Domain Maximus

I am back. Again.

Ahem. Hello there. Welcome back.

As you may be aware this blog was away for three months doing authorly things like launching, reading, interviewing, posing for pictures, reading good reviews, reading bad reviews, crying ourselves to sleep and so on. And amidst all the celebrity-ing, Pranab Mukherjee presented a Union Budget. The union budget is pretty much the highlight of the annual calendar for the business journalism business. (Whatay play on words.) Which means the Union Budget is one of those “do anything as long as you are doing something” periods in the office. And boy did we do things. Many, many things.

Of course today no one remembers anything Minister Mukherjee said or announced during the budget. Read the rest of this entry »

When we first met and got talking, it sounded just like another one of those coffee-shop mouth-off sessions with Pastrami. (No. Not that Pastrami. This is about the other one. Different business. Same complicated personality.)

Every couple of weeks Pastrami, the missus, a few other mutual friends and yours truly get together to, by and large, make fun of each other. Take each other’s trip. Now you might be forgiven for thinking that this sort of routine gets lame after a while. How much fun can you poke at the same people fortnight after fortnight right? Right?

Wrong.

Pastrami and I once spent an entire overnight train journey making fun of a particular female friend’s nose. Five, maybe six hours of purely nose-based humour.

It was quite a remarkable nose of course. Long, pointed and with a mid-stream course correction that made it hook downwards, and slightly to the left hawkishly before ending in a well-tapered, not at all chunky point. It was not a freakish nose. Some people could have pulled it off. Alas our friend was not one of those. And when extreme boredom struck Pastrami and me minutes after leaving Aurangabad station, we quickly converged on the nose for amusement:

“So does it echo a little bit when you sneeze?”

“Can you touch your tongue with the tip of your nose?”

And the classic:

“How can you possibly head-butt anything at all?”

Alas this particular evening Pastrami had other things to talk about. Which, if I had known about, I would have made up some random excuse, something marriage related perhaps, to avoid meeting him.

Let me explain.

As soon as we settled into one of the tables in the corner at the Costa(lot for) Coffee at Connaught Place, Pastrami squirmed a little uncomfortably in his chair, as men do in such circumstances. And then he said: “Sidin. I have fallen in love. I have asked her to marry me.”

I kept scrolling through Twitter updates on Blackberry hoping that the moment would pass and Pastrami would move on to something else. But he did not. He repeated: “Dude! I am in love. I have asked this girl to marry me! Dude. Listen!”

And so I had to.

Now in most cases when a close friend falls in love and decides to propose to someone, this is a cause of great joy for the entire friends circle. And naturally so. Aren’t we all glad to see a friend find that someone special to spend the rest of his or her life with in love and affection, till some form of gaming console or broadband connection do them apart?

Not exactly. In reality there are several base, negative and downright selfish reasons why we are glad to see a friend hook up with someone.

For instance married men love to see single male friends hook up because there are really only so many times you can laugh off other people’s bachelor exploits before slowly crying yourself to sleep on your side of the double bed. Single men also love to see other single men hook up because, thanks to the weird probabilities that govern male life, your friend is going to date some smoking-hot Anjana Sukhani look alike. A babe who is SO out of your league that she is in some completely other sport if you know what I mean. (Anjana will then fool around with you because you are harmless and call her “bhabhi” all the time, when your actual mental train of thought is more along the lines of “slutty nurse”.)

I am not one to hypothesize how women’s minds work. But when a girl decides to hook up with a guy, I believe her female friends’ mental flowchart is as follows:

1. Wow she is going out with someone!
2. The bastard better agree to marry her…
3. Because she would look so AWESOME on her wedding day (leading to the most important and critical next thought…)
4. AND THEN I CAN GET MEHNDI DONE!!! WOO HOO!!!

But in Pastrami’s case things are not so. When Pastrami tells me he is in love, my train of thought is along the lines of:

Oh. Shit.

This is because, for all the years I have known gentle, sensitive, prone-to-auto-accident Pastrami he always, without fail or exception, falls for the MOST CRAZY ASS WOMEN in the world.

I do not jest. These women are freaking night-mare inducing, restraining order generating insane. Stark raving. And that is saying something for that gender.

For instance there was the one that would always drop in, to say hi and possibly make out a little, by barging into his room without warning Kramer-like. Initially this was a cute quirk that temporarily suspended Pastrami’s “I will be naked when I am alone” habit. Later we discovered it was because she wanted to know if he was ever with any other women in person or on the phone.

Then there was the one that, in her spare time, wrote jolly comic verse about people who wanted to commit suicide.

