Moustache musings!

Men looked macho in a moustache. That was the theory. You could choose from a bewildering variety of moustaches. The “pencil moustache” was unique. It was thin and delicately outlined the contours of the upper lip! The “goatee” gave you an aristocratic feel- a ball of hair encircled your mouth! If you shaved off the moustache at the center and allowed the strands to hang off the sides, you looked like a Shaolin Warrior. Sometimes, the moustache ran riot!  It joined hands with the sideburns with no clear demarcation. The “handlebar moustache” was impressive. It had copious volume like luscious vegetation and ended in a curl. From time to time, you gave a twirl to the ends. With such a moustache, you could look at a lion in the face and watch it retreat with its tail between the legs!

The arrival of the clean-shaven “chocolate hero” changed the paradigm completely. The moustache’s utility was now in question- to be or not to be.

Maintaining a moustache requires enormous manicuring. Overgrown moustaches pose a problem. You can inadvertently chew off the ends along with your food! It takes patience to maintain perfect symmetry. Call it optical illusion, but one side always appears longer than the other. Some more trimming, and the other side is longer now. As you clip off more and more shrubbery, the moustache gets shorter and shorter, till you start resembling a certain Chaplin. That’s when the scissors are put down decisively.

As we age, the moustache ages with us. The black moustache sprouts an occasional white. Very soon, it is speckled with more white and less black! Now comes the big question- to dye the moustache jet-black or color it red, or leave it as is.

Faced with this existential crisis, you decide to use the biggest hammer- shave the moustache off altogether! Suddenly, you cannot recognize yourself in the mirror. Your wife and children scare you even more, “My God! What have you done to yourself?”

Embarrassment grabs you by the face. When you step out of home, it’s not the lack of the moustache, it’s as if you are without clothes!

You are now on the road, but no one gives you second look. At work, no one has even registered the change!  You realize that your appearance does not matter one bit.  Everyone is busy looking at himself, there is no time to look at another!

All said and done, the moustache serves a critical purpose. If there are identical twins, one good and another evil, one of them should have a moustache.  That way, the heroine will have no confusion and won’t end up chasing the wrong person!

Swallowing a tablet!

There are 2 schools of thought when it comes to swallowing a tablet. In the first approach, you place the tablet on the tongue, and gulp it down with water. This method seems most intuitive, however, there is one snag. There is a timespan between the tablet still on the tongue and yet to be gulped down. For some,  the 2 seconds of bitterness can be revolting. They protest, “I feel like vomiting now!” It is a perfect catch-22 situation- To stop their vomiting, they need the tablet. But the tablet is bitter and causes the vomit!

The second school says, “You sip water, hold it in your mouth, pop the tablet in and gulp it down! You won’t feel any bitterness!” This approach has its own pitfalls. When the mouth is puffed up with water, you need a juggler’s dexterity to open the mouth and pop in the pill!  It is complicated like opening opposite valves at the same time. The water successfully evades the food-pipe and goes down a different pipe! A paroxysm of coughing ensues.  The water along with the tablet is violently ejected out of the nose, mouth and all else. You are now back to square one!

Some folks claim they cannot swallow because of a physiological problem. You counter them, “What do you mean you cannot swallow? Just swallow!” “My food-pipe is as thin as a needle. I always powder the tablet and gulp it!”

We acknowledge some tablets have legitimate issues. They are so oversized that you wonder if they will go down all the way, or like the mythological character Trishanku, stay suspended somewhere midway!

For some ailments, the doctor prescribes a platter full of tablets. The ailment needs the antibiotic. The antibiotic causes an upset stomach. The stomach upset needs a second tablet. The second tablet plugs all apertures indefinitely, for which you need a third tablet! You are swallowing tablets through the day. The proverb, “one swallow does not make a summer” makes perfect sense!

Within the tablet family, is the odd man called “capsule”.  Styled like a rocket’s capsule, the plastic shell raises a question.  Today’s slogan is “say no to plastic”. What happens to this capsule? The last thing you want is for your insides to be a plastic junkyard, with mounds and mounds of capsule plastic, littered all over!

Why can’t we create a “tasty tablet”? We agree it is an oxymoron, but all bitter tablets can be sugar coated to make the “customer experience” mildly satisfying! Finally, we come to a tangential point. Why on earth are some computers called “tablets”? What does this tablet cure? Is it the disease of boredom?

