And The Oscar Goes To...

Sentimentality has always trumped merit at the Oscars. That is why non-actors like John Wayne (`True Grit’) and Henry Fonda (`On Golden Pond’) walk away with the statuettes while the O’Tooles and the Burtons are left high and dry.

12 Years A Slave

This year promises to be no better. A front runner this time around is a vapid attempt at a tear jerker called `12 Years a Slave’. In about two and a half hours of mind numbing ennui, it packs in every conceivable cliché on slavery – the mandatory slave auction, a `good’ slave owner, a `bad’ slave owner, a white abolitionist, the journey by boat in chains, the whippings, the bloodied backs.

But for all its efforts to tug at my heart strings, it left me quite cold. Sadly, since it has all the sentimental trappings that the Academy so loves (a black director, the collective guilt that white Americans still harbour, et al), I expect it to win big time. And God forbid, if Chiwetel Ejiofor wins the Best Actor Award for merely scowling and grimacing, I swear I’m gonna pull my hair out!

Bale's pot belly

McConaughey's Gaunt look

The Best Actor category this year is actually all about body weight. While Mathew McConaughey lost about 25 pounds for his role as an AIDS patient in `Dallas Buyers Club’, Christian Bale actually put on the same amount for his role as the 70’s conman in `American Hustle’. To my mind, both would be deserving winners, although I find it strange to see that Tom Hanks hasn’t even been nominated – he should have walked away with the award if only for the last ten minutes of `Captain Philips’!

Meryl Streep apparently just has to appear in a movie to be nominated for an acting award! How else does one explain her nomination for her role as Violet Weston in `August : Osage County’ – her performance has more ham in it than Wodehouse’s Empress of Blandings!

Dubey in the Indian version

`August : Osage County’ is actually a Pulitzer Prize winning play written by Tracy Letts. Since all the action takes place in a single room, the play doesn’t easily lend itself to a credible film script. Incidentally, an Indianised version of the play was staged by Lilette Dubey, which I happened to catch at Poona. Both the play itself, as also Dubey’s performance, outshone both the film and yes, Meryl Streep!

The Best Actress will be a straight fight between Kate Blanchette (`Blue Jasmine’) and Sandra Bullock (`Gravity’). While I know, Blanchette will in all likelihood take home the trophy, I’m still secretly rooting for Bullock!

An aside here. We were taught early in school that the feminine gender for `actor’ was `actress’. Why then do actresses of the day prefer to be called actors? Anybody??

The Supporting Actor award has probably been sewn up by Barkhad Abdi for his role as the Somali pirate in `Captain Philips’. I had mentally given the award to Jake Gylenhaal for the twitching Detective Loki in `Prisoners’ – but he’s nowhere on the scene.

And the delectable Jennifer Lawrence will pick up her second award in succession this year. This time for the Best Supporting Actress in `American Hustle’.

And what of the Best Picture? 

Let me gnash my teeth in frustration as Steve McQueen (seriously?) gloats as he takes it home for the eminently forgettable `12 Years a Slave’. My advice to him? Sir, please read Harriet Beecher Stowe’s most moving ode to slavery `Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ – you’re not even close!

Breakfast at Vohuman's

19^th February was a Maharashtrian holiday (Shivaji’s b’day, what else?), so we decided to `breakfast out’. Sid was away at Bangalore, so missal-pav it was – that being the one Maharashtrian staple he normally gives a wide berth to.

Missal-pav

For the uninitiated, missal (meaning `mixture’ in Marathi) is a mix of sev, farsan, chopped oninions, coriander and a lentil mix of sprouted `matki’ called usal. It is topped by a fiery, watery curry, called, for some inexplicable reason, sample! The piping hot mix is then served with pav, the Indian version of the burger bun.

The mixture, if conjured in the correct proportions, is simply to die for! Now the meanest missal-pav in Poona is served in a hole-in-the-wall outlet called `Shree Uphaar Grah’ off Laxmi Road. There’s no way you can take your car there, so the ubiquitous auto is your best bet.

We reached there only to find the shutters down. Apparently, it opens only after 10! Now what’s with these Maharashtrians, how can they expect to popularize their cuisine if they serve what is essentially a breakfast dish only after 10?

