The power of ‘medium’…

One of the best places to snooze is undoubtedly the grand chair at any men’s hair salon. It has one of those magical qualities which renders any person sitting on it feel extremely sleepy. And I say this with more than 20 years of experience! But this post isn’t about the chair, in fact it is about the interaction between the person sitting on the chair and the person who operates around it – the barber (or hair stylist [HS] if you like) and the common man customer (like me). This is for those of us who don’t go in for designer hair styles but prefer a simple trim. And in such a situation, there is a very finite set of instructions that one can give to the HS. One of the most commonly used (and yet one of the most mysterious) word is ‘medium’. This is used to signify quantity or amount. Either one could have his locks trimmed short or let them be long. Somewhere in between these extremes is ‘medium’. It is an untold understanding between the HS and the customer specifying the exact amount of trimming required without actually specifying the amount (yeah, that does sound weird!).

HS: “Saar, full short madla?” (Sir, shall I make it full short?)

Me: “Short beda, medium irli.” (Not short, let it be medium.)

The alert ones would notice that in the above conversation, nowhere has medium been elucidated upon. It is just that. Perhaps it’s some kind of telepathy which ensures that the HS understands just how much of medium is enough! It is because of this telepathic understanding that one can afford to snooze blissfully on the chair, while the HS goes about doing his job. So the next time you go for a trim, just say ‘medium’ and snooze away!

P.S. Disclaimer – if you snooze and your HS is an exception to the above mentioned rule (and doesn’t know when to stop), please don’t blame me!

Lost between 32 and 34…

The other day, I accompanied my friend who wanted to pick up some clothes, a pair of jeans to be particular. When the sales rep asked for his waist size, he was unsure what to tell; he later confided in me that he was somewhere between 32 and 34. I guess this is a dilemma which is faced by a number of people out there, myself included. Even I am treading the area of uncertainty between the waist size of 32 and 34. I have many jeans of size 34 and also have a couple of size 32. I look like a complete idiot whenever I wear either of the sizes. Size 32 makes me feel like I have had too much to eat; my face is contrived in an inexplicable way which lets anyone who sees me imagine a whole lot of weird things. On the other hand, size 34 makes me feel as if there’s still a bit of room left in there! God save me if I am wearing a 34 and I forget to put a belt. This means that one of my hands has a full time occupation of clutching my jeans whenever I am vertical, lest the unthinkable happen.

I thought of two solutions to overcome this unique (or maybe not-so-unique) problem: either I could hit the gym regularly, do some extra abs-crunches and get my waist size to 32, or eat some more of delicious, unhealthy food (like my favourite double-coated “butter naan” and some extra cheese pizza) and get my waist to a proper 34. I weighed the two options and there emerged an undisputed winner! There’s a ring at my door as I write this, guess it must be my pizza delivery.

Shove and push…

I was recently searching the internet when I came across this site which offers users with a free ‘direct push’ email. In case you aren’t sure what ‘direct push’ is, this should help you out. I signed up for the service to use with my Windows Mobile powered Smartphone. So far, it has been working just as advertised and I think it’s pretty cool. And since I don’t have a Blackberry of my own, this is the closest that I can get to the Blackberry experience. You can check out the site here – it is called mail2web Live!

EDIT - mail2web has gone for a paid model now. However, Google has switched on push email for Gmail so all rejoice!

The story of my life…

A short one for today! One of my clever friends asked me this question – “What would page 347 of your autobiography read?” I came up with an equally clever reply – “Other best sellers by the same author….”

Laced with Traffic...

Today is the day that I finally did two things which I was planning to do for quite some time: go out and buy me a pair of shoelaces and put up a post on my blog. At least I was able to do one half of this successfully. I took my motorcycle to go to a leading shoe store. I just love riding my bike but it is becoming quite frustrating these days thanks to loads of traffic on the roads. A journey that would otherwise take just under 10 minutes actually took me 30 minutes to complete. All along the way, I had to navigate cars, motorcycles, buses and trucks as if I was navigating through a high sea in full fury. I often wonder if people are so particular about leaving their common sense at home when they bring their vehicles on the road! No wonder the traffic situation is so bad. Things would be so different if only people would just follow the basic rules of traffic like lane discipline, proper overtaking and respect the other vehicle driver on the road. But it seems that all these are things of the past.

