The TimePass of India

The name says it all! Its situated among one of the many boulevards that Mulund boasts of.. This street near my place is full of such shops which some small time traders have set up. There are kutchis, Shettys, Guptas and Yadavs among others who have made this street what it is today.. Among all these shops is Shaandar Hair cutting salon

I have been going there since I can remember.. My dad used to take me there.. I always hated my long locks being cut.. I dunno why, but it felt bad...very bad...like... like someone died.. Maybe it was coz of the tajis* you get the next day at school, or maybe its coz your teacher wanted you to cut your hair short and threatened to tie you a pony tail if you didnt.. Somehow not doing what the grownups want you to do always seemed cool to me (i still find it cool!) By tht logic, cutting your hair was so UNcool..

tajis*- the ritual(?) tht involves slapping the back of the head of the guy whos got a fresh cut. Kids usually stop tht once they get into the 5th grade..Well, most kids do..


So the point is tht my dad used to take me to Shaandar Hair cutting salon every 4-5th Sunday.. I had to come up with like really silly excuses for not having my locks cut and my dad had to come up with like really silly anecdotes to get my dark long locks cut- "You look like a monkey with your falling on your face like tht" (Little did he know tht a few years down the line someone with the very same credentials will rock Bollywood.. yeah SRK! )

I have no idea why we went to Shandaar.. Maybe coz it was nearest from home about 5 mins walk and we still took our kinetic..Yeah lazy we were!

So we would get into Mr.Yadav's(tht was his name if I rem correctly) salon. Mr.Yadav is this big paan chewing guy who has the mother of all beer bellies...His teeth were stained but tht didnt seem to embarass him coz he laughed heartily at any silly thing tht his "boys" said in their Bihari accent..

Shaandar cutting was a small place, you walked 6-7 steps inside and you would hit the wall & I am talking first grader steps. Once inside, it felt like a really cool place to be in with the blue coloured plastered walls,mirrors mirrors on the walls, hindi magzines like "sulekha" or something, radio playing songs from the 60s.. Now I, like any other self respecting rap loving, eminem worshiping fan didnt like those songs, but there is something about tht place, you wanna sing along Rajesh Khanna when he goes "mere sapno ki rani kab aayigi tu..chalii aaaa tuu chaliii aaaa..."

Tht place had a weird smell.. The smell of henna, V-John shaving cream, pan parag (or whtever tht is tht he used to chew), Raj ratan red coloured hair oil, pan parag (did i mention tht already?). And thn all these smells amalgamated together to give your olfactory lobe a high of a lifetime..

Mr. Yadav's modus operandi was simple.. Get the sicssors and get snapping.. "Sab Barik kar dena"("Cut it all short"), was all my dad had to say.. and Yadav uncle would dutifully cut my hair short, real short.. But thankfully my hair grew at a rapid pace and there I was again after 6 sundays!

Then I got into the 7th grade, the grade when suddenly your appearence becomes important coz of tht girl you been eyeing and she probably likes you for your cool locks.. You cut your hair and all tht remains of you is, well, uncool.. And they call us "shallow"!

I started going to Shaandar solo, I noticed he had taken dad's "Sab Barik kar dena" very seriously.. It was time I made a few modifications to this statement..
"Uncle, Kaan ke upar ke barik kar dena, baki lamba rakhna"(Cut the hair around the ears short, and dont touch the others..)
He didnt seem to like this new "kaan ke upar..." thingy. I got this feeling that he loved the "Sab barik kar dena" thing.. That maybe coz he got more freedom to snap his scissors tht way..

"Arre garmi ke din hai, barik karva lo"(Its summer time, u better get a short crop), Yadav uncle used to say mid-January!!!
He kept cuttin my hair the way he wanted, which was real short, and I didnt like it too much... I just kept waiting for a better salon to come up near my place.

I stopped going to Shandaar once I got into engg. Another place had come up near my house. This place had an AC, and it didnt smell, it had english mags, it had lesser mirrors...And yes, no pan parag. The guy who worked there was all cool and stuff with highlights in his hair and used to speak broken english. V-John cream was replaced by Gillette foam gel, Hair gel had taken the place of Raj-Ratan oil, cable TV instead of the radio... In one word, this place was COOL..



