Confessions of a haircut victim

After a one week hiatus, I am back with a story about barbers. I visited the barber last week. I was lucky enough to get out of there with a not so bad haircut. I am yet to meet a guy (dont know about the gal community) who is happy with his barber and his haircuts. I have seen my close friends go into the barbers' shop as normal looking men and emerging as hideous beasts after the snipping and cutting ( I distinctly remember Rajneesh raoming around in a cap for months few years ago) . I myself have been in that position about an year ago and I didnt even have the luxury of a cap.

I have found out the possible causes for such haircuts. The thing is this, you have to treat a barber like you would treat a woman. This doesnt guarantee a good haircut, but increases its probability to somewhere near 10%. You have to communicate effectively with the barber (just like you have to with a woman), make him understand your demands and needs. And never tell a barber you have been to other barbers and dont give him a list of your old barbers. Barbers are always jealous of other barbers. And finally, remember you never have a choice in the type of haircut which suits you best. The barber has the final word. Also, you never argue with someone who is brandishing a razor and scissors.

A one time stand with other barbers is also not advisable. There was this time I saw an advertisement for cheap haircuts, about 10 Euros. This was an offer too good to be true. So i ventured into the saloon, and was surprised to see a very beautiful Swedish goddess standing there with a scissor in hand. With a very husky voice and an unforgettable smile, she invited me to the chair. She asked me to relax and pulled a machine suddenly and in one clean stroke removed about 80% of my hair. She performed some patchwork on the remaining 20% and demanded the money. Reluctantly, I parted with the money. My friend, Kevin refused to acknowledge me for a few months after that. A mugshot of me in that hideous haircut is available here. The gentle reader is told to exercise caution while watching the photo and get ready for the shock.

And on other occasion, I found a mobile barber who would come when you called him but on the condition that there were atleast 3 guys for the haircut. He would charge only 5 Euros, the catch being that he spoke only Swedish and Arabic. So when he came we communicated only though signs. Both came to an agreement that I needed a haircut since it had been six months. It was like a silent movie, a la Pushpak with me being the protagonist. The point is I still got out with a civilised haircut without any communication. I agree this contradicts my original point. But the bottomline is, one time stands with barbers are not advisable; you never know what you gonna get.

So next time you go to a barber, do heed my words.

Of Spellings & Hoardings….

Over the years that I have been roaming in and around Bangalore, I have seen many a funny banner or hoarding on the roads. A few that immediately come to mind are:-

a)Valkenosing Tyre Works on Hosur Road
This has also been caught by Inder on picture. Even to this date, we don’t know if the owner of this shop is a very witty Punjabi or has no idea about spellings whatsoever.
b)Mahboob Pasha PANCHAR works near my house.
A point about Mahboob Pasha here. When one goes to this place, he is greeted by a guy with a huge paunch relaxing comfortably on a chair of sorts. Suddenly, he whistles and atleast 5-7 kids come running out of the house and manhandle your bike. One kid removes the tyre, one fills the blow, one uses the spanners and one just simply cries there in a rather large tone. One hour later the bike is fixed.
c)Sugar CAN JUESE on Mysore Road
This place is just a table and a juice machine near the drainage on Mysore Road. To this date, I haven’t seen some actually standing behind this table selling the “juese” nor have I seen any sugar cane. A possible reason for this could be the drainage itself
d)CAMARAS for sale & FOTOS ready in 2 hours , seen in Moodalpalya
Don’t know if the guy has cameras or rooms for sale.
e)MACANICAL repairs done here, seen in Moodalpalya.
Moodalpalya seems to be a very spelling challenged area in general.
f)24 ATM SARVICE at the ATM counter on Kanakapura Road.
g)SNAKES, on a menu card in Munnar.
To the people who didn’t get this one, the owner meant snacks.
h)ASTROLEGER services available , near Achuths’ house in Palakkad.
i)CHILD Beer, saw a picture of this in one of the mails. Apparently sighted in UP.
This undoubtedly deserves the first place.

Other spelling gaffes like CENTER, ORENGE , STICHING, SANDWITCH are almost too common. Another one which caused furore a few years back was the quotation HAI RAM on the Gandhi statue near Anand Rao circle instead of hey ram.

