One of my favourite scenes in a movie is in Notting Hill, where Hugh Grant is in the bookstore where he meets Julia Roberts for the first time, and is browsing through the travel section. He picks up a book on Turkey and asks the shop owner for what he thinks about the book. Without as much as batting an eyelid, the owner of the store replies “Unlike the other travel writers, this one’s actually been to Turkey.” I must have gotten the words out of order, but I’m glad I remember the essence of the statement from that scene. In putting down my thoughts here, I feel like one of the ‘other writers’ that hasn’t been to the proverbial Turkey; Britain in this case.
I’m not sure where and why it started, quite like the Industrial Revolution, which also (you’ll see why) started in England. My guess is it might have been that evening in December when I was out bargaining with the street vendor to knock off a couple of bucks from the skull cap I was looking to buy. He wasn’t too keen on giving me a monetary kickback on the cap, but he threw in a freebie and said I could have a bandanna with the skull cap if I bought it at the quoted price. The last time I wore a bandanna was 5 years ago when we were skiing for 2 weeks in Solang Valley near Manali. I have the photograph to prove it, and it was the Union Jack bandanna. I asked the cap-seller on the street that wintry evening if he had a Union Jack bandanna, and as it turned out, he had one last piece remaining. It was a good deal for the buyer and the seller.
It isn’t unreasonable to assume that somebody wearing an ‘I love NY’ tee on the streets in Bangalore has in fact returned from NY (or has someone he/she knows who’s returned from NY, in which case it makes the person nothing short of a complete twat). But that same assumption doesn’t qualify for the Union Jack bandanna. An over-sized kerchief around your head bearing the colours of Great Britain doesn’t suggest anymore than deducing that the cost of onion, petrol and beer this week are all on an even keel. But I must have anticipated it that very moment, and since clarity lies only in hindsight, I am only now allowed to see that all this while I had been swooning to sparkles that could only be British. Allow me elaborate.
In a world that is so American as in what it eats, wears, reads and sings, it is easy to overlook what Britain gave us. I can only speak for myself here, and I will point out how British influences have been filing the good part of the day for an average guy like me. In the books category, I started off reading Jeremy Clarkson’s ‘The World according to Clarkson’. The book was a breezer, and it could as well have been an audio book for the voice of Clarkson was distinct as it is on television. I’m not sure if it was chance, or divine order, but the next book was Bill Bryson’s 'Notes from a Small Island'. Now, I haven’t read any other travel book on Britain, but I can be forgiven in assuming that none other gets better than Bryson’s work. As the critical acclaim on the cover says that there is as much of Bryson in the book as there is of Britain itself. I have now moved on to another Bryson hit, 'Down Under' about his travel through Australia, which for the record is taken as Britain’s cousin. There’s just no getting away.
The shows I was playing on my computer were quintessentially Brit. There was the world’s best TV show currently, Top Gear (of course), and if you haven’t already I would urge you to catch their Middle East special that came out during Christmas. For me, personally, TG is a travel, fun and adventure show where the occasional car breaks out. But then, you haven’t gotten your head around British Television if you haven’t watched Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister. I had always intended to watch both these shows, but it had remained there on my to-do-sometime-in-the-future-list; like reading the Mahabartha and Ramayana. I had just never gotten around to it. But then the timing was right, and I settled in my head once and for all the debate about the greatest sitcom ever made. Meanwhile, I got a category ‘A’ recommendation to watch 'The Office'. I inadvertently ended up downloading 'Office' which is the original British series after which the American 'The Office' is made. Coincidence? Maybe not.
It would be criminal to leave out the music playing on my i-pod these last couple of days. I find it more than a mere chance that they have been The Who, Beatles, Dire Straits and U2 (Irish can count as UK). I spent my Sunday watching the rockumentary 'Flight 666' about the heavy-metal band Iron Maiden. What blokes in the band! From the first minute, the hair at the back your neck is standing straight, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
I turned on the cable television to find that BBC Entertainment was now being aired, which means more awesome shows. I spent considerable time at the British Library last week looking for a book they didn’t have but instead ended up reading Jeeves. I paced the aisles at Marks and Spencer waiting on a friend as she was let loose on the sale they had going there. The weather in Bangalore this winter was most certainly Brit, what with cloudy overcast skies and cold mornings. The cricket was great. The coffee was hot. The beer flowed freely. In short, this could just as well have been Britain, except that it wasn’t.