So we quickly had to switch options. The butter masala dosa at Vaishali’s was tempting, as was the prospect of an Irani breakfast at Café Good Luck, both on Fergusson College Road, about 10 minutes away.

But we decide to head back to Camp, and settled for Vohuman’s Café, a popular if slightly down-market joint next to Jehangir Hospital. I was born there, remember? At Jehangir, not at Vohuman’s..

Bun-maska-cheese omelette!

The problem at Vohuman’s is that they still haven’t heard of the cholesterol scare, and the butter and cheese they serve in such copious quantities is enough to make your arteries scream in protest! No wonder they are located so close to both Jehangir Hospital and Ruby Hall Clinic, just opposite the road!.

Of course you have to ignore the cringe worthy custom of its patrons, of dunking their heavily buttered buns in steaming mugs of sweet Irani chai. What can I say, my brother Satish does it, my niece C2 does it, and now Sowmya proves that she’s a Puri at heart after all!

Breakfast in India is what makes India what it is. In Punjab, have your aloo-ka-paratha swimming in butter, in Delhi head to Sadar Bazaar for the best chana-bhatura on the planet, in Bangalore try the steaming idlis off Commercial Street (or MTR), In Hyderabad try the haleem or the nihari near the Charminar, on the Bombay-Poona Expressway the wada-pav rules the roost!

And if it’s a true-blue English breakfast that you hanker for, there’s nothing like `Flury’s’ on Calcutta’s Park Street, complete with the most delicious Darjeeling tea!

Gaymer wa dibis

In Iraq too there’s contrast aplenty. Kurdistan in Northern Iraq has what they call `No-kao’ – chickpea (Kabuli chana) stuffed in buns, served with the chana gravy. Baghdad has what is called `gaymer’, a very thick white cream made from buffalo milk. Iraqi bread, similar to our naan, is dipped into this cream, along with some date syrup, to make `Gaymer Wa Dibis’ – truly superlative!

In USA, there’s the iHop chain of course. My one visit there, and I had to be dragged out physically – another half an hour, and they’d have needed a gurney..

In the end, at my age, and with the not-so-great digestive system that the Puri genes have blessed me with, I’m content to settle for an `oats and muesli’ porridge for my daily brekker.

Dunkin' bun-maska! 

But it’s Shivaji’s birthday, and since the Maharashtrians have shut shop, it’s `Breakfast at Vohuman’s’ for the Puris.

The maska (butter) is everything the doctor ordered you not to eat, the cheese slices on the `cheese toast' are as thick as the toasts themselves, the tea is as sweet and as milky as any Irani chai can be, and even if Sowmya threatens to dunk the bun-maska in her chai, it’s a small price to pay.. 

Mujhse `Fraandship' Karoge??

Whatever the merits/demerits of `The Social Network’, no matter how astronomical the net worth of Mark Zuckerberg, the one albatross that will always hang around his neck is that he forever devalued the concept of a`friend’.

Friends start early in life, and if you’re lucky enough to still have friendships that date back to your school days, you’ll know how cherished these are. Sowmya has her `Gang of St Joseph’s’ and how heartwarming that is!

Sid’s first `best friend’ in kindergarten was a guy called Gagan Porwal. He called him `G-A-G-A-N Gagan’, spelling out the name every time he spoke of him. This was way back in 1985 at Rani Laxmibai Public School at Jhansi, where I was then posted. In those early years, `G-A-G-A-N Gagan’ was the most important person in Sid’s life!

So when Sid got married in 2012, I was very keen that we track down `G-A-G-A-N Gagan’ and invite him. So I messaged the three Gagan Porwals I located on Facebook, asking them if they had attended Rani Laxmibai Public School at Jhansi in 1985. The first politely declined, the second said he hadn’t even been born in 1985, but I managed to hit bull’s eye with the third – he indeed turned out to be the one and only `G-A-G-A-N Gagan’!!

I wish I had met with similar success in tracking down my old flames from Fergusson College, sigh..

Friends in those days were people you shared your lunch money with, people you bonded with over masala dosa and coffee at `Vaishali’ or girls whose hand you furtively held in the darkness of Alaka theatre.

