Beard Tales

'Gillette' is nothing but an aberration because men were always supposed to be stubbled and breaded!!!

15 days back as I stood in front of the mirror still groggy eyed and not yet ready to take on the world,I resolved for the 1245678955th time in my life that at worst every weekend, yes every weekend I will shave my stubble and there will be a Monday in my corporate life when I will report to duty clean shaven.

A lot of water has flown under the bridge since then(I have masterfully translated this one I think!!) or should I say a lot of hair has grown on my face since then and yet I think come tomorrow I will again resolve the same for the 1245678956th time, knowing fully well that nothing is going to change.

Watching my dad each and every day since I remember turning up religiously in front of his shaving mirror hanging right over the wash basin with his shaving soap and safety razor, I always looked forward to the day when I would emulate him atleast at this. So when the first signs of facial hair showed up I was almost ecstatic and right away wanted my very own shaving kit.

Sooner than later the novelty wore off and it quickly became an overhead. I remember questioning my dad not so long ago about what really drives him each day to get that shave done and he just looked at me amusingly with a "What you talking about Willis!!!??" look. He was so used to this ritual that it was a non issue for him. But that is not the case with me. I have an issue a really big issue with all this.

I have never been one for a routine or a schedule. I mean by the time the week ends I have to even drag myself to brush my teeth so you can imagine what a daily or even a weekly shave will do to me. When you add work stress to this mixture what you get is a cranky bearded me who typically has a stale breathe of overnight dal and rice with a hint of bud.

The question after two weeks is not whether I should shave off the stubble, I mean ofcourse I have to, what with folks at work giving me that 'ohh that wasted guy!!!' look and the managers already thinking what impression this might have on the client but how should I do it with minimal effort. The bare minimum 'use n throw' Gillette Presto is really not upto the task I am sure. So the thought which has just struck me is that maybe a new trimmer can help me.

However now that I have spent quite sometime with my beard, I have started to feel a certain affinity towards it. A type of the 'Stockholm Syndrome' if you may, almost like my beard has me hostage. Not the first time this beard has been playing tricks on my mind, but just for the heck of it I think I will let the beard win this time around.

This is me as seen today morning :)

The BackSeat Boys

In a month's time I will complete a year here. In the 11 months I have spent here till now, I could not manage even to get myself a driver's permit. It was not a lack of opportunity but a lack of necessity and to some extent my foolishness. Lack of necessity for my roommates/flatmates already had cars and were always at my beck and call and foolishness because a couple of months back I did try attempting the online knowledge test which is a precursor to the actual road test and I failed to clear it. As things stand, I was the only guy in quite sometime in my group to flunk that test. Ohh the shame!!!! Well now I am over it but I have not still planned for that retest as this time I want to make it good...

The sum total of the blabbering above is that I have spent not a single waking moment of my life here behind the wheel in the car. My existence has largely being confined to the backseat and over time I have realized that this is a sign from God, that maybe the universe is conspiring for maybe I am not meant to drive but be driven around *grinning widely as I think of it*

Image courtesy : http://davidpark.wordpress.com/

Just the other day a friend sold off his car and was thrown from behind the wheel up my alley - the backseat. He was obviously feeling a bit out of sorts, so I decided to put his mind at ease and started extolling the virtues of being on the backseat:

1) You don't ever have to be on your toes. You can sit back, relax and do whatever you want without worrying where exactly that next exit is or why the cop car is following us. Its the driver's headache.

2) Now that you have all the time in the world, you can either act stupid, or act cool. Its your choice, simple.

3) You can crane your neck whichever way you want to get a glimpse at the driver of the trailer which is just passing you.

4) If virtue 3 is too taxing, maybe you can day-dream as to how the trailer will transform itself into Optimus Prime and call you Sam Witwicky!!

5) You can gaze at the other cooler cars - the Cadillacs, Bentleys or the roof down convertibles passing by on the freeway.

6) You can just gaze at the greenery or wilderness on both sides of the road and if you are lucky, you can even spot a deer or two.

7) You can down the arm-rest and practically lean on it and feel even more relaxed.