A two months' road-trip through England is on my bucket-list. But given the glimpse of England I have witnessed right here at home, I feel safe in saying that the feeling of walking through customs at Heathrow and into the warm London summer morning when the day comes, is going to be almost an anti-climax.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Hair care for my bald head
A couple of years ago, I remember sitting on the ledge waiting for my turn at the barber’s to get my hair cut. The guy was just finishing up and it was my turn next, and I was glad the wait was coming to an end. But funny as it was, just as I stood up to make my way to the chair, the Director of institute walked in. Well, what did I know? He wanted his hair cut too. We exchanged pleasantries, and I let him take my place. The thought crossed my mind that I’d stubbornly shove him aside and rightly claim my turn. After all, I had waited for so long, and he had but just walked in. But no; instead I sat and stared at the bald patch on the back of his head and thought “Jeez, he’ll never get to see it like everyone else can. That must be a sad feeling.”
Besides all the profanities I dedicated to him under my breath that afternoon, I remember distinctly saying one other thing to myself: that when you’re in a barber’s chair, it doesn’t matter who you are. Here was the Director of an institute, in-charge of a couple of thousand people, head of a dozen committees with all the power and strings attached at all levels in the Government, plus this inter-galactical academician. Yet, for those 15 minutes under the comb and scissors (after a barrage of news-reports saying ‘under the knife’, I didn’t want to feel left behind), he was literally a nobody on that chair, and if I may say so, was at the mercy of the man wielding the scissors.
They say humans are protective about their space bubble, i.e we all carry around us a three dimensional boundary and everyone we come in contact with is kept beyond the periphery of this imaginary bubble. This explains why we get uncomfortable when someone gets too close to us while talking. As adults, a few exceptional cases when this bubble is burst, and we ‘let people in’ is while kissing, while at the hairdresser’s chair and at the doctor’s table. I will get off this topic right here, and recommend that you read Allan and Barbara Pease’s Body Language if you’re a seeking a deeper explanation into this bubble thing. But now, back to barbers (I’m told this word is on its way out. We call them hair-dressers these days.)
This monsoon, I found myself screaming each time I came out of the bath and dried my hair. Invariably, I kept getting shown that there was a good chance the towel had more hair than my head. Now, I’m one of those who does a laugh-out-loud when I see the before and after ads for hair regrowth therapy. And, I certainly wasn’t readying myself to model in those ads anytime. Hence, my predicament drove me to the trichologist, and these guys always scare you. They somehow convince you that if you don’t take their remedy which costs an arm and a leg, you’ll go bald before you leave the clinic. But in my case, the Doc (it’s funny that the first thing one always looks at is the tricholigist’s hair) sent me away saying I had a scalp infection which was triggering all that shedding and that, besides medications, I had to keep a clean ‘zero’ look for the next three months.
Which brings me back to barber angle of this narrative: there are 2 hair dressing salons within walking distance of where I live. Let’s say they are called B1 and B2 (I like fighter jets, but let’s not deviate). B1 has been cutting my hair since I was in class 1. I’ve been to B2 only once in the past, because he’s just opened recently. B1 is the guy who’s been running the place before Bangaloreans were swimming in money, and hence, there’s no air-conditioning, no cable TV and no fancy chairs in his store. For the price one pays, all you get is a tattered Women’s Era (yes, girls, for some reason, that’s what every men’s hairdresser keeps to entertain his audience while they wait), the Kannada daily all scrummy and the sheets hanging loose, good old scissors and comb, and the cheapest available shaving cream, after-shave moisturizer and talcum powder. In most cases, the hair cutting machine is broken. B2, given that he’s opened only in these yuppie times, is a kid of the new generation of air-conditioners, Tata sky, fancy push back chairs, and ergo, hair-raising rates. But he still maintains the same genre of magazines I told you about.