And who can forget that crazy girl from Goa who’d break up one day, drop in for the night the next, then break up again. And then sex chat with him on Google Talk only to break up again and then make up again and then sex chat again all in the space of a brief afternoon. She left poor Pastrami a mess of mixed messages and hair-trigger emotions for weeks. I’d ask him if he wanted to do coffee and he’d ask, reflexively, if it was because he’d ”screwed up something again without knowing.”

And in each of these cases Pastrami wanted to marry them immediately and have children and a house in the hills. Alas it would be left to his friends to pick up the pieces and console poor Pastrami and nurse him back to sanity. Largely by making jokes about unrequited love around him till his sorrow was spent and he laughed along.

So when he sits in a cafe and breaks the news that he is in love yet again, ideal responses would be to talk him out of it, hit him over the head with that humongous cup at Costa and hope he develops retrograde amnesia, or stab yourself in the throat with that ridiculous cheese twisty thing they serve there and then die a slow death. Anything but the crazy woman you’d have to handle for him.

Alas I was just in the middle of Retweeting something on the Berry and, before I could pick up an ornamental polished marble ball from the potted plant, Pastrami blurted it all out.

The young lass was well-known to all of us having been a year junior to us in college. She was of sound mind and had a penchant for some emotional poetry. And a looker to boot. So prima facie there was nothing to suggest a mental imbalance other than the usual womanly foibles. (Stuff like “You just like Yoda because he talks funny.”)

And then Pastrami began to speak of how they’d been in touch for a long time over email and chat—the lass works abroad. And how after a recent visit by her to Delhi he’d decided that they were meant to be together forever:

P: “Sidin, she came all the way to Delhi just to meet me. For a few hours. From XXXXX!”
S: “No shit. Did she say that? Did she say she came JUST to see you?”
P: “Well not in as many words. But she has no other friends. No other family. Only me. ONLY ME! DON’T YOU SEE! IT IS FINALLY HAPPENING!”
S: “Are you’re sure she did absolutely nothing else at all in Delhi?”
P: “There was this friend’s wedding. But otherwise every minute of her day was Pastrami-time!”
S: “Oh shit.” (Reaches for cheese twisty.)

And if that wasn’t weird enough Pastrami then narrated, in great unnecessary detail, about all the conversations that they had and all the subsequent insights into her personality.

For instance he was going to propose to her in Paris (The city. Ha!). Because that’s the place she’d got on her “Which is your favourite city in the world?” quiz on Facebook. Also he had discovered that her favourite poem in the entire world was Rabbi Ben Ezra by Robert Browning. So he’d asked for her hand in go-out-ship by quoting the “Grow old along with me, The best is yet to be.” lines from that poem.

Pastrami also said that the few moments they’d spent together in her hotel room was heavy with sentiment and emotion. They had hugged at some point and according to Pastrami it felt “just right”. And even the woman said that she “loved the hug”.

So far things seemed normal. Apart from a penchant for poems that are over 190 lines long, our lass seemed largely harmless. And then, just when I thought he’d finally found a sane woman, Pastrami said:

“Just yesterday she called me at 4 in the morning and asked me to write a poem for her on the spot. It was magical Sidin. This despite the fact that she is yet to come to a decision whether she loves me.”

Completely unlike the CBI, I was stunned by this new evidence. What? She did not love him yet?  She was still making up her mind? Extempore poetry at 4 AM? WTF?

Apparently, Pastrami explained, our girl was still coming to terms with the fact that someone was in love with her. Apparently she did not know if she was ready to reciprocate. She was still not getting “goosebumps” when she thought about him. Also it seems she was sill trying to find out what the “concept of love” really meant to her.

Pastrami asked me if I got goosebumps when I thought about the missus. Because the missus was sitting with us at the time, I told him that in many parts of my body the skin was permanently goose-bumped, like a durian, from intense affection. I then asked Pastrami how HE knew that he was in love. He said that the magical moment had been when he had escorted her to Delhi airport.

They’d reached well in advance of her flight and he’d taken her to that shady south Indian restaurant near the terminal for a coffee. After snacking and chatting, presumably about weird poetry, they got up to leave. Both of them approached the cash counter and she’d insisted she’d pay. Suddenly her mind went blank calculating her bill, she fumbled for her wallet and, according to Pastrami, “she just looked so darned adorably silly fumbling with a simple bill.” Pastrami immediately swooped and picked up the tab.

She said that her brain was suited more for poetry than mathematics while Pastrami’s mind was so analytical and fast. Never to let a moment like this go waste, Pastrami uttered a line that has never been used between a man and a woman in a romantic setting before:

Multi-faceted

“Darling I just love to see you doing silly things. And fumbling with math. Frankly my dear, I think my left brain is in love with your right brain…”

She was left speechless. Also all of us and one passing-by Costa waiter.

