A Horrifying Experience.....

I never thought I'll go through such a horrifying experience in my life. Yesterday morning was one of the most forgetful days in my life. Though it was a horrendous, horrifying, horrible, hair raising and all the words starting with H signifying terrifying experiences. I pray to God that none will be subjected to this kind off experience in their lifetime.

After close to 5 months, only this incident has egged me to write a post here. Think what kind off an experience this should have been. To wake me from my Blogging slumber and share this experience with all my readers. Probably not more than 3 people will read this, still this is a fair warning for the future generations who inadvertently might stumble on my blog :).

One thing that's good from a blogging perspective is that you can learn a lot of things, personal experiences, career guidance, way of life, etc. And this will remain open for the entire world till time infinite or at least till Google is around. As always, let me not digress.

Yesterday was like just another day in the offing, or so it looked till around 11am IST. (Again this is for the benefit for all my International Readers, not that I know of any, but still one can always hope.) This dreadful incident occurred thanks to the Indian Government and their not so perfect 5 year plans. Had they been a little meticulous and a little more future looking, even more so than they were, it would have spared me from going through such an experience (Think I need to look up some synonyms for experience, I have used it way too many times already. 9 till now.).

Had the Infrastructure of this country been more robust, don't think I would have undergone this kind off a horrible incident in my life. Not that I am trying to build any mystery or anything on this event (hmm..actually I am trying my best to shroud this in mystery till the last possible minute :D. I don't even have a shred of humility in me.). Either ways, one of my friends has asked me to look at things from a Positive note, so I think the positive thing here is that this event however horrible, terrifying, horrendous, heinous it may have been still has made me write this post. Which in turn will help a lot of people who'll eventually end up reading this. So there's the Positive outlook for this bit. :)

Anyways, coming back to the original occurrence. At around 11am IST (GMT + 5:30 for highly educated folks and Indian Time for simple minded folks ) on 9th August 2007, Thursday in 13.04 N & 80.17 E (Chennai for simple minded people), I was intently watching one of my favorite movies, The Bourne Supremacy, there was a Power Outage (Current failure for simple minded people again :) ) in my neighborhood. Unfortunately this power outage affected my house as well and since neither me or my parents thought that a Genset (Generator for simple minded folks and UPS for Technically inclined folks.) was a neccessity in our lives, I had to bear the brunt of the smoldering heat of Chennai.

Being a person who has gotten acclimatized to cool temperatures, I was unable to bear the heat and was looking for other alternatives. Now, I had planned a trip to Hyderabad to meet a friend of mine, who has come back from his USA assignment bearing goodies, or so he says :D, which needs to be seen. Unfortunately one of my School friends who is studying for his MBA from an Premier B School known by the acronym ISB happens to be in Hyderabad as well . Now, whether it was my hard luck or lack of luck thereof, I don't get lots of oppurtunities to party with the fairer sex or just to party as such. This long time friend who happened to study in the same school as mine after getting transferred in the 11th Grade (11th standard for the Indians who read this.) and who happened to end up after jumping from the Biology Department to the Computer Science Department to the Sociology Department and finally to the Commerce Department ended up in my section. Fortunate for him and unfortunate for me, just kidding J.

So when I elucidated about my planned trip to Hyderabad to this long time friend, he asked whether I was inclined to meet with him. I, as always, being a nice guy, gave him an affirmation and also enquired about his well being, how he's faring and whether there was anyone interesting he has met (I read somewhere once, that single people going for a MBA will by the time they complete it will be committed). He was kind enough to offer that he’ll introduce me to a person from the fairer sex, whom I was obsessed with (per him and our mutual friends). Being a 26 year old guy with no relationship with the fairer sex that one can boast about I was tempted and intrigued to take up on the offer. However, there was one stipulation that came along with the offer. I need to part with something that I have cherished for the past 2 years. It was a part of me. Something that took me over 2 years to nurture and grow. Something I cared about and have done things that are not in my nature to protect it. MY LOCKS (Hair for simple minded people). He said that he was doing me a favor and all other stuff to make me feel good about it, just to make me feel a little better. Nice try J.

When the Power went out in my house and when I was sweating profusely, I took the decision to visit a Hair Stylist (Note this Hair Stylist and not a Barber :D). Probably I was of unsound mind when I took this decision, the stress of sweating and the heat probably had its toll on my sanity. Unfortunately that day was the first time after a long time that, I did keep up an appointment, regretfully though. Now I guess my dear readers (people who know me very well) would have got an idea (if not the whole picture), what horrific / tragic experience I’ve been rambling about in this post :D.

Things were not working for me. The Powers to be were conspiring against me and what can one mere mortal like me do against the Omni-Potent one so YES, I went and had a haircut. The whole idea was to cut my hair short and get rid of my Macho look (that’s what I call it), while others categorized it as Dhoni Look. People have heckled at me, calling me “Dhoni” and all, on more than one occasion. When I was visiting Pudukottai for a friend’s marriage, I did over hear a couple of people under the influence of alcohol call me Dhoni and also when I went for the India vs. West Indies cricket match in Chennai. At the cricket stadium there was quite a number of “grown-up” folks who did call out to me as Dhoni, thanks to another friend of mine who motivated them to carry on calling me Dhoni ( Thanks K for that, BUGGER ). Much to my amusement and my embarrassment. Not that I don’t like Dhoni or anything, just the mere principle that I would like to be known to the world for my own achievements and not be a shadow figure for a celebrity. There was a lot of fanfare and people derived pleasure by calling out to me.

Now coming back to the horrific incident, as I sat in front of the mirror at the Hair Stylist’s place I was really sad by the fact that I have to get rid of 2 years of my hard work. There were things I had done to grow such long and lustrous tresses, which made me proud and happy. One thing dawned on me as I sat brooding looking at my reflection on the mirror, I love my hair and it’s going to be really hard and very strenuous (mentally) for me to cut it. So I decided to appease my ISBian friend and have a go at it nonetheless. So here I am writing this with a hair length that’s shorter by an inch and a half and still feeling a bit sad for the things I do to meet the fairer sex.

PS: I am not that shallow, I didn’t cut my hair for the above said reason, however for the sole reason I shall elucidate in the later posts, hopefully no later than end of August 2007. :D

2. All this for a "M" (Tamil speaking guys would be able to enumerate more on this)