8) You can easily enjoy your coffee which you just picked from the Dunkin Drive Thru without caring that what if you have brake suddenly while sipping the coffee as the driver always thinks about when he is stealing a sip of his coffee.

9) You can tweet about things passing by and also catch up on other social media, that way you never feel disconnected.

10) You don't really have to bother about the insurance, fuel and ofcourse the maintenance of the car.

10 virtues were good enough to label the back-seat as a make-shift 'lounge'. Actually by virtue number 6 I knew that my friend was seeing the light but I had to make it 10 just so that we fist-bump to a loud cheer of 'BackSeat Boys' which did unsettle our driver-friend I must say!!!

But then the BackSeat Boys don't really care...do they???

"Just checking out the Restrooms!!!"

Beer commercials are cool.

The one commercial which is my current favorite for the past 5-6 months is the Miller Lite 'Unmanly' commercial. See it below:

For ages I have observed ladies ask each other for company to the restroom. First I thought it would be some security thing but slowly I have realized that the ladies' restroom must be the best place to gossip. Well I am only taking a guess here, for I have no clue what goes in there. Its a different issue that there was a time during my growing up when I wondered if the ladies restroom was same as the men, but then I was just a kid then so lets discount that.

To spice up our mundane office existence more so at the client location, me and a friend of mine (of course a guy) decided to give this "bro, you joining me for a pee" thing a try. Each time any one of us had the urge to go, we did a quick, "Hey, lets do the unmanly thing..." and off we were (ofcourse we werent holding hands and all) to the restroom. It sure was hilarious, I mean saying the "Hey, lets do the unmanly thing.." part

The office has 2 floors. The first floor is occupied by us - 'contractors' and the second floor by - 'clients'. Preferential treatment you would say but well it doesn't really matter, I mean that's not the point. Each floor has its own restrooms. So one fine day as me and my friend were making our way to do our usual 'unmanly' business on the 'contractor' floor restroom, I got this brilliant idea of taking the show to the 'client' floor restroom. Like enthusiastic kids on a treasure hunt, we set out towards our destination. We hadn't really planned this well and we came to know that sooner rather than later

We climbed the steps up and just near the 'client' restroom there is a small sitting area which we completely missed. Sitting there was one of our lady clients who knew both of us well. Just for the sake of asking, she popped the question, "And what are you two gentleman doing up here??" ofcourse with a wide smile.

We weren't ready for this turn of events. Frankly speaking I was completely unaware because atleast I was thinking of the Miller Lite commercial. Even before I could formulate a coherent response to the question, my esteemed friend, unfazed and with utmost enthusiasm announced, "Nothing much, just checking out the restrooms!!!!"

'Just checking out the restrooms!!', what did he mean by 'just checking out the restrooms!' I looked at him, he looked at me and then both of us looked at her.

I wouldn't be able to express the look which I saw on her face. We hurried about our business and returned back to our desks.

That was the last time we ever thought of doing the 'Un-manly" thing again :P

Dates : A test of memory

I cannot plan ahead. That is one thing I have realized fairly late in my life and it is this limitation of mine which makes me absolutely unable to play cards and ofcourse makes me lame at chess. I even sucked at Age of Empires for a long time until I finally gave up. In Counter-Strike it was more of a team game and invariably I was the 'shock and die' guy running haywire with the lightest of guns, because I just couldn't be the planner who hung back with a sniper and waited for the right time. All I did was 'fire in the hole' and lost life because I myself didn't run away.

Why do I say this especially when the title of the post is 'Dates'. The reason is simple, 'dates' are a guys future. By 'dates' I mean both -  the living, opposite sex types and the ones which make up the calendar. Over the years I have come to believe that your future depends more on the 'dates' which make up your calendar than the 'dates' which are from the opposite sex. Well think about it, you tried your level best and did impress your 'date' on a particular 'date', but then when you forget that 'date' say after 6 months there is a very good chance your 'date' can walk away.

'Dates' can also be a very good ice breaker. Maybe you can offer to treat your would be 'date' on her birthday which ofcourse you got to know from her very close friend but one year down the line you forget to wish her on that same 'date' then my friend you have had it.

