Kya cool hai hum! (We be so cool)
Ever since I crossed the 40 year landmark, I have approached looming birthdays like a kindergartner on a school playground playing tag with their friends. If I close my eyes tightly enough, maybe I’ll become invisible and the Chief Goblin of Age Accounting will quietly pass me by. It’s not that I care particularly about my age (I do, though). It’s the annoying fact that I was born 2 years too late to be a Millennial, while my younger brother managed to squeak past that particular goalpost a year and 9 months later, just as the referee was blowing the final whistle. As everyone knows, Millennials are cooler than Generation X uncles.
For my brother, the unbearable burden of such coolness could only be lightened by an almost evangelical, even quixotic mission to coolify his older brothers. It began, as these things are wont to do, with simple sartorial advice — gentle suggestions that became increasingly astringent over the years as uncle fashion resolutely did not improve. ‘Advice’ then became more direct: he started giving us cool things as gifts.
One year, I received a lovely monogrammed leather tray. For a recent birthday, I got an EveryDay Carry set containing among other things, a monogrammed pocket knife, a small notebook and a stylish UFO-looking pen to capture wayward genius thoughts, a beautiful leather pouch to hold them and a carabiner keychain to hang them all on my waist. The carabiner keychain weighed so much, it pulled my pants down to my knees , so it got relegated to the closet. The notebook remained angrily empty at my banality for a long time and then along with the leather pouch and pen, got run over by a number of cars on a rare rainy night in Palo Alto (long story; don’t ask), and had to be sadly discarded.
Not one to pick up on hints or to give up so easily, last year my brother sent me a double edge safety razor — the latest fad in personal care. I actually rolled my eyes at this. I had last seen an actual safety razor 25 years ago, in the hands of my grandfather. And so the box sat in the bathroom medicine cabinet unopened.
The PR campaign started soon after, in right earnest:
“Safety razors are making a comeback!”,
“They are eco-friendly! cheaper! give smoother shaves! way cooler than Gillette!”
For about 9 months, I resisted the alluring pull of the advertising claims. I willingly burnt money at the sacred altar of The Gillette company. But it increasingly seemed like I was getting a raw deal — on some days, I would get a good shave from a brand new Mach 3 blade but before I reached work a half hour later, I would sprout a dark fuzz again. Within two uses, the once formidably sharp razor would have already turned into a meek hair-caressing comb. Plus, every time I removed the Mach3 from the medicine cabinet, the safety razor box glared at me balefully. “How could you?”, it seemed to whisper. At other times, it lathered on the charm. “Take me out and try me just once, my precioussss….” it wheedled, sibilantly and seductively.
Spurred on by my brother’s gazillionth photo of his baby-bottom-smooth post-shave face, I couldn’t ignore the siren call any longer. Conditions were perfect: I had a 4 day stubble. I had recently run out of disposable razors and I was too lazy to go to the store. I decided I’d finally give this a try. One day in January, I took the contraption out of its box and stared at its gleaming metal body. I turned it this way and that. I realized I hadn’t the slightest idea how to use the thing. Oh, bummer!
Within the next minute, half a dozen YouTube videos reached me via WhatsApp. Tutorials on safety razor usage that had a level of detail normally only reserved for fighter pilot training videos. Armed with this graduate level instruction, I once again pulled the razor out of its box. Installed a brand new double edge blade in its slot. Washed my face in warm water. Lathered up my face with a fancy ass shaving cream bought especially for this moment. Washed the razor in warm water. Tilted the razor at a careful 30 degree angle. I swiped confidently down.
And Nothing. Not a single hair moved out of place.
I tried again. I scratched, clawed and raked my face with increasing force and frustration. I stopped when my skin felt like the cricket pitch on the last day of the recent Test match between India and England.
But the hair remained.
The depth of that disappointment! Deeper than the Marianas Trench. Deeper than even that felt by Trump on Jan 20 2021.
“That’s it, no more of this nonsense!”, I declared and the very next day, bought a 35-pack set of the trusty Mach 3 disposables.
I, of course, didn’t tell my brother about this — that is, until he asked 3 weeks later. He peppered me with troubleshooting questions, offered more videos to watch, liberally insulted my intelligence and then finally said, “Maybe the piece is loaded backwards…”
I lost it then. I didn’t get a PhD to be featured in a bloody “How many PhDs does it take to load a safety blade into a razor” joke. Especially since there was only one way to put the base plate + blade into the slot.
So I checked. And who woulda thunk and whaddya know, the damn thing had been loaded upside down.
(It is complicated, ok? My PhD is not in Mechanical Engineering. Shut up.)
The first “real” shave proceeded smoothly, now that the blade was loaded correctly. Or at least I think I achieved a clean smooth shave — it was a bit hard to see under all the blood.
But I gamely washed my face and upon the recommendation of my saintly brother, rubbed a block of Alum all over the face to “tighten” it further. I did really turn into Braveheart then — I ran out of the bathroom with a crazed war cry like yell. If you’ve ever wanted to know the meaning of the expression “rubbing salt on a wound”, use an Alum block on a shaving nick. Go on, I’ll wait.
The first shave didn’t result in a baby bottom smooth face (I checked against the real thing). But it was better than a Mach 3 shave. I proudly showed my wife. She took a quizzical look and asked, “What? Do you have a zit?” The sting of the Alum didn’t seem that bad in retrospect.
It’s been a few weeks since then. I think I have become better at using this newfangled thing. I don’t bleed as much anymore. I don’t yell as much after the Alum either (I merely whimper in pain). The baby doesn’t pull back from my cuddles. My skin may have even acquired a soft smooth glow. I even started preaching to my work colleagues about the safety razor and why they should use it. Maybe this coolification is working, after all!
Wait, someone’s at the door.
Clearly not cool enough for some people. That was the mailman dropping off a birthday package — from my brother. I wonder what’s in store for me this year…