To make a friend, one had to really work at it. To keep him for life was a mountain to climb! Today, you just send a friend request, which he accepts in a jiffy, and there, you have it!

In those days, if you had a tiff, you broke off the friendship by wagging a crooked finger at the `offender’ and saying `katti’. Today you just unfriend him if he has been nasty, block him if he has been really nasty, or merely block his posts if you find them mildly irritating!

You had friends you could count on your fingers – one hand if you were the reserved type, both hands if you were a bit more gregarious. Rarely did you have to remove your shoes to use your toes to count on. Today if you have less than 100 friends on your list, you’re considered gauche. People these days easily have five to six hundred friends, and a Pakistani journo who is on my list has, I kid you not, a whooping 1127! Hell, I don’t even know that many people!

So is this a good thing?

If you track down your Gagan Porwals and re-establish contact, it can be really exhilarating. It’s also terrific to keep track of how beautifully (and how fast) your grand nephews and nieces are growing.

But of course there’s a flip side. People post pics, get likes and comments, that’s how it works. If you take offence at harmless remarks or perceived slights, or if you get into heated political or cultural arguments, you probably shouldn’t be there in the first place.

My take, at my age, and with all the wisdom that nature and the years have endowed me with (seriously?), I’m happy with the plusses. Of course I’ll take a warm evening over a single malt any day, but in the absence of such real bonhomie, facebook friendships, I guess, will have to do.

And of course, the day I manage to reconnect with those old flames of Fergusson College, that’s the day I’ll actually send Mr Zuckerberg a thank you note!

  

More Equal Than Others??

The Brahmins top the table – they’re the ` crème’ de la crème’ of the pernicious caste system among Hindus. The shudras are at the bottom rung. Being a Punjabi khatri, I guess I’m a kshatriya, and figure somewhere in the middle (or so I’m told).

Good or bad, pernicious or otherwise, like it or not, there’s no getting away from the hierarchical, and sometimes tyrannical structure in practically every facet of life – caste, colour, creed or even your social standing.

One would think the Armed forces would be free from this blight. Far from it. And it starts right at the Academy. In the aviary that is the IMA, the birds from the NDA are the `peacocks’ (and even among them, we have distinct school wise layers, with the Rimcolians strutting the brightest plumage!). Then come the Direct Entries, followed by the `Techies’ and finally the former rankers from the ACC! 

One would imagine things reach a state of equilibrium, and water finds its own level once we all are commissioned and join units. There, professional ability, rather than breeding would count – but heck, who are we kidding?

Check out the Air Force, where an extremely rigid caste system is de jure right up the ranks. The fighter pilots are the top guns. (Q – What is the difference between a fighter pilot and God? A – God does not think he’s a fighter pilot!) The transport wing comes a very distant second, followed by the chopper pilots. The ground staff doesn’t even figure in the ratings – they’re as puny as pedestrians viewed from the top of the Empire State Building!

The Army is only slightly better. First, there’s the yawning gap between the Arms and the Services, and even among the Arms, we have the `queen of the battle’, the `king of the battle’ and what have you. Ask any Cavalry man which arm he belongs to, and you’ll get a lesson in military history starting from the American Civil War!

A friend who had served as a `tank man’ once asked me to rewrite his CV in tune with the Corporate world. He handed me his own draft, which ran into, I kid you not, twelve pages! Now the guy had spent his life in a tank, for Christ’s sake, and therefore had no real qualification to speak of. Yet, he had a CV longer than my arm! And in those twelve rambling pages, the words `Elite Armoured Corps’ figured, again I kid you not, a full seventeen times!

An aside here. Flashback to January 1974. Station Artillery Mess, Delhi Cantt. As a subaltern, I sat sipping my rum and coke in the bar, when a gunner and an Armoured course mate walked in. They ordered drinks, and some snacks. As was common in that `mess’, snacks took their own sweet time in showing up. The Cavalry guy, by then pleasantly high, tossed back his drink, and declared pompously “In the Armoured Corps, we have our own snacks!”  and proceeded to chomp on his empty glass. Crunch, crunch. The gunner soon followed suit “Anything you Armoured guys can do, we gunners can do even better!”. More crunch crunch. They both then turned to me. “We Signallers,” I hurriedly interjected “just wait for our snacks!”