The other day, the place where I go usually, was closed and I needed a haircut, so I decided to go to Shaandar..
The place still smelt weird. And yes, there was paan parag around.

Mr.Yadav wrapped a white cloth around my collar

"Kaisa hai?", Mr. Yadav asked.
The mother of all beer bellies had become even bigger, like when you felt there can be no one bigger than "undertaker" and then "Khali" walks in.. The teeth were stainier than ever.. He looked old, half the hair had gone grey, he looked weary too. The condition of the salon wasnt too good either, it looked like a whitewash would help.. Sumhow I got the feeling tht business wasnt too good..

I was taken back by Mr.Yadav's "Kaisa hai?". For two reasons- First, he still remembered me! Its been 3 years since I have been here.. Second, he asked "Kaisa hai?" insted of "Kaise hain?"(which imparts more respect). But this guy knew me since I was 3 feet above the ground, so I guess it was ok..

"Theek hoon.."

"Aaj kal aate nahi aap"
I realised he shifted to a more respectful form of addressing. Sumhow I didnt like it very much. I have been used to being called "tu" by this guy and then all of a sudden he shifts to "aap". It makes you realise tht on the outside you are a grown man to the world.

"er..er.. Bahar rehta hoon aajkal"
How could I come up with a lie tht unconvincing..

"Sahab(refering to my dad) aate hain kabhi-kabhi "

"hmm.."

"Aap bhi aaya karo.."

"hmm..aaonga.."

"Ab toh dadhi banvane bhi aa sakte ho!!! HA HA HA HA"
Stained teeth still didnt embarass him

"hmm..aaonga.."

"Kaisa katun baal? Kaan ke upar ke barik kar deneka, baki lamba rakhne ka na?"

He still remembered how I wanted my hair!!



"Nahi uncle, Sab barik kar do....."

I still remembered how he wanted my hair!!






Update:(May 01)
There is this blog one of my schoolmate has, he has written bout a similar post on haircuts, and the way it is written is dramatically similar to mine.. Now I found it scary, see if it scares you too, it was written way back in Jan or something. Here is the link


Shaandar Hair Cutting Salon!

Life in Cartoon motion..

Audi
Mercedes
Siemens
BMW
Blaupunkt

See the trend? All the above mentioned companies apart from being among the best in the business are also German...

I have always had this fascination about German Engineering, so much so that I wanted to do my Masters(yeah in engg!!) from Germany! But that was long ago, just around the time I had entered engineering.. After 4 yrs of hardcore(and theres absolutely nothing sexual about tht) engineering, I was damn to tired to get involved in Automobile Engineering in an alien country... But the point is, Germany always amazed me..
I mean, imagine, a country with a population of 8 crore, being the third strongest economy in the world..The number of Scientist this country has produced..The fact that someone from this country actually thought that they can win over the world if they wanted to!!.... But most importantly, the engineering brains that this country has are what finite element analysis is made up of!!

There is this joke about German enggs tht I am fond of..
The Russians send the first man in space in April '61...
JFK, the US president at time was really miffed at this. He called his chief engineer and asked him, - "How in the world did the Russians get their man in space before we did!"
To this the chief engg replied - "I am sorry sir, but their German engineers are better than ours!!"
Hahahaha... wait till I tell this to my boss...

Talking bout my boss, hes the Head of Tech transfer, so effectively hes the one who's responsible for the entire factory. Now he is one of the representatives of his country for me.. So when I talk about Germans, a lot of my observations will be based on him... Ofcourse there are other Germans who come here in really good suits and really bad English.. Sometimes when they don't know a word, I suspect they throw in the the German equivalent.. Every other of their sentences starts with "nicht" or some word sounds like that... The shrug accompanied by-"I dont know!" is native to all Germans ... And may I add, apart from the guys who are a part of management, the others have a terrible sense of fashion!! I mean, Paris is just a stones throw away ppl!!