I admire parents in this regard. They never get affected or pissed if their child forgets to wish them on their birthday or even on their marriage anniversary. I even admire my elder sister for her tolerance. Well she does make up for it via RakhaBhandan and what not...you get the drift I presume. I also admire my friends (the guys) who really don't bother until and unless they know from where their next beer is coming.

Then you have some who want to test your memory and will not disclose their birth dates on the social media and will expect you to wish them a long life. I really don't understand the point in this. You think that people believe that you are still a 19 year old lad as your display pic predicts just because you haven't updated your birthdate on your profile.

Come to think of it more than birth dates I would like to remember dates which I consider to be milestones in my life (call me selfish if you want): 

1) The day I got my std X result

2) The day I first set foot in my engg collg

3) The day I wrote my last exam in that same engg collg

4) My first day at my first job

5) The day I set foot on foreign land for the first time

Well as I signoff I must also confess that there are certain birth-dates which are imprinted on my memory which I cannot erase even if I want to..maybe it is the memories than the dates.

The Weekend that was : Washington DC

The weekend after NYC I visited Washington DC. Yeah!! I am on a kinda travel spree. As things stand at work chances are that I may have to pack my stuff and head home by June. So I thought better to get all those tick marks against the must see places in the U.S.

Though I could just spend half a day in the nation's capital, it sure had me captivated. While NYC is full of verve, energy and that throbbing, Washington DC is more sedate, infact noble and 'monumental'. I am sure even Washington DC would have its share of a happening 'nightlife' but then that does not exactly define the character of a city in my opinion.

For a weekend tourist, DC can be clearly divided into two 'must sees' - The Monuments and The Museums. Because I had only about a day to spare I chose to see the Monuments. The monuments essentially are the memorials built in the honor and memory of 1) Thomas Jefferson, 2) Theodore Roosevelt 3) Martin Luther King Jr 4) Abraham Lincoln. The monuments are the Washington Monument, Capitol and ofcourse the most powerful house on the planet - 'The White House'

The weekend I visited, the cherry blossoms were at their peak and so was the 'Cherry Blossom Festival'. There was a bit more crowd than on an average weekend I presumed because of these festivities. Needless to say I got myself quite a few clicks in and around those 'pink' flowers :) . Also the grounds around the Washington Monument were hosting the yearly Kite Festival and it was fun to watch all those kites vying for place in the sky. I was reminded of Makar Sankranti looking at all those kites crowd the blue sky. The Washington Monument still remains close to the public after the earthquake shook it quite a bit.

Each memorial I visited gave me an eerie feeling. Even with the crowd around me my mind couldnt help but thing of how this all would have been say a century or two back. What would have it been like to somehow be among 'these men' when they were still alive and were shaping the destiny of America. It is the same feeling I get whenever I visit any historical place even in India. More often than not I feel like hopping into that 'time machine' and going back into that time, into that era when things were not as easy as they seem to be now, when the foundation of all the future generations was been laid. But alas!!!

Off all the memorials, I found the Martin Luther King Jr memorial to be the best as the concept of the memorial really appealed to me. There was a stone craving of the great social leader on the side of which were engraved the words 'I am the rock of Hope from the Mountain of Despair' and that stone craving was actually cut out of a mountain a few feet behind. Maybe the image below will better make you realize what I am talking about

I must confess though it was a lot to walk and unlike NYC you dont really have anything around where you can sit and have something to munch on at anytime, atleast not around the memorials.

Before I forget we capped off the Washington DC visited with a pretty fabulous Indian fare at Rasika . It had pretty rave reviews and after waiting for 45 mins the food didnt really disappoint us.

The Weekend that was : NYC

I have transformed in to some kind of a travel freak from the last two weekends. I would like to think that it is the weather. Winter is almost gone and the surroundings are perking up with the temperatures rising and chicks also correspondingly more hotter :) Add to it the fact that in a month I will be completing a whole year in this country and my enthusiasm sure is up.