Back to the present. Maids, as we know, are hot news these days. Devyani Khobragade, being a VIP Indian, of course had to have her maid in New York! That apart, the most telling symbol of your social standing in the Middle East, is the maid you employ. Those at the top of the social ladder have Filipino maids. (And since Filipino maids have their own client-hierarchy and agenda to consider, none will ever deign to work for us brown skins!). Next come Sri Lankan, followed by Indian, and lastly Bangla Deshi maids (no offence to dear old Heena, Samina!).

As a Project Manager for a Telecom MNC in Iraq, I noticed that the white collars (engineers, project managers) were mostly Indian, the blue collars (drivers, crane operators) were Pakistanis, and the conservancy guys (cleaners, sweepers) were invariably from Bangladesh! We from the subcontinent have not just hogged all the space in this segment, but have also created our own hierarchy!

Are we any better at home? Walk into any beachside shack in Goa during rush hour. Watch the `gora’ tourists being fawned over by the staff. Then take a look at how the same staff treats Nigerian tourists. Get the picture?

In the heart of Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, there's a French restaurant (`La Maison') where, believe it or not, Pakistanis are not permitted!

In the UK or the USA, it’s rare to spot a `gora’ doing any menial job – these are reserved for the skins of darker hues! Even among the brown skins, the local Arabs In the Middle East contemptuously lord it over the sub-continental expats! Walk into any restroom at the Kuwait Airport – or even London Heathrow, and you will only see a fellow Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi slogging away.

Children of lesser Gods? You bet!

Likhe jo khat tujhe...

Had the man lived, he would have turned 89 today. As it turned out, he died at the relatively young age of 56. Hell, today I myself am a full six years older than he was when he died.

But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Back in the 60’s, when melody really reigned as queen in Hindi cinema, playback singers each had their own niche strengths, around which they built their repertoires.  The velvet voiced Talat was the ghazal maestro. The nasal vocals of Mukesh were best suited for pathos. The classically trained Manna Dey dominated the semi classical genre. Kishore was little more than a yodeller who sang the occasional breezy number for Dev Anand. Mahendra Kapoor, when he wasn’t singing those loud patriotic numbers for Manoj Kumar, was basically the poor man’s Rafi.

Why, even the females had their roles clearly cut out – while Lata crooned for the heroines, the more seductive Asha was earmarked for the vamps.

An aside here. It was Talat who indirectly set up my craze for crossword puzzles. When I was barely ten, a crossword in the Sunday ToI (Children’s Section) caught my eye. It was a Bollywood based crossword meant for kids. One of the `Down’ clues was `Singer going up the way he comes down (5)’. The answer, of course, was TALAT, which being a palindrome read the same way up or down! And I was hooked - man, this is so cool!

The only true blue `all rounder’ we had in those glory days was Rafi – the Gary Sobers of playback singing! And his greatness lay in the ease with which he could outdo each of the specialists in their own genre. He sang ghazals better than Talat, he out pathos-ed Mukesh, and clearly matched Manna Dey’s classical virtuosity raag for raag. As for Kishore, since Rafi also provided playback for Kishore the star, that was a no brainer to begin with!

Before diehard fans of these legends go up in arms, allow me to elaborate.

I remember a mellow evening at Jhansi, when we were discussing - over drinks, naturally - the merits and demerits of the Mukesh versus Rafi `sad songs’ argument. Col Mishra was a total Mukesh bhakt, and would have none of my `Rafi-is-the-greatest’ argument. “Ok, sir – the proof of the pudding” I argued, “is in the eating”! I slipped the vinyl LP (those were the vinyl days) out of its jacket. It was an SD Burman record, and had `Bandini’ on one side and `Meri Surat Teri Aankhein’ on the reverse.

I first played Mukesh’s `O jaane wale ho sake toh laut ke aana’ from `Bandini’. Now this is one of Mukesh’s best, and would take some beating. After Col Mishra was done swooning, I flipped the record over. “Now, sir – listen to real pathos” I told him, and played `Tere bin soone nayan hamare’, which is easily the most heart-rending outpouring of a torturous soul wringing in anguish. The songs spoke, or rather sang for themselves.

