Goodbye 2012

 So another year comes to an end.

 

Today is my last working day of the year and tomorrow is supposedly the day the entire World comes to an end. Well if it does, this blog will not matter ...

 

Anyway the day after tomorrow we leave for Bombay for a short trip to spend Christmas and New Year with family. After a lot of debate about going, while we were planning this holiday a few months ago - we are now really looking forward to the trip and the break. We all need the mental distance and perspective that any holiday provides.

 

This year has been a tough one - fraught with uncertainty, instability and a certain sense of dismay. Having over the years learned to bear what life throws at us with positivity and bravura, with a smile on our face even if the mind is in turmoil - also creates a tension of sorts. I am glad that our children are also learning the same qualities from their mother, an ability to shrug off the arrows that life inevitably aims at us. Both of them have endured upheaval and a certain amount of emotional haranguement with poise - lessons that will serve them well as their life's chapters play out.

 

It is strange when I think about it - as to how much uncertainty one can learn to live with. Twenty years ago this place made one used to thinking in two and three year horizons - today a month seems enough. I guess right now, in Syria a sense of peace for a day would seem like eternity ... it is just different perspectives.

 

But this was also a good year. Good health for our loved ones, a fantastic holiday in summer, children continuing to do well in school.

 

Some things that I learned this year:

·         My children are more resilient than I think

·         My wife is stronger than I know

·         Enjoy the todays, rather than fret about the tomorrows

·         Despite our best efforts, we can still take some people for granted

·         Keeping quiet and letting sleeping dogs lie, is not a long term option

·         I am not too old to learn new tricks or to change my approach

 

We will come back in the New Year fortified with the love and support of our family to start anew. A fresh chapter and new beginnings!

 

A Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2013 to all who read this.

  

Where has all the body hair gone?

There has been a recent phenomenon, and I wonder whether you have even noticed it? Men have lost their body hair!

 

To me, it is almost as if I blinked, and the world of men changed radically. When 'did' all the men in the world become hairless? It is as if suddenly all over the world, evolution took a giant step in the midst of one generation, and men lost their hair. This seems to me more apparent in the twenty-something’s. Go to the beach and from afar one cannot make out between the sexes anymore. Glossy smooth skin is on display everywhere, completely devoid of hair.

 

If you see men in adverts, music videos or movies, they are all hairless. Their torso, legs, back, armpits and (I am sure other unmentionables) are all devoid of follicles. Strangely enough the same applies in India, home to the hairiest people on Earth. Walking the streets of Bombay one sees enough evidence all-around, of men with hairy arms and legs, dense moustaches and scraggy beards. But adverts and movies seem to ignore this lot. Movie stars prance around bare-chested and without hair. Hairless male models preen in front of the camera, again sending the message that to be hairless is cool ...

 

Gone are the days when macho men walked the earth - with their shirt open to the waist and tufts of chest hair proudly on display. Large whiskers, beards, and Elvis-style sideburns all have disappeared. Actually the modern macho man is completely bald! My son, who like most boys his age, does get influenced a lot by trends and 'lists' thinks that bald men look tough. I politely ask him how long he thinks any of them could last in the sun, or the cold, without a hat?

 

As a man, this is an important question. I still seem to have the same amount of hair all over (actually an increase on my eyebrows and ears) with the only exception being a dramatic decrease on my head. I cannot help wondering whether my family tree has missed a big evolutionary leap. I never considered myself as particularly hairy, but on the beach I often feel like an Austin Powers type throwback!  

 

A couple of days ago I had an “aha” moment. We were watching the original 'Die Hard' movie – you know the one with Bruce Willis. There are a few scenes where he is running around in the building without a shirt, and his chest hair was pretty evident. There was no embarrassment, no hunching of the shoulders to cover his chest and hide his chest-hair with his hands. (I wonder how long he would have lasted with the bad guys if he did that.) He was proudly displaying it – proclaiming to the whole world that here is a man, and that a man and body hair is a package deal. I will have to see the sequels to check whether the later versions will show him as more ‘evolved’.

 

Anyway coming back to hairless bodies I can think of only two reasons for this. It is either evolution or grooming. Evolution (even on steroids) cannot work this fast and hence it has got to be grooming. I struggle to think that men would be spending time grooming themselves to remove body hair all over to become smooth and silky. This is metrosexualism stretched to its limits, with the clear winners being the Philips and Braun Men Care Divisions.

 

I know that today’s youth put a lot of emphasis on looks – and use of lotions, gels, face washes and creams among the teens is growing, but this is a step too far. Growing up, we had a word for guys who indulged their looks a bit too much, and these boys would not have lasted long on the playground. We used to call them – PANSIES!