On a closing note, saw a very funny tag line for a kannada movie released few days back. It went something like this “The most technical expensive kannada movie ever made”. But it still doesn’t beat the “it’s a musical thunder, something wonder” or the “where man fear, there dog dare” taglines.

The Nostalgic Lords’ Cricket Cup

Finally after many years, (about two I guess), the cricket at Lords (or Laaards as we like to call it) was successfully conducted today. To the new reader, Lords was our hallowed place for cricket during those engineering years of 1997-2001. The whole class sometimes bunked to play here. The ground reasonably accommodates about 16-18 people for cricket but I distinctly remember 26 people during the 7th semester when most of the class dudes had lost motivation or will do anything. People basically came to college just to play cricket at Laards, then drink copious amounts of that wonderful lemon juice near the ground, then head to a nearby dhaba like Eden Huts or Heavens gate, then go to one of the guys’ place to catch a movie. Such was life then.

Back to today, out of the expected 20 odd people, about 12 guys turned up. Not bad at all. Surprisingly, the two married dudes, Mukund and Shashi turned up first at the official Laards Standard Time. Hemanth, Inder, Datta, Suresh, Subba Rao, Bow Bow, Genie were the other dudes who graced this occasion. Teams were cast and I opened the bowling with a spectacular doosra that left Datta flummoxed. Sadly, I could not keep this rhythm and it suffices to say that my doosras didn’t work after that. Hemant aka chinta was in full form on account of his suddenly finding his mojo (or he finally lit his bulb as inder said). Inder and Shashi also showed some good prowess with the willow. Genie for sometime took up the position of Balaji (a dude who was missed today and who was notorious for his match fixing) by being instrumental in the dismissal of his own team mates. Some matches later, I guess the number of matches each team won were level and also immaterial. We headed to the usual juice shop and instructed the guy keep on making lemon juice until we asked him to stop. After running a bill of over a 100 just for the juice, we headed for lunch, not to a dhaba this time on account of some sensitive stomachs. But we did relive most of the old memories. Nostalgia sure had set in by then. Hope to have a repeat telecast of this with more dudes turning up next time.

P.S. Who has the old Lords pictures? Please upload them.

Parks ought to have traffic rules

For the last 2 months, I have taken up the activity known as jogging. Most people think it’s an activity to make oneself fit and feel better about oneself. Initially, I agreed with this line of thinking. Over the last few days, I am becoming of the opinion that it is quite a life threatening activity filled with perils and unknown dangers.

Parks were made with the idea that people could perform this particular activity with peace. Of late, I have seen many parallels between the Bangalore traffic and the parks with jogging tracks in them. There’s this nice park about half a km away from my place. I generally sprint till this park and continue doing so for 5-6 laps within the park. Just like the Bangalore traffic, it is wise to leave early for this park (by about 6.15 am). If you are 5 mins late, you will notice that most of the Vijayanagar has landed in the park for the so called ‘jogging’ which in most people’s definition means slow walking (sometimes even roaming around for no apparent reason). On this particular day I was 5mins late, and I noticed that most of Vijayanagar was there as expected. They ought to make two lanes on the jogging track just like roads, a high speed right lane for the real joggers and the normal (slow) speed lane for the so called joggers. The jogging lane is normally blocked by two slow joggers walking side by side, also having some nice chat while doing so. This leaves me with the option of jumping over them or just walking behind them. I ought to carry a horn one of these days. Then there are the other kinds of joggers who arbitrarily change lanes while still going at slow speeds (without giving any indication). I nearly tripped over one of these jokers last week. And then there are the people who want to swing their sticks or their arms while walking. One of these days, I am going to get hit right on the face by these swinging objects. Then there are the other heroes who want to exercise right in the middle of the track. Why would someone want to do sit-ups or pushups in the middle of a heavy traffic zone? One of the things I can’t ever fathom.

The people in the park generally follow a clockwise direction for the jogging. But there is always this lonely crusader who thinks the other way is better. And for some reason, I am always heading for a collision with him. To add to all this menace, which I face within the park, there’s the outside menace. I was chased by two dogs last week while I was sprinting till the park. Only the appearance of a third dog from a rival gang saved me from getting bitten. Then there’s was the newspaper boy on a cycle with whom I nearly collided around the corner.

I suggest to you, the gentle reader to take up less harmful activities like boxing or bull-fighting. Jogging is one activity mankind could do without.