The Lord of the Fly

"The Lord of the Flies" is an amazing book written by William Golding.

Any resemblances between this post and that book, save for the tweaked title, surely means that some *@&*&$ has managed to lay hands on my blogger ID and password.

This evening, when I went to the john to take a leak, I chanced upon the inspiration that has enabled me to pen down this post.

There was this guy who was trying to talk on his phone, that unfortunately for him, probably rang when he was in an uncompromising position.
When I entered, I saw him trying to tuck his shirt in with one hand through his fly, while attempting to hold a conversation with somebody, presumably important.
He looked like a contortionist straight out of the Guiness book of World Records, trying to satiate himself in some vague auto-erotic fashion, and since his back was turned to me during his entire exercise, I had the good fortune of not having to stifle a Cheshire Cat-like grin.

He is now officially deemed as "The Lord of the Fly".

The men's room at the office is a very funny place to be at. Kinda brings every dude out there, be it CEO, or entry-level programmer, on the same level playing field. If you've got to go, you've got to go.

The true meaning of 'metro-sexual' a.k.a 'pansy' is something that is brought out in vivid detail here in the men's room.

The very same macho techie with ripping biceps and a tight t-shirt bearing the caption "Look - I've not bought a new shirt since class 3!" can be seen staring intently in the mirror at close range, trying to count the number of pimple scars that his facial make-up cream has failed to hide. Sometimes without being observed, the subject might even use Vernier's callipers to measure the thickness of his sideburns, and call up his hairdresser Sylvie (or whatever else he calls his cross-dresser 'personal stylist') to demand a refund for a shoddy job done.

All my life, I have been under the false impression that women are the ones who spend a lot of time in front of the mirror. After being in the corporate environs for a little over a year, this misconception of mine has now gone out of the window.

In my defence to the above statement, though, I have never paid too much attention to my looks. Its not because I look like Adam Garcia, but mainly because my family did a good job of shielding me from finding out how I look for most of my life. What happened when I finally did figure it out is material for another post.

The essence of the matter is that they ensured that there never were too many mirrors around me. I was made to believe that the chubby, healthy kid on the cerelac cartons was actually me, and since there were so many snaps of me circulating all over the country, they didn't exactly feel the need to take some more of them.

Hence, I subsisted, and still continue to do so, on the barest minimum of items necessary for personal grooming, if such a term is applicable to me in the first place.

A comb (rarely used), deoderant (used in the absence of having had a bath, essentially - all the time), hair oil (unopened, but lying there nevertheless to prove to Mum that her instructions are being followed), shaving equipment (used only when passport pictures of mine have to be clicked), and of course, the nail clipper, just so that my tooth enamel doesn't look worse than it already does, and also because I can't chew the nails off my big-toe, a la the contortionist Fly lord.

You can imagine the surprise on my face, when I find out that my grooming equipment looks like a scaled down travel kit for most of my other contemporaries. Without wishing to divulge the various places or the various people concerned, I can vouch for the fact that I have seen atrocious things like 'Fair and Lovely' (before 'Fair and Handsome' came into the market), a whole host of deos and perfumes (one or two at the max, I can understand!) and even some hair-removal cream at some of my friends' houses.

Truly hair-raising to see all this in a guy's closet, specially when his dwellings are laden with clothes unwashed for days, with mould and fungi growing on them, and the whole place smells of socks.

This has led me to come to the conclusion that I have been relegated to being an old-timer, so far as keeping pace with the latest trends in fashion is concerned. I'm so glad I am not ever going to be considered a 'metrosexual'.

Now that men in general have found strong parallels between metrosexuality, and being labelled a pussy, the hoi-polloi junta has now come up with some other vague thing called 'ubersexual', which is again a redundant synonym, just because the common person speaking english is not really all that well versed in German. Eventually, the page 3 motley crew will resort to more and more obscure terms, borrowed from lesser-known languages such as Yiddish and Swahili to have their say, and to vainly try and convince the ordinary male out there that he is 'mbwanesexual' or 'mazeltovsexual'.

Long live the page 3 crowd, for they make our insignificant lives seem less ordinary in comparison!