Dr. Tricho’s instruction to get my head shaved had me in a spot. This was about putting the blade to the scalp, and I wanted to make sure it was done right. I disregarded all sense of loyalty and ditched Mr. B1 and decided to go to Mr. B2’s 'sanitised' salon. There was only one trouble though- to get to B2’s salon, I had to walk past B1’s. And as I did so, Mr. B1 himself was seated on a stool outside his shop on the sidewalk, and pleasantly wished me good day. I guess he noticed the hair on my head. That’s what barber’s do, right: they notice the hair on your head just like cobblers are always looking at people’s feet. I got my head shaved at B2’s whilst enjoying the temperature controlled setting coupled with forgivable annoying numbers being played by one of the dozen radio stations. I paid him a handsome sum (I have no problems skipping meals if my money can instead buy me the looks), and walked into the afternoon feeling conscious about my shaved head, somehow thinking that everybody on the street was looking at my bald head. I had my head down, looking at the path and humming a tune, that I forgot I still had to pass by B1’s store to get back home.
I walked past B1 rather mindlessly, but I smiled at him nonetheless. This time, he didn’t return the greeting and instead turned the other way. I got home wondering what could have made him unhappy. Maybe it was the tea he drank; boy, we get some bad tea here in this city.
Besides all the profanities I dedicated to him under my breath that afternoon, I remember distinctly saying one other thing to myself: that when you’re in a barber’s chair, it doesn’t matter who you are. Here was the Director of an institute, in-charge of a couple of thousand people, head of a dozen committees with all the power and strings attached at all levels in the Government, plus this inter-galactical academician. Yet, for those 15 minutes under the comb and scissors (after a barrage of news-reports saying ‘under the knife’, I didn’t want to feel left behind), he was literally a nobody on that chair, and if I may say so, was at the mercy of the man wielding the scissors.
They say humans are protective about their space bubble, i.e we all carry around us a three dimensional boundary and everyone we come in contact with is kept beyond the periphery of this imaginary bubble. This explains why we get uncomfortable when someone gets too close to us while talking. As adults, a few exceptional cases when this bubble is burst, and we ‘let people in’ is while kissing, while at the hairdresser’s chair and at the doctor’s table. I will get off this topic right here, and recommend that you read Allan and Barbara Pease’s Body Language if you’re a seeking a deeper explanation into this bubble thing. But now, back to barbers (I’m told this word is on its way out. We call them hair-dressers these days.)
This monsoon, I found myself screaming each time I came out of the bath and dried my hair. Invariably, I kept getting shown that there was a good chance the towel had more hair than my head. Now, I’m one of those who does a laugh-out-loud when I see the before and after ads for hair regrowth therapy. And, I certainly wasn’t readying myself to model in those ads anytime. Hence, my predicament drove me to the trichologist, and these guys always scare you. They somehow convince you that if you don’t take their remedy which costs an arm and a leg, you’ll go bald before you leave the clinic. But in my case, the Doc (it’s funny that the first thing one always looks at is the tricholigist’s hair) sent me away saying I had a scalp infection which was triggering all that shedding and that, besides medications, I had to keep a clean ‘zero’ look for the next three months.
Which brings me back to barber angle of this narrative: there are 2 hair dressing salons within walking distance of where I live. Let’s say they are called B1 and B2 (I like fighter jets, but let’s not deviate). B1 has been cutting my hair since I was in class 1. I’ve been to B2 only once in the past, because he’s just opened recently. B1 is the guy who’s been running the place before Bangaloreans were swimming in money, and hence, there’s no air-conditioning, no cable TV and no fancy chairs in his store. For the price one pays, all you get is a tattered Women’s Era (yes, girls, for some reason, that’s what every men’s hairdresser keeps to entertain his audience while they wait), the Kannada daily all scrummy and the sheets hanging loose, good old scissors and comb, and the cheapest available shaving cream, after-shave moisturizer and talcum powder. In most cases, the hair cutting machine is broken. B2, given that he’s opened only in these yuppie times, is a kid of the new generation of air-conditioners, Tata sky, fancy push back chairs, and ergo, hair-raising rates. But he still maintains the same genre of magazines I told you about.
