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I stopped blogging here a zillion years ago!

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hairy tales

Vasuki has written about his barber shop experiences. Reading it brought back memories of my visits to the beauty parlor. As I started to jot it down, I realized that I had a lot to narrate.

So I have divided it into three parts.

Hairy tale 1- the “Chinese cut” days

As a kid I remember visiting a beauty parlor called “the Golden Flower”. It was run by a Tibetan immigrant. Back then most kids sported a hair cut called the “Chinese cut” and so did I. That cut was able to give any kid a dumb look.( See pic for further proof)

I don’t know about others…but as a kid...I had a deep attachment towards my hair. I wanted to grow it long like Rapunzel. But my mom had other ideas. So every visit to golden flower would result in my throwing a tantrum. The hair dresser would hand me a lollipop to mollify me .It was not just getting my hair cut…I was used to the bribe too. You be a good girl-no lollipop. You cry- you get a lollipop! And then you can settle down and enjoy the sticky sugary feel of it while the smiling woman chopped your hair off. This is how as a kid you learn the powers of manipulation. After coming out, I would proudly show my colored tongue (anybody who has eaten a lollipop knows what I’m talking about).For an hour or so I would pretend to be a dragon and would pop my tongue out at my mom.

Till my high school, I wore my hair long. So I never really went to the beauty parlor. One hot afternoon, I got so fed up with my waist length hair…that I went to the parlor and asked her to cut it short. For the next 9 years I wore my hair very short. Boy cut, blunt cut, mushroom cut , veg cut-been there done that. That meant regular visits to the beauty parlor. Golden Flower had closed and I experimented with a few beauty parlors. In one such parlor...the woman almost cut my ear talking about some carpet sale…but then that’s a whole different story!

Finally as any fashion conscious girl in Mysore I ended up going to “Kim Fa”.

Hairy tale 2: The Kim Fa chronicles

Now a guy goes to the salon...gets his hair cut, maybe an oil massage, exchanges pleasantries...and goes back home. But...it’s very different for women. During my college days I would go to the beauty parlor with my friend. It meant going there and waiting for hours; noticing the ‘characters’….reading gossip magazines...discussing new fashion trends...and generally commenting on every other women in the room.

Kim was a Tibetan lady who owned Kim Fa. She was an amazing character. She was what I would call “Vijay Mallya” among hair dressers! A very enterprising woman with a sharp business acumen…she was also an amazing story teller. She was flamboyant and irritatingly chirpy. But behind the empty smile…you could see her eyes size you up…and deal with you likewise.

I have seen her convince a college student that Mehendi being herbal and natural was bad for your hair. One should only use L’Oreal!

But she surpassed herself when she suggested a fat kid’s mom to make the kid drink lots of hot water. Her logic was- Just like you use hot water to take out oil from your hair...drinking hot water will melt the fat inside you!!!

The beauty parlor had a lot of Tibetan woman who as hair dressers would roam around with expressionless faces; their faces spoke of weariness... One can’t have a sunny outlook towards life when one waxed and threaded women day in and day out.

A beautician is not only a master of beauty tricks…she is also a great communicator. She can hint, smile...and giggle and in just that give away a world of information. While they cut your hair, they are expected to keep you entertained…give you the latest gossip, share beauty tips...and listen to your laments if any.

There would always be a long waiting list in Kim Fa. We would sit and read Cosmopolitan and giggle at the deliciously scandalous topics…and listen to the tall yarns woven by Kim for her gullible customers. And the broken English and Hindi of these women…were things sitcom laughs were made of! None of them spoke in Kannada. They would rather make fools of themselves speaking in English and not make sense than talk in Kannada!

To sit and watch women and the vain attempts to make them pretty is at once comical…and endearing. The waxing, bleaching, perming, threading to impress a man...who wouldn’t notice the difference (he will definitely notice the bill;P)…is pathetic and yet talks so much about feminine hopes.

Hairy Tale 3: A hair cut in fellini dream

Once I started working in Bangalore, I shifted to a smaller beauty parlor. I could no more afford to spend whole evenings waiting and watch other women getting fleeced. This place was in Chamundipuram...an old ramshackle place. It looked more like an abandoned studio specializing in horror movies. A poster of a very fat Manisha Koirala and a very dumb looking Sonali Bendre picture adorned the entrance. If you were undaunted by the impressive bulk of overtly made up Manisha and entered the parlor...you would notice the oldest surviving piece of furniture-a sofa of unrecognizable color. It must have been lying there from Ice ages...at least all the stains seem to suggest that. Standing beside it were two huge empty aquariums. Not too far fetched to imagine that tenants of these aquariums are now in fish heaven. On the other side are two mannequin heads. Some person with a taste for horror movies had drawn black eyes and macabre lashes on these dolls.

