This is basically the first piece of writing that I had ever put down (quite literally on paper actually), titled 'The Facial', back in November 2006. Well, obviously it does have its errors and what not. Here it is, unedited :)
A time comes in every man’s life when he is forced to do things that he would rather not do; he is pushed to foray into the territories where he would rather not go to. This force, as found out by a very popular survey conducted, 99% of the times happen to be a woman. Yes, the other kind, the type of human being with TWO X-chromosomes to be more precise.
Well to come back to the applicable topic, I was recently influenced by such force, to be more exact – my mom (love you mom), to get a…well…a facial done, the reason being a wedding in the family. Having agreed to her, I embarked upon this quest of getting my face cleaned up by someone else. Throughout my journey upto the saloon, which is a very long and exhausting 2 minutes, my mind was still contemplating this decision. When I finally reached there, I decided to get a haircut to start with, which would give me enough time to think it over. This as it turned out was not a very good idea. People generally talk about this little voice they have inside them, the voice that tells them what is right and what is wrong. Well, I did find that little voice, and millions of others that live with it. If I deduce, that one little voice belongs to a little person, then I am pretty sure that I have a whole country of these little people inside me. They also surely will give India a run for its money to become the largest democracy; and boy do they practice their democracy. They made sure that each and every one of them was heard and for the first time I didn’t hear the snip of the scissor going through my hair. They debated right from the facial being expensive to the risk of one of my friends walking in on me. But the majority thought that I should go through it, and hence by way of voting, I decided to do it.
Then it started, my man, the barber, started off by first applying something on my face and thoroughly rubbing it in, making sure that every inch of my skin was covered with it. For some reason, he had taken a liking to my nose and preferred giving it the maximum attention and rubbing it like it was no one’s business. He kept doing it as if he was extracting some heavenly pleasure out of it. He then left me for a few minutes and came back with something new and slapped it onto my face and the rubbing resumed, there goes my nose again. Though by this time I had got used to the cold in the air conditioned place, he kept applying things that were getting colder and more difficult to bear, sending my skin into shock every time.
Then I guess it was time to bring out the big guns, and out came some thing that actually looked like a gun. I for a second thought I had mistaken a dentist for a barber and was ready to bail out. He plugged it in and thrusted it onto my face. Again maximum attention was given to the nose, which was sure to be the shiniest part of my face at the end of this ordeal. After this gun got done with, out came a machine which was breathing out steam from it. And boy was it hot. Fifteen minutes of steaming later, I was wondering if I had been mislead by my country of little people, when suddenly on my face came a towel which was wet and so cold, it felt like it was on fire. One thing for sure, if my skin can withstand such drastic variations in temperature, it can go through anything. Off came the towel and a minute later, when I thought it was finally over, the man comes in with a brush and starts painting my face with something as I later found out is called a mask. After this I was left by myself to literally dry out and mull over life’s irony. How can we trust a stranger with our hair and our face….HOW? Talking of ironies, while I was left to dry, my man switched on the TV, and was watching a movie with our old friend Jackie Shroff in it. And the irony here, if you are wondering was, Mr. Shroff was trying to get a plastic surgery for himself in the movie. Though I certainly was not getting a surgery done, I surely was expecting a result which was comparable to the same. After drying me, and my skin feeling as if it was being pulled from different directions by the same little people, the man comes in and starts spraying water onto my face, which sent a sizeable amount of jolt through my skin. Then I suddenly heard the sound of ice being taken from an ice tray, and to my worst fears, the man comes in with an ice cube and rubs it onto my face. This sealed the argument, making me want to bomb the country of little people inside me.
Finally, to finish it off, as per trend, the man goes ahead and applies something that burns the tissue out of my skin, making sure that I am not doing this again and making me want to bomb the country again. The question that you would now be asking is, was all this punishment worth it. Am I more pleasing to the eyes of the onlooker? Well I guess the only way to find out is by risking using your own eyes. Till then CYA and take care.