Manna Dey was, of course, formally trained in Hindustani classical music, so when the two got together to sing a raag based duet for Uday Shankar’s dance epic `Kalpana’ (1960), Manna Dey was expected to totally walk all over Rafi.  The song `Tu hai mera prem devta’ remains a classical gem, and each of the singers performed superbly - but once the recording was over, Dey shook his head ruefully. “For all my classical training, where do I get a voice like his?” he bemoaned.

Much the same thing happened when Talat and Rafi got together to sing `Gham ki andheri raat mein’ from `Sushila’ (1966). The silken vocals of Talat render the pathos so beautifully (Dard hai sari zindagi, jiska koi sila nahin), and when he tapers off his anguish, Rafi simply takes off in his positive note (Subah zarooooor aayegi, subah ka intezaar kar). 

The Kishore-Rafi debate is no debate actually - when you consider that Rafi has actually, on more than one occasion   provided playback for Kishore! I mean, can you imagine Lata providing playback for Noor Jehan? Of course Lata did provide payback for Suraiya, which is why nobody talks on any Lata-Suraiya debate.

The fact that Kishore dominated the 70’s is more of an accident – Dada Burman falling ill half way through `Aradhana’ , handing the mantle over to his less accomplished son RD. This was after he had already recorded two duets with Rafi (I still believe the best song form Aradhana is not Roop tera mastana or Mere sapnon ki rani but the Rafi-Lata duet Gunguna rahe hain bhawrein). This, combined with the phenomenal rise of Rajesh Khanna, laid Rafi low post Aradhana in 1969.

But there is no doubt that this man who had no formal education, this humble, God fearing Muslim was actually the voice of God. Proof? The best bhajans, in or out of movies, have been sung by Rafi – just listen to him sing `Hari Oooom’ the alaap of the mesmerising `Man tarpat Hari darshan ko aaj’ from `Baiju Bawra’ (1952). Even an agnostic like me turns believer!

Born on 24^th December 1924, Mohammed Rafi would have turned 89 today. He now belongs to the ages. Happy Birthday, Rafi saab!

'Nothing is Written!'...

I was in the 10^th Standard when the school took us to see `Lawrence of Arabia’ at the Alaka theatre. As the credits unrolled, all the great names flitted by – Alec Guiness, Anthony Quinn, Omar Sharif, Anthony Quayle, Claude Rains, and finally – introducing Peter O’Toole as Lawrence of Arabia! That evening I anointed Peter O’Toole as the greatest actor EVER!

Today, over four decades later, I stand by my word. Nobody, just nobody has come anywhere near him. Not Brando, not De Niro, not Redford, not Hoffman, not even the back to back Oscar winning Hanks or the triple Oscar winning Day-Lewis!.

Two scenes in the movie left a deep imprint. In the first, Lawrence strikes a match, and then clamps it tight between thumb and forefinger till the flame dies out against his fingers. When Potter tries it, he screams in agony “It bloody well hurts!” “Of course it hurts!” Lawrence tells him. “So what’s the bloody trick?” Potter asks. “The trick, William Potter” Lawrence replies “is not minding that it hurts!”

I lost count of the number of times I burnt my fingers repeating that `trick’ and repeating that dialogue. To date, that remains the best, the only response to pain!

The second scene, and the one I tried to make my motto in life concerned the diehard fatalistic attitude of us Easterners. “It is written, and therefore it shall come to pass.” When crossing the desert on their way to Accaba, Lawrence and his team lose a straggler (played by IS Johar), and consider him to be a goner, as anyone lost in the desert surely is. Lawrence decides to go find him. Sharif tries to dissuade him “It is written that he shall die” he prophesies glumly.

The obdurate Lawrence trudges back, and by the end of the day, he drags a half dead Johar back to the camp. As he collapses himself, he tells Sharif “Nothing is written!” Sharif is overwhelmed. “Truly, Lawrence” he intones “for some men nothing is ever written except what they choose to write themselves!”