You would then enter into another room. The walls of this place had pages from fashion magazines glued to them. Now since these magazines were from the 80s…the hairstyles looked comical and bizarre. All pictures evoked one of the two emotions-Fear or Amusement.

Then you would see a curtain...and you knew that in biological warfare...this curtain would be your weapon of choice.

This beauty parlor was run by two women (they were not the owners). One of them was a plump Tibetan who was the main stylist. She gave the best haircuts...and the massages…blissful! She had worked in five star hotels...and I do not know why she chose to retire to this obscure parlor. She had an impertinent assistant who gossiped non stop about everyone and everything. From what Sonia Gandhi thinks to what the watchman does in his free time-she had the dope on everything! I spent almost every Saturday afternoon..getting an oil massage and listening to the fat woman’s and her assistant’s world views.

Having such a set up...it’s only natural that these women didn’t have a large clientele. So they earned their pocket money by mailing out newsletters. Their work was to glue the stamps and mail them. So many Saturday evenings I would go for my hair massage, I would see them gluing stamps on the newsletter. Sometimes, in the middle of an oil massage, smell of oily pulav would torture my nostrils. It meant that the assistant was emptying her lunch box.

But the hot oil massages! My friend who was shocked when I first took her there…soon became a fan of the oil massages too. The fat lady had soothing supple, soft hands. She gave the best haircuts. I had the option of getting great hair care in a dingy looking place or get mediocre attention in a stylish place; I didn’t think twice. Most women may purse their mouth and look down upon such a parlor. It might not have been fancy…but it had atmosphere. It didn’t have the sterile look of some interior decorator’s imagination. Instead it constantly surprised me….there was always some scary picture I had not noticed before or a big cobweb with a spider doing yoga…or some very funny sounding beauty merchandise.

That’s what I miss most about India…these nook and corners….tawdry, crude and cheap but charming.

These places have a life force of their own. I miss the vacuous talks of the assistant who would exclaim at silly things and didn’t mind eating pulav in front of the customers. I miss the fat woman who spoke broken Kannada…and gave me beauty tips. But most of all …when I see gigantic people in shopping malls in sub urban California…I get a very strong urge to go over and suggest drinking hot water!

You Are a Chimera

You are very outgoing and well connected to many people. Incredibly devoted to your family and friends, you find purpose in nurturing others. You are rarely alone, and you do best in the company of others. You are incredibly expressive, and people are sometimes overwhelmed by your strong emotions.

What Mythological Creature Are You?

total timepass

Your Hidden Talent

You have the power to persuade and influence others. You're the type of person who can turn a whole room around. The potential for great leadership is there, as long as you don't abuse it. Always remember, you have a lot more power over people than you might think!

What's Your Hidden Talent?

kya style hai!

Teenage-That time of your life when you can look like a clown and still feel like an emperor!

Red pants, multi colored waist coat with floral prints, big red beaded necklace…oily face…oily hair-and aaaah the pose!!! What was I thinking???

I can give any 80’s South Indian heroine a run for her money!

I had burnt all my embarrassing pics...somehow this gem escaped. Now I'm finally in a place where I can look at myself and have no delusions about my looks! (There was a time when I used to blame the lighting/camera/angle for the way I looked in pics)

What amazes me is that…I was confident enough to pose in that get up!

I looked like this…and wondered why I never had any boy throwing himself at my feet!

Back then I had a lot of questions relating to my love life(or the lack of it).After looking at this pic...I know the answers to all of them.

a dream in blue

The first thing I recall of hearing as an infant is the sound of splashing waves-Hypnotic and persistent. It was strange as we did not live on the seaside. I was born in a small town in the middle of nowhere and though we had enough to eat and clothe ourselves we could not afford to take trips to the seaside.

I was jealous of all people who had ever seen the sea. I couldn’t believe their casual attitude. I convinced myself that it was the allure of the forbidden fruit. For a person who lives along the sea side, the sea becomes just a part of the scenery...like you never notice the tree in the backyard. But for a person who has never experienced the vision of the sea…the sea is more than just water…It’s a dream in blue.

I would lie on my back and look at the blue clear sky…and imagine it to be the sea. I could almost see the waves; I wore blue most of the times; I fell for gals who had blue eyes.

I read about the open seas…watched it on the neighbor’s B/W TV. I knew every single detail regarding the seas. I wanted to be a sea-faring nomad…sailing from the blue-green Pacific to the steel blue of the Atlantic to the ink blue Mediterranean Sea.

I believed that we all came from the oceans…and we are still a part of it. That is why…when our hearts are broken we shed tears-a part of the ocean we carry in our hearts.