Dr. Tricho’s instruction to get my head shaved had me in a spot. This was about putting the blade to the scalp, and I wanted to make sure it was done right. I disregarded all sense of loyalty and ditched Mr. B1 and decided to go to Mr. B2’s 'sanitised' salon. There was only one trouble though- to get to B2’s salon, I had to walk past B1’s. And as I did so, Mr. B1 himself was seated on a stool outside his shop on the sidewalk, and pleasantly wished me good day. I guess he noticed the hair on my head. That’s what barber’s do, right: they notice the hair on your head just like cobblers are always looking at people’s feet. I got my head shaved at B2’s whilst enjoying the temperature controlled setting coupled with forgivable annoying numbers being played by one of the dozen radio stations. I paid him a handsome sum (I have no problems skipping meals if my money can instead buy me the looks), and walked into the afternoon feeling conscious about my shaved head, somehow thinking that everybody on the street was looking at my bald head. I had my head down, looking at the path and humming a tune, that I forgot I still had to pass by B1’s store to get back home.
I walked past B1 rather mindlessly, but I smiled at him nonetheless. This time, he didn’t return the greeting and instead turned the other way. I got home wondering what could have made him unhappy. Maybe it was the tea he drank; boy, we get some bad tea here in this city.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Surely, there must be another way of putting it.
It took three days of loneliness and solitude away from the madness of the city to bring me back to terms with what has been happening around me. We just inaugurated the largest nanofabrication research facility in India in the academic setting on the 5th of Jan 2011 at IISc Bangalore, and I’ve lost many nights of sleep in the walk up to it. But all-in-all it’s a proud moment for all of us involved in it, and certainly a landmark event that should set the pace for India’s foray into nano-scale R&D over the next decade.
I escaped to the some-what lonely beaches of Gokharna, a getaway in coastal Karnataka about 12 hours drive from the capital Bangalore. I spent the good part of my vacation lying in a hammock, drinking beer and reading Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island. Short walks, morning pranayam and conversations with strangers happened too, though not necessarily in that order. And then I got back home, because I just couldn’t wait to show up at work on Monday morning. But this post (after a break of some 5 odd months; apologies (not like anyone cares)) comes on a totally unrelated subject, the signs for which have been jumping at me from all corners.
This one’s about… I don’t really have a smart phrase/word that will capture the whole idea, but let’s just say it’s about phrases/words that leave you a bit confused than you initially were. Let me take an example here to get started. I was traveling in a bus only recently, and you see these advertisement hoardings. I saw one, and for the life of me I can’t remember where this was, or what the ad was for. But I did take the catch line away with me and that’s enough fodder for my case. The line for this product read ‘Changing rules. Changing lives’. Right, I’m sure you’ve heard a similar version of that a zillion times before, as have I. But for kicks, and also because my i-pod had run out of battery and I wasn’t exactly sharing my seat with a pretty 20-something that I was sketching my opening lines, I began to replay what I had just read: Changing rules. Changing lives.
Let us take the first part i.e. ‘Changing rules’. What do these two words mean? Well, for one it could mean that the act of ‘changing’ (goodness knows what!) was one that commanded a superlative compliment- Changing rules! Like you would say Iron Maiden rules, or the sight from the mountain top rules, implying that there is no comparison, because the object in question is by far superior to anything else comparable to it. Hence, by that equation, changing rules. The other meaning is the obvious one implying the change of rules, like the change of weather, or a change of clothes. The third meaning of this phrase could be one to point the change of power or authority, as in the ‘the rule of such-and-such dynasty’. Therefore ‘Changing rules, changing lives’; well, not necessarily. You might think that I’m merely trying hard here to show you other cases similar to ‘time flies like an arrow’. Probably, yes!