Mobile restroom taxis!

We hear that a plan is afoot to have “mobile restroom taxis” in India! Our prayers have been finally answered. How often have we been right on the edge, and there is not one restroom in sight! The desperation cannot be described.

To have a fleet of vehicles running around the city, each housed with a restroom that you can order from your cellphone, is like manna from heaven! The idea is laudable, but the implementation can be complicated.

A metropolitan Indian city teems with millions. How many restroom vehicles should be on the road? You are stuck at The Gateway of India and want to use the restroom immediately. You book one of these mobile restrooms and find that your restroom is languishing at Dombivili and will take over an hour to reach! Time hangs like an eternity. The consequent helplessness can only be imagined!

At the other end of the spectrum is this scenario- you are tracking the taxi by the minute. It is almost there. At the nick of time, the driver cancels your request. Imagine the client’s agony- being so close and yet so far. It would leave him completely high and dry, rather low and wet, in this particular case!

Other challenges come to mind. You heave a sigh of relief and are about to step into the restroom. The taxi-driver suddenly says, “Sir, the OTP is not matching! You cannot use!” Truly, there can be many a slip between the cup and the lip!

Traffic rules must change. Restroom taxis must be fitted with sirens and given top priority, like the ambulance and the fire-engine! Rest-room taxis should have graded levels- a basic version with minimal fittings and a luxury version. There should also be an option- “Give me any version quickly! I am desperate!”

To be commercially viable, how much are we willing to pay? Should we have a bidding scheme based on the level of emergency so that the highest bidder gets the vehicle? There should also be a provision to schedule rest-room taxis in a recurring manner. That way, when we are on the move, the restroom availability can be synchronized with our body clock.

The taxi is waiting at the signal on the way to service a customer. Someone frantically knocks on the windows! He issues threats, “Allow me to use the restroom now, or watch what I do!” How does the driver respond to these panic attacks?

End of the day, these vehicles will make long distance travel comfortable. Especially for the aged, it ushers in a new era where they can move with total freedom! After all, the basic human need is “roti, kapda, makaan and a mobile restroom!”

 

Seat selection!

Finding a seat in an auditorium can lead to sticky situations. The occasions vary- it may be a music concert or an Annual Day program. In these events, the seat is not assigned. The freedom of choice makes you always feel you made a bad seat selection!

The auditorium is completely empty. You select a seat in the first row. Soon, the auditorium fills up. Suddenly, the attendant asks for your “pass”. “Mere paas pass nahi hai! I just have a regular ticket!” you answer. The attendant says, “You have to move back because these are reserved seats” “Where is it written?” you question. He replies, “You see that rope tied after the third row? That means the first three rows are reserved!” “I came first to the auditorium!” you protest. Meanwhile, the chief guest is glaring at you to vacate the seat and so are a 1000 pair of eyes! Any more argument would mean physical eviction!

Sometimes, the hall is half full. In the first few rows, the corner-most seat is free. When it comes to the middle seat, only the back rows are available! If you are in the back rows, the artistes are indistinguishable from ants. From the corner seat, half the stage is obscured. You can see clearly- just the entry and exit of the artistes!

On other days, you are at the center and close to the stage. But now, it is like a packed Mumbai train. How you wish you had taken the corner seat! The AC ducts are only along the sides. Moreover, two individuals beside you are in constant chatter. Your attention is diverted to their juicy gossip and by the time you realize, half the program is over!

If everything above goes well, ahead of you, is someone as tall as a giraffe. And alongside him is an ostrich. All you get is a tiny window, through which you must peer. The giraffe and the ostrich enjoy music a bit too much- their heads are in perpetual movement! You have no choice but to follow their movement to align to that window! By the end of the program, the phrase, “pain in the neck” makes perfect sense!

Once, the person behind me complained that I was being an ostrich. I had to sink low in the seat, so that my head would not stick out. Anytime I sat straight, I got a knock on the head that I was obstructing his vision.

Suddenly, something snapped. I shot back, “I cannot shrink myself any smaller!” Defiantly, I pulled up my legs, sat on my haunches, and swelled up on the seat, rising like Lord Vishnu’s Vamana Avatara!

Sometimes, offence is the best form of defense!