Thursday, January 26, 2006

Too mooch trouble

With all due respect to Saurav Ganguly fans , exploited software engineers and other troubled souls of the nation , I am living a content life these days . Infact , I have always enjoyed my circumstances . But things are easy these days . The classes have the frequency of commercial breaks in a repeat telecast of a Kuchipudi dance program on doordarshan . Except the company pre placement talks I attend and a some time I devote to studying , I am as busy as a sales manager at the Antarctica Branch of Carrier Air conditioners . And tickets to Rang De Basanti’s first show have been procured .

And to make things better , N’s parents visited him at the hostel with a lot of of Gajar ka Halwa . It was like kissing your beloved after spending 51 years locked in a Tibetan monastery with a transistor and Rabri Devi for company . Gulping all that halwa was as pleasant as watching Kareena Kapoor retire from movies . After eating what must have taken three acres of carrot fields to make , I plopped down on N’s bed and flashed a content smile at the rickety ceiling fan , sending up a burpy thanks to N’s parents and carrot farmers for the halwa.

Now being true IIM tigers about to hit the corporate jungle soon , me and N tried to strike up a leisurely post-halwa discussion on the rising gold prices and its effect on the jute underwear industry of Indonesia . We tried to move ahead for around three minutes and then unanimously shifted to 'moustaches' as the topic of further discussion .

Moustache . Or ‘mooch’ in hindi . Not the unshaven Abhishek bacchan stubble type thing , but the proper Anil Kapoor type thing . The stuff which is found stuffed in the space between the lips and the nose of some guys , and some girls who were fed some extra testesterone samosas by mothers worried about eve teasing .

I was subjected to the great Chinese moustache torture early in my life . Not that my ma used the wrong oil on me and I grew one at the age of three months , but my dad has one mooch since the time I wiggled open my little eyes . Now my Dad expressed love by saving on expensive lollipops and chocolates and planting free kisses instead . On my cheek . Nothing to do with Michael Jackson or his variety of affection for kids .

So when I was a kid , dad picked me up , smiled , said ‘Mera pyaara beta’ ( My lovely sonny boy ) and kissed me while the hair of his moustache dug into my baby skin . If you have ever been kissed by a mooch-ed object , you will know the weird feeling it produces . While the lips plant a soft kiss on the cheek , the mooch scrapes the skin over the kiss point and the feeling is rather tingly and unwanted . I always followed up this mentally damaging experience by snatching away my cheek from dad and yelling “ Uee ma , aapki mooch ke baal chubhte hain” ( Uee ma , your moustache hairs prick me ). Dad said “Hatt natkhat , Dad ki mooch ke baal baccho ko nahi chubte” .( Hatt naughty boy , Daddy’s moustache never pricks the kid ) . Fearing another kiss , I stayed quiet . When I could bear it no longer , I crept upto my sleeping Dad with his shaving razor in my hand . He woke up just as I grazed his moustache with the razor . At my next birthday party , he made all my moustached uncles and aunties kiss me as a punishment .

Thankfully , I grew up and the threat from Dad’s kissing subsided with his moustache hair softening with his increasing age and his love for me decreasing with my plunging school grades .

Infact I still cannot understand why any self respecting man will carry a toothbrush of hair under his nose . I have scientific evidence it blocks the free flow of air into the nostrils . It’s like holding a mini sugarcane field to your nose while the air struggles and huffs to move past this field of hair to enter the nostril caves . I have heard about cases of moustaches causing suffocation , more so at higher altitudes and in gas chambers . Then managing a moustache requires a lot of time and energy which can be judiciously spent by me going out with girls who enjoy going out with an ugly but 'clean-slate-above-lips' guy. Salman Khan could have wooed , thrashed and re-wooed Aishwarya nineteen times over in the time my Dad spent on trimming and shaping his moustache each day. And a girl needs to have the IQ of a masala dosa to actually prefer a guy with moustaches over a guy without one .

Imagine DDLJ with Raj ( Shahrukh ‘Bath Tub’ Khan ) sporting a hairy bushy Mangal Pandey category mooch dashing through a yellow field singing “Tujhe dekha to yeh jaana sanam” while a scared Simran yells in her cellphone “Hello ! Papa ! Bachao , something hairy is coming towards me !!! Papa !” . Raj Kapoor had a pencil mooch , but then his whole USP thing was in looking stupid . Yeah , Anil Kapoor sports one , but that’s because he has a three inch wide fluorescent yellow mole under his nose he needs to cover up . Infact , the fact that most south Indian heroes sport a mooch befuddles me like the IIT JEE question paper did .

