moment. And after much deliberation he said " any idea as to the last date for paying exam fees?", "well, no..." said our sundari a bit amused and surprised at the whole situation...


He was the butt of the class for the whole day" go ask subject codes next", they said amid guffaws. " But her beauty, those fluttering doe like eyes , aur woh kali kali zulfien(even though interspersed with color color streaks) ... they made me dumb, guys...."

It was the period of his life that he would never forget. Getting groomed for college( spending time in front of the mirror, to the extent of getting some chiding from amma), admiring every little thing abt. her right from the way she put away those strands of hair behind her alphonso mango shaped ear, the way she gently held her books, the wonderous giggle when she was with her girlie gang, giving treats to friends when he thought she smirked at him.........

The rains have their part in any affair be it judaai or non-judaai. One fine day it started raining after college. Ravi trudged his way to the coll. bus, for it wasnt a pleasant day in class. If only he knew what was in store for him...

He threw his bag and sat down, cursing the CAED lecturer when he observed that she wasnt in her seat. He fidgeted for a while, as he had seen her in campus today. what had happened. He frantically looked through the windows, if he could spot her. The bus was filling up. Schumi, the driver settled down on his throne. Where the hell was she???

The engine started revving. He went near schumi and politely told him that a 'friend' had yet to climb the bus. The ever friendly schumi was not in the mood today. 'hmph', he said which meant 3 minutes and i am leaving. 30,60,90...179secs..... Gear shifted from to neutral to first with the simultaneous release and depression of the clutch and accelerator respectively.

Then he saw her...running... he quickly opened the door and held his hand out ddlj style, she too extended hers.... "come on you can do it......"he screamed.... the bus was exiting the gates....

She offered him a seat beside her. He was bloody beyond happy (for the fact that his hair had been perfectly set for the occasion; rain acting as the gel....). His class troubles vanished in an instant. Then she asked him
"why didn't you open the door, when you stood right next to the driver?....".
"Oh well never mind i was thinking about an SRK movie scene and schumi with his shout brought me back to this world, hope you didn't drench too much?"

She giggled, feeling sorry for this fool and his ways. He loved her and he would do just about anything for her. Someone played "And Nothing else matters"on the cellphone loudspeaker, from behind... He closed his eyes trying to soak in the rest of the journey back home....

My visit to the municipal office...

You see one of the many benefits that you receive on becoming a major in India are the whole lot of licenses, ID cards in your name; to show the world perhaps that you have truly arrived. One such is the voter ID card. An accessory that allows me to exercise my vote to money hungry nincompoops who know that other than the job that they are doing they would never fit in anywhere in this world given their brains. ok getting to the point, i decided to enroll my name in the new voter list. The CEC on his visit to our state was hopping mad (literally) at the poor state of the election machinery here. So after receiving a thorough spanking from him they (municipal dudes) ran around the city hither and tither enrolling and checking as many people they came across.

I didn't want my name to be lost in this melee. So decided to do it the Right way. I was dressed in sober clothes so as not give an impression that i was of the flashy type (this from my brother who had a harrowing experience on wearing a leather jacket on one such occasion). My mom being a psychology student said that such an impression would make the already lazy workers to make me wait further (bribe appreciation) and all that crap. I followed it religiously albeit having a dilemma if my navy blue shirt might offend him in some way.

I was glad to see fresh printouts stuck at all visible places asking the citizens to enroll their names at the office. I had to approach the revenue officer (whose kannada equivalent was informed to me by my father which i promptly forgot). Finally having done so the officer dismissed me by waving his left hand, on hearing my WARD no. he said " next building".

The next building had 3 floors and having studied modular programming in C, i went in for a top-down approach.(there was no board who was in which floor thus...). At the 3rd floor i saw 4 guys with some 30 other tables empty. An old villager was arguing with one of them regarding some land papers while the 3 others were busy in deciding whether to attend X's marriage or not. "how will the food be?" asks one. "that stingy dude wouldn't have spent much." said the other slurrping on steaming coffee. i stood in front of them and cleared my throat. "wha?" he said apparently very much disturbed to having an interruption on going ons. "sir ward 19", i said with namrata bhaava. "2nd floor ravi" was the answer and he went back to his dicussion.

2nd floor ravi said "1st floor sagar". But sagar was absent. Ok i settled down on a chair of one the many empty desks. "election duty pa ,that's why so many missing" someone said. By that 9year old boy came in to office plate in hand with a glasses of steaming coffee to be distributed to the meager crowd. The workers relished it with aplomb without a care for the outside world whether it was problematic citizens......

I left them alone (feeling a bit drowsy myself) and looked around if sagar arrived. I observed musty files overflowing everywhere. 'Why the hell don't they digitize this?' i thought. i saw a lone HP processor in one of the chambers.The tout who was invisible until now came from nowhere and asked if everything was alright and if i needed any guidance. I thanked him for his innocent concern. Sagar finally stepped in after some time. I ran up to him and repeated my request. To which he first setteled himself into the chair ; arched his arms; peered at me ;scratched his unshaven chin and cleaned his ear vigorously and then "what?". I was unfazed, i repeated my request for the form. "oh, that, oi ramu get that register from that cupboard i say"."oo coffee, good good. tell your owner not to grudge on sugar ok?" this to the coffee bearer. i wait. ramu throws a bundle on sagar's table. "find form 6", he ordered. i rummage through it for a long time and on finally getting i settled down in front of him to fill up the in kannada, the language which i used to write confidently 2.5 years ago and now sparsely in grocery lists.

The tout came from behind again; this time having served a few customers. "Can i help you fill the form sir? it is kannada you see"."Will manage" and glared at him. "strange customer",he muttered under his breath and went away to the more needy ones.

"finished?", sagar asked after tapping on the desk. I submitted the form to him which he promptly threw into a old dilapidated folder."that's it, you can leave". I walked back smirking after completing the first hurdle towards exercising what i consider one of my fundamental duties. ;)