It was clear that Pastrami was quite pleased with his monumental pick-up line. He sat back in his chair at Costa and smiled smugly. He asked me what I thought. I told him that it was a great line. And then made a joke about how Pastrami and Poetry Babe had at least one good brain between the both of them.

The rest of the night all of us just sat and mostly made fun of Pastrami’s brain. Or the left half in any case.

As for their love story it progresses gradually. The lass is still waiting for her moment of epiphany when she suddenly gets goosebumps and realizes her passionate love for good old Pastrami. Pastrami spends most of his nights, pen in hand, ready to create magnificent poetry for her at a moment’s notice. This is what he wrote that day at 4 in the morning:

To understand a love that is unrequited
Consider a candle that is, at one end, ignited.
If you respond that it’s the standard way it is conflagrated
Wait! I’m not done. Let me make it a little more complicated.
This one-side-lit candle, further, balances about a delicate axis
and, as one side wanes the other, relatively, waxes.
And this creates an imbalance which, as we know, Nature abhors.
But what is to be done when one party is indifferent while the other adores?

And the only thing keeping this world from going completely crazy
is that while A loves B, B loves C all the way through till Y loves Z.
Though the As, Bs, Cs, all the way through till the Ys will complain
that, with one-sided love, imbalance is, only, a minor pain.
And when A speaks of B
you can clearly see
that B’s mere presence
justifies A’s existence.
But when B speaks of A
suffice to say
from how A is derided
Love is, clearly, one-sided.

Unrequited love also, it seems, makes the skin thick.
Words from B that would, earlier, have cut to the quick
no longer seem to affect A in any way.
Also rendered ineffective is any passion A might display
What A and B fail to realize
is that as each candle diminishes in size
A and B, inexorably, draw near
and where A ends and B begins becomes unclear.
And while B is resisting and A is pining
even this dark cloud has a silver lining.

Let the Lovers and the Loved always recall
that ‘tis but one wick that connects us all.

Yes. Pastrami is really, really in love.

Crap.

Ok. Now before you smack your lips and say “Finally! Another 3000-word blogpost full of mindless drivel and pointless trivialities from daily life put in short sentences with excessive adverbs by a handsome and humorous malayali boy with minor weight issues that are easily overlooked due to an ebullient personality and a secret stash of “god mode” codes for PS2 wargames in order to get a false sense of bravado!”, I must warn you that this is not.

Instead, it is a brief retelling of something that happened a few days ago to the missus. An event that only serves to reinforce the slow but steady sliding of the author and close associates deeper down the slope of Afteryouth.

Afteryouth, regulars will know, is that period between graduating from a Master’s program and becoming 30 when one’s youth ebbs away slowly, when kids playing at Five Gardens kicks a football into the road and ask “uncle” to get it back for them, and when one watches contemporary TV (except House MD) and realizes all over again the timeless greatness of Chandler Bing and Niles Crane.

And when one continues to recommend “Crimson Tide” and “The Rock” as great timepass movies to friends at the office. (Also one is actually quite bothered by inflation and potential US depression but one tries to not talk about it loudly.)

And by one…I mean me.

So the missus is out with people from her office for a do at a club called Indus in South Mumbai. The night progresses well. The missus is not one for too many alcoholic drinks. But she does not mind the odd vodka lemon shot or caipiroshka. Also the misses likes to shake that leg a little if there is an enthu crowd she can dissappear into.

The night progresses peacefully. But the music simply does not rise to the occassion. So the missus makes a trip to the DJ in the corner, a young tshirt and cap clad boy who, no doubt, had a piercing somewhere below his waist by the look of those double sideburns.

“Could you play some Punjabi please?” missus inquired gently. The DJ shrugged and said ok, as is the way of all DJs except that old sweet fellow at Sports Bar at Phoenix Mills.

“What do you want to listen to?”

There are many Punjabi numbers very close to the missus and your truly’s hearts: Punjabi 5-0, Backstabber, Chandigarh Kare Ashiqui, Snap vs. Motivo, Mundian To Bach Ke, Takre and, of course, Sukhbir when he was still low budget.

But few can beat Nachna Onda Nei by Tigerstyle and Kaka Bhania. Who hadn’t heard of that eponymous number? The missus found out soon enough.

“Never heard of it! Nachna… what?”

The missus raised an eyebrow. DJ Jackass had no idea that, at best, he had another four minutes or so to live. (The missus is marginally slower than usual when wearing traditional attire due to the chunni, which creates drag when moving through air at Mach 2.)

“Nachna Onda Nei. Kaka Bhania. It’s a popular Bhangra number…”

“No idea miss. Is it from some movie? I can play Kawa Kawa if you want.”

“It’s not from a movie you fool! Khasmanu Khaanee…” She moved towards him her fingers tightening around a little paper umbrella that is a cocktail decoration for most but a weapon of mass destruction for some.