03/25 : NYC
NYC is some 2hrs train ride from my place. Maybe that was the reason why I never got there in the 10 months that I am here. I did go to see the Independence Day fireworks but I would discount that because that visit was very specific and last only a few hours until the fireworks were done. What was amazing about the NYC trip coming along was not really the urge to see the city but BROADWAY. I will not enlighten anybody about what Broadway is, if you don't know about it then better find it yourself. So when I ringed the idea of watching a Broadway show a couple of friends showed interested and it was a huge plus that one of them knew NYC like the 'back of this hand'. We weren't much into the cheesy romantic musicals which Broadway is more characterized for and we bumped into this SPIDERMAN - Turn off the Dark. The reviews were no doubt rave and the fact that the show promised stunts over the heads of the audience just had what we wanted.
So we took the train to Grand Central after some tentativeness about getting the subway ticket and all within no time we were at Battery Park zooming in on the statue of Liberty via our camera lenses. We did think of taking the cruise to the Liberty Island but then we were more bothered about the waiting time at the Empire State considering that we had to catch the 8p Broadway show. From there we headed to the 9/11 WTC memorial. It took quite sometime there as the memorial rightly attracts crowds paying respect or just plain wanting to be there. In between on the Wall Street we met the 'Bull' as well. Thank God they have now barricaded the Bull as I have seen pics of tourists literally sodomizing the poor thing :P

After the WTC memorial it was time for lunch and we bumped into 'Salaam Bombay' an Indian Cuisine restaurant not so far off. The appetizers as a part of the Lunch Buffet were amazing - Chicken Lollipop, Mutton Kebab and for the first time I was feeling sorry for ordering a beer as that killed my appetite a bit but I managed to do justice to the lunch as always. The surprise came when we asked for the check. It was delivered in this:

Almost a 'Sone pe Suhaga' moment for us Indians :) With a full tummy and sleep atleast on my eyes somehow we took the sub to 34h street and began the long walk to the Empire State building which would end at Times Sq..
The Empire State building was not at all crowded. I mean we had expected a wait time of almost 2-3 hrs but it was breezy through the queues and we should have taken in all an hour to get to the 86th floor balcony and get a 360 deg view of the city. My friend - guide was quick to snap up the opportunity to tell us what was what...he pointed out the Brooklyn Bridge, Chrysler building, Statue of Liberty, BoFA building etc..etc..etc. The gale up there made me do a Marilyn Monroe with my t-shirt :P not to mention there were a few real Marilyn Monroe moments for the ladies wearing long flowing gowns and skirts too ;) We decided not to go the 102nd floor cos then our cameras would have had a real workout zooming even more on the landmarks which paled in comparison to this behemoth.
After Empire State building we walked quite a few blocks and finally took the turn which led us to a different world - TIMES SQUARE. Enough has been said and written about the TIMES Square and I aint gonna add my two cents to it. But to say the least NYC is one thing and TIMES SQUARE is quite another. The atmosphere is pulsating and as the day turns to night and the lights take full effect you feel you are mesmerized and strangely aloof even if you are surrounded by the crowd.

Sitting quite sometime on the Red Steps on the far end of the Times Square, we decided to get ourself a cuppa from StarBucks so that even we can say ki "Times Sq waale StarBucks ki coffee peeke aye hai!!!" As there was more than an hr for the Broadway show to start we decided to get famous. Not that difficult when you are in Times Sq, you just have to be there in the line of the camera over the Aeropostale screen for 15mins and then once there ad is done, they give a live feed of the camera and you are right there bang on the big screen in Times Sq :) (spot me in th pic below ;))

It was time for the Broadway show and needless to say the theater was jam packed. What happened there for the next 1hr 45 mins blew our minds off. We knew it would be special but we were just not ready for this kind of special. I have since tried to put the feeling I had when I was watching the show into words but its just not possible. I will just leave it at that.

After the show we did another quick round of the Times Sq as the night progressed, the crowd at the Sq increased and it was more of a spectacle to relish.
It was only when I got in the train at Grand Central to return back home did I realize that I had walked quite a lot and that my legs were aching as hell!!

A few things still remain to be seen. Amongst them is the Statue of Liberty up close, Brooklyn Bridge and ofcourse the NYC nightlife :D All that in good time for sure!!!

Still think that U2 did a better job with the New York song than Alicia Keys and Jay Z

Next Up: The Weekend that was : Washington DC