Only this evening, I was driving down near Palace Grounds and like always they’ve got these exhibitions going. The organizers had a giant board put out at the entrance that announced ‘Old Hindi film songs and food mela’. Now you must help me here. Like many others, I have trouble using ‘and’ in its right place. But I spotted this one, aha! What was the mela about afterall? Take your pick:
a) Old Hindi film songs (cds, records whatever) + food (food in general)
b) Old Hindi film songs + Old Hindi film food (?)
c) Old Hindi film songs + Old Hindi food (?!)
d) Old Hindi film songs + Old food (doctor’s fee included in the entrance ticket).
I haven’t slept well last night in the bus from Gokharna to Bangalore. We had some gear box problems, and came to a halt in the middle of a forest. And somehow, just somehow, the driver managed to fix the issue temporarily till we got a mechanic to fix it for good at the nearest town 40 kilometers away. And that was at 3:30 a.m. So, I will have to end this here since my eyes are sagging like Preity Zinta’s face in the IPL auctions earlier today. But I will leave you with this thought, and I’ve said this earlier on Facebook as well: if 'thrifty' refers to someone who's diligent with the his/her money, how come 'spendthrift' means exactly the opposite?
I escaped to the some-what lonely beaches of Gokharna, a getaway in coastal Karnataka about 12 hours drive from the capital Bangalore. I spent the good part of my vacation lying in a hammock, drinking beer and reading Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island. Short walks, morning pranayam and conversations with strangers happened too, though not necessarily in that order. And then I got back home, because I just couldn’t wait to show up at work on Monday morning. But this post (after a break of some 5 odd months; apologies (not like anyone cares)) comes on a totally unrelated subject, the signs for which have been jumping at me from all corners.
This one’s about… I don’t really have a smart phrase/word that will capture the whole idea, but let’s just say it’s about phrases/words that leave you a bit confused than you initially were. Let me take an example here to get started. I was traveling in a bus only recently, and you see these advertisement hoardings. I saw one, and for the life of me I can’t remember where this was, or what the ad was for. But I did take the catch line away with me and that’s enough fodder for my case. The line for this product read ‘Changing rules. Changing lives’. Right, I’m sure you’ve heard a similar version of that a zillion times before, as have I. But for kicks, and also because my i-pod had run out of battery and I wasn’t exactly sharing my seat with a pretty 20-something that I was sketching my opening lines, I began to replay what I had just read: Changing rules. Changing lives.
Let us take the first part i.e. ‘Changing rules’. What do these two words mean? Well, for one it could mean that the act of ‘changing’ (goodness knows what!) was one that commanded a superlative compliment- Changing rules! Like you would say Iron Maiden rules, or the sight from the mountain top rules, implying that there is no comparison, because the object in question is by far superior to anything else comparable to it. Hence, by that equation, changing rules. The other meaning is the obvious one implying the change of rules, like the change of weather, or a change of clothes. The third meaning of this phrase could be one to point the change of power or authority, as in the ‘the rule of such-and-such dynasty’. Therefore ‘Changing rules, changing lives’; well, not necessarily. You might think that I’m merely trying hard here to show you other cases similar to ‘time flies like an arrow’. Probably, yes!
Only this evening, I was driving down near Palace Grounds and like always they’ve got these exhibitions going. The organizers had a giant board put out at the entrance that announced ‘Old Hindi film songs and food mela’. Now you must help me here. Like many others, I have trouble using ‘and’ in its right place. But I spotted this one, aha! What was the mela about afterall? Take your pick:
a) Old Hindi film songs (cds, records whatever) + food (food in general)
b) Old Hindi film songs + Old Hindi film food (?)
c) Old Hindi film songs + Old Hindi food (?!)
d) Old Hindi film songs + Old food (doctor’s fee included in the entrance ticket).
I haven’t slept well last night in the bus from Gokharna to Bangalore. We had some gear box problems, and came to a halt in the middle of a forest. And somehow, just somehow, the driver managed to fix the issue temporarily till we got a mechanic to fix it for good at the nearest town 40 kilometers away. And that was at 3:30 a.m. So, I will have to end this here since my eyes are sagging like Preity Zinta’s face in the IPL auctions earlier today. But I will leave you with this thought, and I’ve said this earlier on Facebook as well: if 'thrifty' refers to someone who's diligent with the his/her money, how come 'spendthrift' means exactly the opposite?
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