Peter O’Toole spent two years and three months making Lawrence. He became so obsessed with the man that he needed psychiatric help later to `come out’ of the character. That would become a staple with him – he lived each part and then needed help to become himself again.

By all accounts, O’Toole should have walked away with the Oscar for Lawrence – he was that good. But he came up against a competent Gregory Peck playing Atticus Finch in `To Kill A Mockingbird’. Peck was good, but nowhere near O’Toole - but then Peck was an American sweetheart, and he had already lost four times. So O’Toole lost out.

He played Henry II in two films, `Becket (1964)’ and `The Lion in Winter (1968)’. In the latter film, Katherine Hepburn, herself a superb actress, got so unnerved by O’Toole’s performance that she remarked “He’s so bloody life like, he gives me goose bumps!” O’Toole was nominated for both these films, but lost out in what are surely asinine choices.

If in `Becket’ he had any competition, it was from his own co-star in the film Richard Burton. (Imagine a movie in which two leading men are both nominated for Best Actor – the only time this has ever happened!). But both of them lost out to yet another Britisher – Rex Harrison in `My Fair Lady’. I kid you not!

`Becket’ continues to be shown as a training film in the Film Institute as a consummate study on acting. Just watch Burton and O’Toole pitted against each other – such sheer delight! Years later, Hrishikesh Mukherjee was to use the same theme, of a hireling turning against his provider, in `Namak Haram’.

In 1969, O’Toole played the whimsical Arthur Chipping in `Goodbye Mr Chips’. Now this was a role which had already fetched an Oscar for Robert Donat in 1939, so it was expected to be a cakewalk for O’Toole. While shooting his farewell speech scene – a long scene done in a single take, by the time he finished the speech, the director forgot to say cut, everyone in the studio was spell bound or in tears, and then there was pin drop silence. Then the applause began and went on and on.

Yet, did he win the Oscar? That year, a cancer stricken and dying John Wayne had finally received a nomination for his role as Rooster Cogburn in `True Grit’. So how could the Academy deny `The Duke', the larger than life American idol?

Peter O’Toole was nominated for Best Actor a record EIGHT times. He remains the most nominated actor never to have won an acting Oscar – Burton was nominated seven times, again without ever winning!

When Puja went abroad for the first time, she asked me what DVDs she should pick up. “Anything with Peter O’Toole” I told her. Today, thanks to her, I have a pretty good collection, and watch them again and again, each time marvelling at this genius.

And if you think he only excelled at serious roles, just pick up `How to Steal a Million’ in which he was paired with the delectable Audrey Hepburn. Or take the Pixar animation `Ratatouille’, and watch him as the voice of the acerbic food critic Anton Ego. Total, absolute pure delight!

Peter O’Toole was the last of the British Hellraisers of the 60’s – along with Richard Burton, Richard Harris and Oliver Reed. They have all gone now. I know this is as cliched a cliché as they come, but a part of me died with him this weekend. Thanks for the memories, Peter – they don’t make them like you anymore!

America - and The Art of Shaving!

Just off Union Square in SF, I noticed a glitzy showroom with an enticing banner. It said simply `The Art of Shaving’. An entire store dedicated to shaving, I wondered. Puja dragged me away. “It’s far too high end!” she said. Considering that I buy all my shaving needs from the CSD Canteen, `high end’ would probably be an understatement! Still, curious as a cat, I walked in. 

An attendant rushed towards us, all obsequious and salesman like. “Welcome, sir!” he gushed. I noticed the three day stubble on his chin. Seriously? In a store called `The Art of Shaving’? 

He thrust a pamphlet into my hands. `Welcome to the Brotherhood of Shaving’ it said. Now I was really intrigued!  We shavers, hardy men of the world, had got together to form a brotherhood, and no one had seen fit to inform me? “Go on”, I told him “tell me more!”

They not only sold shaving products, they also had a saloon where you could get a shave. A `Royal Shave’ he told me would last 45 minutes, and would set me back by 55 US$. That was around 3,500 bucks! Check out the Youtube video – The Royal Shave @ The Art of Shaving.