*One of the things I have noticed bout these guys is that they are extremely polite.. And these guys are supposed to be gas-chamber-suffocating types!!
*They don't change jobs that often! The guy whom I am talking about has been working in the company from like ages!! He worked for Audi for a few years before moving to this company though...
*They are extremely patriotic .. They have a simple policy- everything German is quality! Everything German is good.. German cars, German electronics, German beer, German cellphones !! It took us a lot of cajoling to make them allow the usage of Indian spares in the factory...
*One more thing I admire about them is their dedication towards work.. So someone who works 36 hours a week(yeah! try believing that!!) back in Germany, does 48 hour weeks(Like the rest of us) here!
*Somehow quality inspection takes 3 hrs when our German boss does it.. Somehow 25 yrs of service for a transformer isn't good enough for him..
*Somehow he can run around the factory all day when there is a crisis(Hes 52!).. A bolt not fitting in? Crisis... Too much copper/iron dust on the shopfloor? Crisis..! Nut not tightened correctly?..You guessed it right! Crisis!!!

There are times when something gets messed up real bad and I look at him and he seems to say to himself - Why the f*** am I here!.... No, not angry, just despair..
Sometimes ..well, things don't get messed up and he seems to say to himself.. "Man! They did it, didn't they!"

There is this middle aged colleague whos really cool, and always positive, he has 10 years of work ex and we(the young ones) look up to him.Lets call him GS sir.
All the guys in my dept. have been to Germany..Sir has been there more than a couple of times..But he does not contribute much to the conversation, its only the new foreign-returns who do the talking... And most of them are starry eyed about the buildings, transport, the facilities, the engineering, the cars, the people... They talk about the places they have seen and the Mercedes and BMWs they travelled in... And how fast their trains are.. and how when a train is late by 3 mins its considered a breach of quality ...& How a crater on the road is a national crisis .. " All the young ones(like me) gather around them, listening to their stories and wondering why we cant have smooth roads and trains that are on time...
"Apne yahan sab chalta hai re",they say...Somehow "chalta hai" is our ideology. "We are like this only!!" Garib desh ki yehi problem hai...

Garib desh?

The young ones look at each other feeling bad, feeling helpless.. Garib desh?

Sir says nothing.. He just looks outside the window.. and keeps looking there...
Comeon say something...someone..anyone.. Comeon sir, say something to get our young, inexperienced spirits up!

"Aaayega", sir said....

"Aaayega... Apna bhi time aayega.. Abhi toh humne sirf shuruvat kiy hai....Kuch din theherjaao... Yeh Garib desh, ek din sab ko dikha dega...Apna bhi time aayega..."

Apna bhi time aayega.. Yeah..

The difference is - German Engineering!

You know you are from Mumbai when.....

Stock market quotes are the only other thing besides cricket which you follow passionately.

You take fashion seriously.

You spend more time travelling than you send at home.

9:47 fast, means something to you.

u think tht delhi copied INDIA GATE frm mumbai's GATEWAY OF INDIA...

You're suspicious of strangers who are actually nice to you.

You consider eye contact an act of overt aggression.

Amitabh Bachans house is a landmark

When there's no place to breathe in the trains but there's place to play cards and sing bhajans!

You refer to the city as Mumbai and not Bombay .

You say that Pani Puri is waayy better than Gol Gappa's even when they're the same thing

Every three months you look at your street and say "Why're the digging the road again?"

You actually pay for your rickshaws by the meter.

You know what the term "video coach" stands for in the local trains...

"Gheun Tak" is your life ideology.

You aren't surprised when somebody throws a water balloon at you while you're walking on the streets during March.

you can only smile forgivingly about the size of any other city in the world.

Every time you speak Hindi in front of a Delhitite they have the WTF expression on their face.

When while giving directions you say "Right MARO aur wahan pe ek bridge GIREGA"

You have hung on to dear life at the local door.

When you think everyone who lives to the south(Mumbai) of you is a snob and to the north of you sucks

when u c movie names like "shootout at Lokhandwala" & 'Ek chalis ki last local" & don't have to ask what the name means

you consider the local train "empty" when you find a spot for your two feet to stand on.

when "chalta hai" is the most commonly used word

Everything to the north of Mumbai is UP-Bihar and everything below is Madras

if someone calls u "aap"-- u start laughing on their faces...

when you call the BEST bus, BST, even though BEST is painted on every single public transport bus operational in Bombay

It takes longer to get off from your house to the station than from one end of Mumbai to another by train.

Being truly alone makes you nervous.

Crorepati, Lakhpati, Hazarpati, Chillarpati all travel in local Trains daily-together!.