She was about to slit his throat via papercut when seventeen of her colleagues pulled her back. The DJ had the presence of mind to play Sajnaa Jee Vaari Vaari, which cooled her somewhat. Her colleagues informed her that perhaps th DJ was simply too young to remember that old classic that inspired many a young MBA to bend Ahmedabad prohibition legislation.

Later that night she came back home and told me what had happened. The anger quickly changed to contemplation and we sat in the living room feeling our youth dwindling. When I could handle it no more, I slipped in a Friends DVD.

When Chandler said “Chanberries…” in that episode with the Thanksgiving Dinner, we laughed out loud and our lives momentarily felt better. But not by much.

Addendum: I am stunned by the musical ignorance of today’s youth. (And yes, I am referring to you Ideasmith! Tut tut. No Wii/eeepc/web 2.0/twitter or some such young thing for you!)

This video will perhaps help to jog memory and shake those hips! Call all your friends, crank up speakers and crack open some beers… (Knockout is best.) Periodically shout: “Oy hoy!”

(Can’t embed the video whatever I do. Sigh.)

Unlike our mutual friend Pastrami who routinely spends many a big bucks at that Haakim Aalim place in Bandra, I get my hair cut at this… umm… legacy haircutting saloon bang opposite Wadala station.

Saloon, mind you, not salon. There is an ‘o’ missing.

And that is all the difference between a flowery fellow making trendy conversation while he snips away and Mama, my regular scissorsmith, who seldom raises a peep out of his well creased mouth. But what Mama lacks in style and panache he makes up for in experience and consistency. He is, in fact, Sushilkumar Shinde’s haircutter of choice. Since youth. Shinde now has a fast outfield up there. So Mama has cut a lot of heads.

Irrespective of what I tell Mama to do – long, short, sideburns trimmed, clean at the back, thin on the sides – he finally gives me exactly the same cut. Time after time. There is a certain welcome comfort in that. Crisp partition on my right (your left), 2.5 cms of side burn and nearly vertical side trim.

Classic Hairdressers is quite the old setup and has a board on the wall which says: "Laundry towel and cloth Rs. 10 extra". Which means, unless requested otherwise, you get wrapped in cloth that throngs with mature virus and bacteria that once draped a young Shinde.

Yet I enjoy the familiarity, the old film magazines – Is Bobby Deol the next big thing?! – and the no nonsense approach of it all. And the fact that for the price of one of Pastrami’s trims I can get barbered for the entire duration of an elected government that does not support the nuclear deal.

Yet last fortnight, when I got my latest trim, something happened that shook me to my very core. Halfway through a cut and shave Mama suddenly lunged forward and did something that had never EVER happened in my life.

He gingerly trimmed my nose hair.

The sky fell down around me. My self esteem impacted the floor noisily. Alas! Egads!

Afteryouth had, yet again, struck a mighty blow with nary a warning. I was old enough to get my nosehair trimmed! The shame… the shame.

Every man worth this salt knows that whence the nosehair needs a quick snip the faint attachments with youth doth begin to crumble. From then it is all downhill till the ears themselves sprout locks at which point you just throw yourself in front of a Virar Fast to end the agony and carbon footprint.

Note from Wikipedia: Nasal hair should not be confused with cilia of the nasal cavity, which are the microscopic cellular strands that, unlike macroscopic nasal hair, draw mucus up toward the oropharynx via their coordinated, back-and-forth beating.

Dammit.

Now, each morning, I give the wind tunnels a quick inspection to ensure no wispy flashes. Those with experience know that nothing hurts like an inadvertently pulled out nosehair follicle. Especially in an electric shaver. As the ancients used to say: "Two from the nose is like a fist from the bush."

This morning I noticed a stray peeper and spoke out at the world in general and at the missus in particular about my woe. She threw me a terrific glance before looking away. As we cabbed to work eyes were transfixed outside the window. And even when we parted ways and she walked into her office, she said good bye without looking at me in the face.

Sigh.

Sometimes I think only Mama cares. Only he understand my problems. I completely see where Sushilkumar Shinde is coming from.

So I guess I will now sit and wait till this happens:

Sob. Sniff. Sigh. Sneeze!

Stupid hair…

Dearest Fellow Afteryouths,

I know how it is. I understand. You step out of the shower, dry yourself down in front of the mirror, (maybe flex those pecs a little?) and then slip into the bedroom in your towel to surprise the missus.

She looks at you endearingly perched on the edge of the bed. You throw her some manly poses and she coos. “You the man” she whispers huskily. Then you turn around to show off those chiseled back muscles when she screams and bolts out of the room.

Happens dudes.

So waste no time and do what a man needs to do. See pic. Buy product. Right away. Run along now.