“The perfect shave,” he explained “has four elements – the pre-shave, the lather up, the shave and the moisturise.  We start with a hot towel compress that opens up the pores”.  Seeing my incredulous look, he went on “It isn’t called a ROYAL shave for nothing!” For 55 dollars, I thought, my pores would be as wide open as the Grand Canyon I’d been to the previous week!

“That may be so” I reasoned, “but lets say I do spend 45 minutes and 55 dollars today, and guess what, 24 hours later I’ll be back to Square One – I’ll need another shave! So do I come back again for a another round?”

“You shave daily, sir?” It was his turn to be incredulous.

Flashback to January 1971. It’s a freezing winter morning at Dehra Dun, and I’m a first termer at the IMA, standing in my first ever `Pre-muster’ fall-in at about 4:30 am outside the Sergeant’s cabin. He runs his hand over my cheek, and notices a faint hint of stubble. “You haven’t SHAVED??” he roars at me, thrusting his jaw line into my face. “No sir” I reply softly “I don’t shave daily”.  He is apoplectic. In the space of about 15 seconds, he tells me what he thinks of my response, then quickly moves on to my breeding, my upbringing and my worth in life - all the while making wild insinuations about my mother and sisters. 

I figure there’s no point trying to explain that I’m not yet out of my teens, and therefore don’t really need to shave daily, so I quietly fetch my razor and give myself the `dry shave’ he orders me to. My face soon resembles something out of `The Walking Dead’.  And I thought they called it a safety razor because it was supposed to prevent nicks and cuts!

Ever since that bloody experience some 40 odd years ago, I have indeed shaved daily – including Sundays, national holidays and even while travelling by the Indian Railways! On that story, maybe another post – woh kissa phir kabhi!

But back to the present. “Yes”, I assure the attendant “I do shave daily!”

He shakes his head in disbelief. “Before, after or during your shower?” he asks me. During? I swear he wasn’t kidding!

The free samples

The shaving products they sell cost a king’s ransom (50 dollars for a cup soap that costs under ten bucks at the CSD). He then gives us a demonstration of the products, which is dazzling. But I quietly pocket the free samples he offers, and promise to return after trying them out.

I did try them out, but lacked the courage (and the budget) to return. Check out their website www.theartofshaving.com. It’s an eye opener!

I had actually run out of shaving cream during my trip, and was dismayed to find none in any of the stores – Walgreens, Safeway, Shoprite – they only had gels and foams. The one I saw in one of the In-n-Out stores at gas stations (see – I no longer call them petrol pumps!) cost $7.49, which my quick math converted to around 500 bucks, which my equally quick common sense told me would fetch me ten tubes at the CSD, so I quietly moved on.

I tried the one Sukh uses (Kiehl’s, costing around 25$), but it was non-foaming, and supposedly brushless, ie one had to rub it into the beard using ones finger tips. Strange, I thought. In our day, the best shaving creams were advertised as the ones that produced the maximum foam! Remember Kapil Dev and his `Palmolive da jawab nahin’? 

Foam apparently is passé. The old belief was that foam comprises of millions of miniscule bubbles, and the more the bubbles the denser the foam, and hence the smoother the shave. I remember Godrej advertising their shaving creams as having `x million bubbles per cubic millimetre’, which was twice that of its nearest competitor. Utter nonsense, says America. Bubbles being spherical, the surface area actually in contact with the skin is much less. Hence, non-foaming is better. Non-foaming is IN. My stubble, like me, however is old school, and prefers the good old `jhaag’ any day!

Razorless Shaving
Cream!

I decided to do some more digging. To my horror, I found that, not only were all American shaving creams foamless and brushless, but some of them were also, I kid you not, razorless! Directions – Wet skin, apply cream to area to be shaved, rinse. Simple! The best way to avoid razor burns, they advertise, is to avoid razors altogether!  I suppose these are just hair removers, a la Anne French!

There was also some form of `Shaving Powder’ which I hadn’t the foggiest idea of what, how and why about. The times, they certainly are a-changin’. 

But back home at the ranch, I’m happy with my jhaag wala shaving cream, and my trusty old double edged razor – maybe I’ll make a Youtube video of MY version of the Royal Shave!