You have learnt how to stand in a queue

u treat mumbai as a country itself

when you actually see random people coming to help you when u have a problem

u want to get into the train already that is already in motion & u have 5 hands taking u in..

You are back to work next day after the city is bombed - Truly the spirit of Mumbai

When you allow complete strangers to spend the night in your house because its raining outside and half the city is submerged...
You know you are from Mumbai when....

There is this post where I have written bout me being a Pro-man... I dont think too much on the words I use, but this one was pointed out by a friend and I have to explain what I meant!

So I searched in the dictionary on my cell phone.. (Yeah, I hav a dictionary on my cellphone, techsavvy or wht!)
The dictionary on my cell says - Proman - Not found! (Arrrgh these cellphone dictionaries)

Therefore(wow! I said therefore, whatta day!), I had to come up with my own definition of Proman

Proman/pruh-maan/1 n. someone who believes that men are better at most things.

Let me refine this -
You see, a proman believes that men are better than women at most jobs like changing a flat tyre, driving, hunting duck, ice hockey, engineering, arm wrestling and stuff..

But then women are definitely better than men in jobs like say nuturing a child, nursing, jobs involving creative designing, writing, colours, decorating, organising...

I mean, most of us have had female teachers while we were young, and I for one didnt like male teachers being introduced when I was in the 3rd grade. If my decisions were worth anything in the Mumbai Univ, I would make them recruit only female teachers.

Talk bout nursing, how many of us would want male nurses? Or lets take fashion desinging, even though this field is full of men, not many are tht straight... And women take up these fashion designing courses, while I still have to come across a guy whos enroled in such a course...

In short in jobs requiring high EQ girls will always be better...

Take for eg-babysitting, most men would suck at it. I dont know if its the cologne that men use or sumthing, but babies hate us. The only men I know who rocked at dealing with kids were Danny, Uncle Jessie and Joey. For all I know even they needed the services of Aunt Becky for things to fall in place...



Now, I am sure you feel women can be good drivers and can change flat tyres, and beat guys in arm wrestling, infact my cousin beat me back when i was 10 yrs old and she was 8yrs old (not to mention double my size and strength)... But then I grew up to have well rounded biceps,and she grew up to be all girlie, 6yrs down the line I challenged her again...sweet revenge!.. life is so fair!
I feel there are guys who can be good male nurses, and as American idol showed some of them can be good nursery teachers and good singers at the same time(not to mention good looking..)

There is nothing that men cant do or women cant do... But then we were hardwired differently so that we could complement each other(this is my guess). This different hardwiring makes us good at some jobs and suckers at others, and I guess thts how it was meant to be... And remember, there are exceptions to every rule. You might be one guy/girl who might be good at the things that I believe are opp sex territory... If you are one,...celebrate,... coz you are the exception to the rule.... You are exceptional!!



This post is dedicated to all my female readers who take time out to read this gibberish!
And yes, Happy Womens day! Proman!

There comes a time in your life when some girl will sweep you off your feet, his Grandpa used to say. That is what grownups say when you ask them why they married the one they did...

There was this girl at his place, tall, pretty, shy, the works... He was swept off his feet the very first time she walked into the room.
Just out of college she was.This was probably her first job. She had a tough time taking care of her saree. She must have been used to wearing Tshirts and jeans, poor girl had to wear sarees here. But most guys like traditional wear on their girls and so did he... She kept her hair open and it kept falling over her face. And then she would have to tuck it behind her ear.

He was so shy of her. He would look at her all day long and she would think hes so attentive. He acted all boyish and awkward, it was like he was in the 3rd grade again..

He had never met a girl this pretty in the last 8 years! She was perfect! All of a sudden getting up early seemed cool, for that was the way he could meet the girl he had been dreaming about last night.. The 5 hours spent around her were the best 5 hours in his day..

He so wanted to tell her how he felt.. But he had no guts then, he wonders if he still has any.. The best way for guys like him is to write it down on a piece of paper and give it to her to read. He was no poet, but they say when in love, even lines thrown in together sound good.

He wrote it in his notebook, on the last page. No one reads the last page he thought... No one does, but she did..
She laughed as she read it..