And I had no choice when my dad kissed me . But today’s empowered , liberated and muscular woman may rise in a revolt when a boyfriend/husband approaches her 'dove washed- beautician maintained-lakme moisturised' skin with a sharp and smelly pile of hair just over his pouted lips . The consequences may range from a lost kissing opportunity to divorce . So me and N concluded that a mooch is a facial liability which obstructs respiratory process , eats up valuable time , serves to bring down the beauty quotient of our ugly faces and may prove to be detrimental to any kissing attempts we may undertake in the future , forced or otherwise .

Just then P walked into the room . P is a sikh guy , a sardaar . He has a moustache.

And a beard.

Our eyes checked out his moustache , mentally calculating the number of hours wasted and the number of potential girlfriends missed by P due to his mooch. I even had a sudden vision of P choking in a dinky dark room murmuring "Cough Cough..help..help..can't breathe...my mooch is killing me...oxygen..". Me and N exchanged knowing looks , nodded and smiled in the warm satisfaction of a meaningful discusion completed . Then our eyes slid down to his beard in unison , quietly starting to analyze a beard’s utility . We had zoomed down on the topic for our next leisurely post-halwa discussion. I am not even starting on that .

30 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was the one who said, "You sound cliched' at times" . But hey ! Good read, this one. Nice thought flow.
Hope you keep filling the Blog long after you gone.Err, into the Corporate jungle i meant
;-)
Siddharth.

Suds said...

One more good post. Hey trust me I understand what u must have been thru as my DAD has both Mooch and Dadi... That is the reason I never kept one...:):) Enjoy....

M (tread softly upon) said...

This had me in splits. And I am still at work and I guess everyone here thinks there's something wrong with me (you know workplace demeanor and stuff). Hilarious to the hilt! I detest facial hair of any kind. It somehow interferes with the other features of the face, makes it look quite clumsy, methinks.
And boy did I want to have some home made gajar ka halwa too.

Ashish Gupta said...

damn! you are saving these sweepers lotsa work of mopping my room's floor ;)

had just cursed someone for showing me halwa and now I sit here cursing you too ;)
How heartless of you people to tease deprived mortals (read hostelites) like me with such temptations! I am still in the monastery :-( have neither her nor the halwa :-((

Anonymous said...

Abhinav this was not the first time that i read you post but i must say i really had a hearty laughter while reading it.

Add to it the fact that u have replaced your pic with 'moochad' Hitler ..coincidence coincidence...and i am sure u dont need to get a plastic surgery done.

Hilarious to the hilt. Keep posting...i loved visiting your blog.

Shreyansh said...

Bhokaal post again!!
Mooch out.
Goatee in. :)

But i want gajar ka halwa.
Mommy i am coming home.

Anonymous said...

S'mooched' off a good post

Aj said...

Hey Abhi !

yaar, nature gave Adam 'moochi' and beard for protection from the cold outside while Eve waited for him in the warmth of a cave kept hot by fire.

Thats why men were burdened with hirsuite bodies + faces

Has its pros n cons !
I personally am against thez.. but smtimes i get aalsi and beard grows like a jungle then I take a mower :)

Jus kiddin.. Remember nostril have hair that clean the air we take in
otherwise lungs would b choked .. isnt it?

Wanderlust said...

With due respects to your amazing writing skills Abhinav , I would have to agree with purplehaze that this post lacks a little bit on the natural humour which is so inherent in your posts....A good read anyday though !!

Anonymous said...

mooche hoon toh NATHULAL jaise warna na hoon :p

nice post !!

~neo~

Padakkam said...

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Anonymous said...

Well,
A section believes that the reason men have moustaches is because the bristly hair acts as a stimulant for the female during intercourse. And that is why moustaches start showing up only after we guys reach puberty. Now howzzat???

Anu Sharma said...

Oye hitler ki atma …sharam ni ani tenu ,mere papa ki mooch ke bare mai aisi aisi baat karta hai…or vo bhi chabbis janvari ke din ..pata hai us zamane mai logo ne apni mooch ghuma ghuma kar angrezo ko bhuun diya tha ….ab vo din aa gaya hai ki is desh mai mooch mukti morcha nikala jaye …oops mooch lagao morcha nikala jaye…be it nakli or asli…samje lala ?…ab khamosh(in shatruda ishtyle)! ahem

Baraka said...