After much waiting, honking and not giving in to road rage, I finally reached the shoe store after having spent several minutes to find a proper parking spot for my motorcycle. After a lot of searching, I finally found a spot in a by-lane, not too far from which I could see two cats ‘canoodling’. With utmost care, I parked my bike so as to not disturb the busy couple, and made my way to the shoe store. I walked in and asked the store clerk if I could see some black shoe laces to which he replied with a sheepish smile that the store has only shoes in stock, and does not keep shoelaces!! Technically he was right and I was the moron to have gone to a SHOE store and asked for a shoe LACE. At that particular moment however, I thought the other way round. I gave him one my prized expressions of utter disgust and walked out of the store, thinking that I might as well head back home and look up some ‘Shoelace stores’ in my area on the internet. I also wondered if the cats would be done or what I saw before was just the foreplay. But I guess those two didn’t have time to beat around the bush; they were sitting next to each other purring by the time I got back. In a strange way, I could make out a look of content on the face of the male cat. I wondered what it must be thinking. Then I realized the weirdness of what I was thinking, so I just got on my bike and rode off. Tomorrow, I plan to visit some ‘ShoeLace’ stores. I hope there are some close by!

Sunday morning alert...

From my previous post, it would be quite obvious even to the intellectually challenged ones that I am a late riser. And I certify this little fact every weekend. Well, almost every weekend that is. There are times like today, when I am forced to wake up early in the morning. And the credit for this goes in full to that dumb family that has moved in our apartment two floors below my place. I think terming them as dumb would be an understatement, an insult to the ones who are actually dumb. These fellows are beyond anything stupid that I have ever seen or heard; and not just one person, but the entire family. I say this because I was woken up on a Sunday morning by the fire alarm that was wailing at 7 o’clock in the morning. That’s right. Kudos to the guy who designed that fire alarm – it did its job of awakening and attracting the attention of the entire apartment on a lazy Sunday (early) morning splendidly. The security guards dashed to the elevators to get in the building and check on which floor the alarm had gone off and the cause for it. But to everyone’s surprise, the elevators had gone to the basement and were refusing to budge! There was no choice left for them but to dash up the stairs and investigate. It was discovered then that the people whom I shall now refer to as the lowest form of life on earth – or LFLE were behind this early morning fire alert! It has been close to two weeks since they have moved in and they have successfully managed to spoil two weekends for me. Last week, they were blissfully having carpentry work done in their house till 8 o’clock in the night! I and my brother had to take the security to their house, throw the carpenters out of their house and mouth abuses to the folks there. And in spite of this, the lady of the house was wondering what the issue was – its only 8 in the night and why would anyone complain about a loud banging noise that has been going on the whole day?! Coming back to today morning, LFLE were celebrating their move into their house at 7 in the morning by performing a holy pooja of sorts – to which I have nothing against. But it is common sense that when they will be burning firewood in their house as part of the ritual, they should take the pains to disable the fire alarm for their house. The idiots were completely ignorant about this. Expectedly, a gush of smoke in their house triggered the fire alarm and rudely awoke me among many. And to top it all, hearing the fire alarm, senior LFLE had broken the ‘Emergency – In case of fire only’ glass and was pressing the button as if he had been given the chance to play around with someone who had just got silicon implants! No wonder then that the elevators in the building were disabled and the security guards had to run up the stairs to put things in order. And as if the LFLEs hadn’t done enough for the day, when the electrician came to reset the alarm, the suggestion that they gave him was –“Break the system so that it won’t wail again!” I would have paid the electrician handsomely if he had whipped out his spanner and beaten LFLE on his head till the spanner broke. I have seen dumb people but these ones are something different. For the two weeks that they have been here, they have managed to create some sort of nuisance. It remains to be seen what happens the next weekend. I wonder if they will burn the building down or flood it – should I sleep in fire proof clothing or in a life boat!

Wake up & rise and shine....

It’s been quite some time since my last post. And I blame it fully on the weather in my part of the world. It makes me feel so darn lazy that I feel it is a crime to do anything unless I find it absolutely necessary to do it. But then again, I feel happy in the knowledge that it isn’t me alone who seems to be suffering from this syndrome. Yes, that right. I’m sure there are many others who feel tortured by this weather. Of course, it is a fabulous season out here. The temperatures are just shy of the twenties most of the time and what with the ‘every-evening’ rain. It is beautiful and at the same time damned.

Yep, I typed it correct. That’s because the feelings that I described above fail to come in my average sized brains at 0600 hrs in the morning. Yep, that’s when my darned alarm screams its lungs out to wake me from my peaceful and much deserved sleep. Why?!! Why in heaven’s name do I need to wake up at 6 o’clock in the morning five times a week?!! Why can’t I begin my day sometime after 1000 hrs? Or say after 1130? The time between 0600 and 0602 is the time when I ask myself these same questions day after day. Of course at the same time I am groping like a complete idiot around the night stand to find the blaring alarm and to turn the stupid thing off. But I need to be careful as I do this and not smash it to the ground accidently – I need to wake up early on Monday again.