And it was not all fantasy. I was aware of all the logical facts too. I found it fascinating to know that the reason for the blueness of the seas was not that blue was God’s fav color or that He had great aesthetics but because the red photons of the incoming light were absorbed by the water molecules. Or the fact that Atlantic Ocean is S-shaped and the saltiest of all oceans. Almost all the ancient civilizations (except Mayan and Incas) saw their day in glory around the Indian Ocean. When people were falling in love with women, success and power I was romancing terms like Permafrost, Coriolis Effect and monsoons!

In my teens I first took a trip to the seaside. My imagination had not done justice. When the first wave washed over my feet, I was hooked. I majored in oceanography…moved to the sea side when I was 28.I have seen all the oceans and the seas. I proposed to my three wives on the beach and left them because they didn’t understand my love for the sea and learnt all my life lessons while learning how to ride the wave. I also became a professional surfer winning three medals…and now I fight against marine pollution. And the view of the ocean, still takes my breath away. One day hopefully, I get to take my last breath…in front of my one and only true love-the ocean…

I was wrong when I was young. When one truly loves something...the object of your desire never becomes a part of the scenery.

Random facts about me...

Vasuki has tagged me to write 8 random facts about myself. So here it goes--


1) When I was a kid...if there was a song playing on the TV...I would get up and dance (so says my mom). I still have that great fondness for dancing. In my teenage years…I suffered from severe stage fright. But I would constantly dance in our family gathering. Deciding to join salsa classes and dancing with strangers was one of the toughest things I ever had to do. I am totally over that shyness now.

2) I love playing antakshari. In fact I was so crazy about it...that I could play it all by myself (left hand vs. right hand).I love singing. I tortured my brother with my constant renditions of soulful ghazals. Even now, I sing nonstop when we are on a long drive.

3) I cry a lot. As a kid I was called “ganga- jamuna”. I cry whenever I watch “Mughal-e-Azam” or read “Bridges of Madison County”. Full moon, a soulful poem, animals dying in movies, raised voice….everything makes me cry!

4) I was stood up on my first date.I got over it by reading a trashy M&B novel.I consider that the best thing to have ever happened to me.I taught me that I can either choose to laugh it off and move on..or whine and become bitter. Now,I can laugh at most of life's mean tricks. And whatever happens there are a lot of trashy novels to help you out.

5) I couldn’t read time for a very long time. I was very afraid someone would find out and make fun of it. For a very long time that was my dreaded secret. As a kid I also liked hiding under beds/tables and pretending to be invisible.

6) I am very easily startled. I am scared of sudden noises and sparks. I am very scared of crackers. . I am also very scared of crocodiles. I believe that in one of my past lives, I was an Egyptian who was devoured by a crocodile!

7) I love tea. I can drink a lot of tea and still wish for one more cup. Other than drinking tea the other things I do a lot are laughing, talking and reading. In fact you’ll never catch me without a book. I also have the habit of reading 5-7 books at any given time….

8) My most prized possessions are my blue diary and my brown diary. They are full of lines I liked from books or movies, thoughts…descriptions of sunsets, Zen poems…and dried flowers.

So do tell me what you think…and I invite all of you to pen random facts about yourselves.

For many of us the most overwhelming day in our life is the day we realize our mediocrity. The realization is frightening and also in a way a relief; Frightening because it’s against what our ego wants us to believe and relieving to know that you will never be crushed by high expectations.

To know that you will never be the best thinker or writer, swimmer, performer…nothing! You are forever the person who’ll clap at other’s achievements…if that is not overwhelming...i don’t know what is! The only consolation is that you are in the company of most of humanity…

This depressing train of thought occurred to me when I was wondering what I want to do with my life! I am 24 years old...and I don’t have a plan. I do not know what I want to be!

I don’t even have the distinction of being the worst at anything either. Just average at everything!

I worked as an engineer for nearly three years where most people told me that I am wasting my talent. I agreed with them then...but if I were smarter I would have asked what ‘talent’ they were referring to.

I thought I could write….now, I am not sure. There are so many who write better than me. When I think I am being funny...people get offended. When I try to be imaginative….people simply doze off.

I love dancing. But one can’t become a gardener because they like gardening.Moreover I look like a square trying to move…so no! Dancing can be a hobby...not a vocation.

Many people who know me think I will do great in front end jobs...but people who know me well know it’s not true. I am awkward with people…and I constantly offend people with my straight talk.so that’s out too.

I can sing...but I'm no nightingale. I can paint…but i'm no Michealangelo…I can talk...but talking a lot doesn’t mean talking well.

I had read somewhere-

Though we all set out to conquer the peak…there comes a time when we stop for breath…take stock and realize that we may never make it to the top. Wisdom lies in not complaining and learning to appreciate the view you have and not envy the view someone else has.

Maybe I should heed my husband’s advice and become a dog walker.