Hilarious.

I still prefer men with well-shaped beards though, they look so debonair.

Fathima Sagar said...

That was a gud one Abhinav! Even my fav. dont have moustache - Sharukh and Sachin

aMyth! said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
aMyth! said...

Hilarious, dude. I know it too well, coz am from "moochland"..otherwise known as God's Own Country.. and yes my dad had (still has) a mooch, and he even sported a beard, "trimmed, not shaven" for 18years. everybody said he'll never shave it, but 18years later, I made him. And bingo! he looked so much younger...heehee.

I had a tiny mooch too, coz in "moochland", moochless guys are looked at with the same interest they have for the subjects of ur previous post. The Gays. I tried walking around with "i wont shave, i wont trim" attitude for about 2 months too, but I tell u, that's an itchy experience. yuk! Now, am clean, under the nose and chin too ;)

Great post. But I just wonder. Why did Hitler have a mooch, and that too, just wide enough to block his nostrils...nothing more.. Did that actually save him from the gas he used in the chambers???

Abhi said...

@sid - haha ! yaar marne ke baad mere bhoot se bhee likhwayega kya ? :p

@suds - haha .you know all the dard and the pricking man !

@m- oh , the person who said every T,D and H in calcutta has a gf..hehe , just kidding man . ill pray that you get a lot of gajar ka halwa soon.

@ashish - hehe.atleast I got halwa ! ( sticks out tongue at ashu bhai )

@chimera - Oye hitler ki moochi ka mazzak na udaana.gas chamber mein dalwa dunga.:p

@rinku - hai hai sir na bol yaar.professor ki yaad aa jati hai iss lovely life mein .tussi bhi great ho madam .:)

@LD - yar tu to mast cook hain.gajar ka halwa bana degi thoda sa mere liye ?

@shreyansh - shucks .Aunty , main bhee aa jaun shreyansh ke saath ? mujhe bhee khaana hain please .

@kriti - hai raam.under 18 blog pe yeh kya kissy wissy ki baat ho rahee hain ? tauba tauba .

@divs - man have told you , I AM NOT SO BUSY ! just gimme a miss call , ill get online if you need to talk yar :)

@aj - haha .haan yar teri unshaven stubble yaad hai mujhe .ladkiyon ke alawa sab impress ho jate the tere unshaven look se .:)just mazzaking yar .

@purplehaze - cant tell you .Its a secret .If I tell you , Ill have to kill you.;)

@amitabha - This is deliberate .A long dard bhari daastan behind it .Sunanuga kabhi .

@neo - nathulaal ki mooch to best thee yaar .aah , old times.i still miss nathulaal.

@binu - abbe mere dushman no .1 , tujhse yehi ummeeed thee mujhe :p

@anon - haww ! gandi baat .

@anu - haha ! oye lady dara singh , its a new mooch less world .wake up.hum hai naye , andaaz kyun ho moochaana.

@baraka - Thank god i dont have a beard .;).j/k.

@fathima - oye paheli mein thee yar srk ki moochi .u hated him then ? :)

@amyth - haha.sorry bro ! dint want to hurt the sentiments of any moustached person .:)

Abhi said...

@jaggu - haha.i dnt have a mooch over the last 24 years.zero smooches .

Shruthi said...

Hilarious :)) and I agree with you *thumbs up*

arpana said...

wonder how it would be to be kissed by a mooched man ! I must have when i I was a kid, but have 4gotten em now ! :p

Fathima Sagar said...

Mujhe patha thaa ki "Paheli" Sharukh ki mooch nakli thee. Sirf foto ke liye kabhi kabhi rak lene mein koyi objection nahi.

Anonymous said...

eeeekkkkssss...I grew up listening to dad saying- "mooch nahi to kuch nahin". Now, I'd rather tell my boyfriend- "mooch hai to smooch nahi".

Anonymous said...

ah, that was me. The previous comment that is. Why did they make me anonymous?

Anonymous said...

there is a Belgian (I think) saying 'a kiss without a mustache is like an egg without salt'...and I gotta agree!

ichatteralot said...

There is ONE way to get that mooch removed, all we girls have to do is say 'omigod you have white hair in your mooch!!!' It usually disappears the ver next day :-)

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Thankfully , I grew up and the threat from Dad’s kissing subsided with his moustache hair softening with his increasing age and his love for me decreasing with my plunging school grades .

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