Now come on! whats funny there!! Its how he felt! So hes no poet! Maybe he sucks at poetry, but thts does not give her the right to laugh like that at someones feelings.. He thought he shouldn't have written that poetry or the piece of crap that it was.. Maybe she was just like all the other girls, maybe she was no different...

"Aaaww..thts so sweet of you", she said after she finished what seemed like the mother of all laughathalons..

What? sweet? nice! she must have liked my poetry! he thought

"Well.. I would like to meet your mom tomorrow", she said, still smiling..
What? why? Now shes gonna complain to my mom? She was being such a kid..

Anyways, he took his mom to school the next day...
"Your son loves me!", she said..
They both looked at him and started laughing...
"He does? He never told me about it!", his mom said.
"Yeah! Lets hope he marries me when he grows up!!", she said and they both started laughing.. This one lasted more than the last laughathalon!

"By the way, your son writes really good poetry for a 3rd grader", she smiled and lovingly gave him a peck on the cheek...
And all he could do is blush... like a 8 year old does, coz thts what he was...an eight year old...


But you know whats amazing bout this story?........ The 8 yr old went on to remember all this 14 years down the line...



Swept off his feet...

One of my friends says that I never talk about myself... I got this in an email from her, and decided to put it up on the blog...



1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? - my name means one who knows everything... Its not a noun, its an adjective used for God

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? - Men dont cry! We hunt..We kill duck..We eat raw meat..We no cry!

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? - yes, its another thing tht others dont :P

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAL? - i like dal chawal with buttermilk and a lot of other side dishes (wht? i like to eat!)

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS? - none tht i know of!

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? - Yeah, i am a nice guy!

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT? - with close friends only
9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? - No..if AXN and world's most amazing videos have taught me anything, i wouldnt!

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? - Nope..dont like any

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? - hahahaah...i love this one..no, i dont!

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? - yeah...though not ass-kicking strong, i am strong enuf not to let my ass get kicked

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? - coffee almond

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? - depends on whether the person is a guy or a girl!

15. RED OR PINK? - red

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? - tht i find it difficult to dedicate myself to one thing..this is my least fav thing bout myself

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? -my kid sister..miss her big time..noones here to laugh at my silly jokes now..

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU? yep

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? - grey pants and no shoes(why was this ques included? )

20. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? -uttapa.....

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? Pehli Nazar by Atif Aslam from Race...imagine me listening to a hindi song! But this ones the best since Doorie..

22. IF YOU WHERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? - Fluorescent Orange..I rem kids fighting over it..

23. FAVORITE SMELLS? - Dettol, Jai soap, the Cologne tht u get on Indian Airlines flights, tea(when its being made), Gillette roll-on

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? - Akshay Sukhtankar..hes a classmate who now works in the same firm as me..

25. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? - yeah i do..shes pretty cool

26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH? - liked cricket but lost interest after Ganguly was dropped from the team...

27. HAIR COLOR? Black, coloured brown

28. EYE COLOR? - black

29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? - no..my eyes r too sensitive

30. FAVORITE FOOD? - anything thts vegetarian and spicy will do..i hav a weakness for paneer and mushrooms

31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? - happy endings..i love them (I hope I dont come across as girlish )

32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? - Mithya..loved it, except the ending....

33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? - dark blue Tshirt, actually its SPCE's mech Tshirt...

34. SUMMER OR WINTER? -winter afternoons..Diwali vacations if I can get them..

35. HUGS OR KISSES? - Cant I get both? Hugs I guess..

36. FAVORITE DESSERT? - not much of a dessert person actually... i like to have fruit salad though..

37. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? - Arshat!

38. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? - hero, boss , guru :P

39. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? - blink! It was given to me by a friend, and the literary genius tht i am, i hav been trying to complete it from the last 1 month

40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? - er..a mouse!!?

41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON T.V. LAST NIGHT? - Simpsons, My wife and Kids and Sarabhai vs Sarabhai

42. FAVORITE SOUND? - bagpiper, guitar, birds chirping, mooing cows with bells round their necks

43. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? - Havent heard them.. But arent Rolling stones those skinny guys with swollen lips..why are they so hyped?

44. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME? - I hav been to London once. I hope this is not one of those philosophical questions...

45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? - Yeah, i can climb up walls and stop high speed trains with my left hand..

46. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? In a hospital

47. WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK? - yours I-am-what-I-am!