The day had just passed by like a blur as I rested my head on my pillow after months of slave labour. My mind was experiencing one of those few moments of thoughtlessness. I brought my hand towards my face. I realised I hadn't shaved for months now. Going a little further towards my hair, I figured the state I was in and made an instant decision. I had to go the salon... immediately. The thoughtlessness was broken... for a good cause of course, but the blissful feeling or whatever its chemical equivalent is called remained.
I walked down the sea lined road, admired the palm trees lining the road, happy faces, beautiful women enjoying the breeze, even the slum dwellers seemed to be having such a good time. It was truly a happy day for the world and I was aware. Pushing the front door of the salon open like I owned the place, just like I owned the world for the day, I walked in to face a smiling girl at the reception in a smart black body hugging uniform. This was a first, a girl receptionist in a men's salon. A good way to increase clientele, I told myself. After explaining to her what all I wanted to get done, I went towards the usual services section to my usual chair looking for my usual guy who knows the detailing which goes into cutting my small but delicate crop of hair.
Change was the theme for the day and I, as usual, was just going with the flow. The first look my eyes gathered was a woman getting her eyebrows done. I settled into my chair, taking another look at the woman getting tormented by another woman with a thread. Well, my favorite salon had become unisex. Another one of my manly escapes had been lost. A flurry of thoughts were flowing through my blissful thoughtless head when the smily, not so beautiful in close-up, receptionist showed up and introduced me to her new staff. A young beautiful girl was to give me a hair cut.
Whhaaaatttttt.... seriously. No woman is touching my beautiful hair..'Where's Rakesh I asked', I asked. 'Oh! We had to let go of him as we were restructuring', the now ugly receptionist replied, still smiling. With that, I heaved a huge sigh and surrendered myself into the hands of an untested woman with beautiful hands. The battle started.
The phone rang. I had thought of leaving the big black thing at home but had to carry it out of fear of my supposed not-so-legalised but very dangerous when angry better half. It was not her, it was my kind-of-legalised sweet-poison dangerous woman colleague from office wanting another task executed. The world became all grim, the happy faces started to disintegrate, everyone was rushing to get somewhere, the city was suddenly at its busiest best. I was no longer the ruler, the special one. I was just the random guy next door. Well, the girl got over her haircut, suggesting facials, massages etc.. Maybe she even offered to sleep with me but I was too bored and lost to listen to her ranting.
Getting out of that paradise now under the spell of a black witch, I gathered myself and started the process of taking an auto-rickshaw to office but guess who decided to steal the rickshaw I was about to take, another woman. There is this thing about 40 plus women in India, especially the ones married with children.
They think it is their natural birth right to get first right to everything like they're disabled or something, ready to fight over everything and anything. Guess who always wins and is always right in their head..
My mom called me. She wanted to know about when I was sending her favorite painting print, meeting her friend in Mumbai, calling up some other random relatives, getting my hair cut (I had just done it.. one point up!), when I was coming to Delhi myself.. and the usual everyday q & a’s. Sometimes I think our conversations are like a never ending loop.
Where were the men, I was asking myself. Looking around, I could not see any, just imagine, not one man alone walking with his head held high. The only ones to be seen were the ones looking down and walking behind their wives or driving their wives or convincing their wives. For that moment, that was the state of the world. The hardcore psychotic feminists had won. Not that I’m not for equal right, I’m quite a feminist in my own right. But this… this was simply taking over.
It was no longer about equality, it was war and the ones with the vagina’s had won.
The office work finished, I scooted out of there, waiting to get back home to a film or a book or to my beloved laptop. The phone call source I had dreaded earlier woke up my phone from its slumber and I answered the call with a manly baritone Hello. A couple of sentences down and I was reduced to a squeaky mice like voice. I was commanded by her majesty to come to a particular restaurant where her friend wanted to meet me. Had to go. Her friend, apart from having a fake name, convoluted stories of her earning sources, weirder stories of friends and many more pieces of info that made her truly unbelievable had just got herself a boob job and wanted me to check her out. This was a first, a woman actually wanted me to sit and ogle at her breasts. I happily did it and even commented on them, although there was no real difference actually but of course I couldn’t say that for it would only prove I knew her exact shape and size from before and my blonde is intelligent enough to catch that. Of course, I’m smarter.
Got home, had to sit through a film called ‘How to loose a guy in 10 days’. Wonder how I allowed that title in my house but was not a bad film after all. In comes our house mate with another girl friend of hers. Before I knew it, I was in the company three ‘very drunk' women. A situation close to one of my school time porn video’s almost etched into my memory was just coming alive when one of them decided to puke on my favorite satin sheet. To hell with the memory, they had just broken sacred law and were to be banished from the kingdom without trial. As fast as was physically and politely possible, I switched off my light and was fast asleep, the party off to the other room.
Then began the dreams…