Music can really take us back - can't it?

I generally drive with my radio preset to a particular channel and as is quite the norm there is more talk and less music. The songs played are of the new(er) artists, and hence it is not often that I get to hear any of my childhood favorites. Well anyway, recently as I was driving back home from work the RJ played a song that immediately struck a chord. It was a peppy number that we used to dance to when we were in our Tweens.

 

That song transported me back to my days in Junior college (or High School if you are American), and the friends, the parties and of course the incidents that defined that age for me. Music has a tremendous ability to take us back in time. And as with all such memories, they come to me in flashes. I cannot speak for you, but for me these flashbacks are not a contiguous story line, but snapshots of incidents which were either hilarious at the time, or simply embarrassing! These memories stand independent of precedent and conclusion, like a picture in an album, devoid of context.

 

This particular song transported me back to the age of impromptu dance parties that we used to have. There were no air conditioners, and the ceiling fans would try desperately to dissipate the heat generated by a gaggle of teenagers, swinging and rocking to music. It took me back to a particular party immediately after our High School final exams. All of us were elated at the conclusion of an obviously traumatic school examination, and that got manifest in our zest on the dance floor. Our exuberance obviously got us all carried away – as we sang (lustily and out of tune) and danced in as ungainly a manner as is humanly possible.

 

We were sweating profusely in cramped quarters, being very careful to avoid contact with any furniture. I distinctly recall this friend (even by our inferior standards not the most graceful) going particularly wild on a song, his knees and elbows splaying in all directions. And I recollect him - in the heat of the moment, in the buzz of excitement and exhilaration - running his forefinger across his forehead to wipe away the sweat dripping on to his glasses, and then neatly flicking it onto a girl dancing next to him. The party came to a grinding halt as the stunned girl screamed, hyperventilated and almost passed out from shock. I remember all us boys doubling over with laughter, holding our stomachs and rolling on the floor, and a short while later, the girls in a show of solidarity, staging a walk out from the party. The party was a flop, but we guys would break out with laughter for years afterwards just talking about it.

 

Thinking about parties got me to reflect on how we all looked at that gawky age. I was a nerdy boy at best, not exceptionally bright and with two left feet. In my teens I was as clumsy as they came, and was fortunate to have a few friends who were even worse. Due to a sudden growth spurt, their bodies had not yet adapted to their height and reach, whereas my clumsiness was all me. It had nothing to do with sudden growth, as I grew gradually till it just sort of petered off. Like bulls in a china shop, we trod obliviously through life, thankfully bereft of the knowledge of our limitations.

 

The economic pressures of a lower middle class existence in those days meant that my wardrobe was severely limited. I remember the trend of bell-bottom trousers that took Bombay by storm, and how stylish some of the kids wearing those, looked. I so desperately wanted a pair, but perceptive of our financial situation knew that there was no point in asking my parents for them. Eventually when it was apparent that my only pair of full length trousers, which had been altered a number of times (at the waist and bottom), were struggling to cover my girth and the top of my ankles, my mother acquiesced to new ones. As I was still captivated by flared trousers, I insisted and the tailor grudgingly, and with a lot of head shaking, agreed to stich one for me. I had been so fixated on getting flared trousers, I had not realised that the fashion had quite moved on.

 

You should have seen my joy as I wore them over the next few days. The pant-material was dark (but cheap), and changed colors in the light. I can now only imagine the sorry sight - flared bell-bottoms worn with the standard issue Bata flip flops. Gauche, tasteless and completely out of fashion! Unfortunately, none of my friends had the nerve or the desire to disillusion me, and allowed me to traipse around like this. Anyway a week later we were browsing (like only penniless boys can) on the streets of Colaba, when we bumped into a gaggle of girls from our colony. Now these were not the tom-boys that we hung out with occasionally. These were the more upmarket, more snobbish lot, with an eye on fashion and trends. One of them took a look at my bell bottoms (shimmering in the light and fluttering in the breeze), and exclaimed loudly that they were the most ghastly trousers she had ever seen. Being quite a fashion doyen, she 'correctly' pointed out that flares had been out of fashion for a few years now, and why on earth did I get a psychedelic colour? All the other girls in the group started laughing and as my friends joined in, I wanted the earth to open and swallow me then and there. I was so deeply embarrassed that I could not wait to get home, and out of those pants.

 

That was the last time I wore those trousers (they were eventually recycled into even ghastlier shorts.)

 

As easily as I was transported to pleasant memories, I got back to present reality with a thud. Memories and nostalgia can bring a smile on your face, but as often as not, can also make your toes curl up with the embarrassment one has gone through.