If the fairer sex has lots to complain about to nature for the numerous troubles and travails it has bestowed unto them, we lesser mortals (read males) have our own set of shortcomings. We have to veritably spend half of our life battling the ignominy of being spotted in public with tears brimming on our eyes. No matter how depressed a man is, it is a shame to be seen crying, a fundamental partly redundant in this age of metrosexual men, but present nevertheless. Add to this the agony of being on the wrong end of law, whenever a female is involved in any issue, irrespective of the circumstances. It is discrimination of a different kind. The point to emphasise is not that these laws should be amended. It is perfectly justified to have special sections dealing with abuse of the females, be it marital abuse or domestic violence or dowry harassment or even sexual abuse, because these are evils which do prevail and are worthy of a fair battle. But the fact is that the premise of any judicial system is that all are equal in the eyes of the law, be it rich or poor, strong or weak, male or female. So to address the root of the issue, what is imperative is to establish a procedure of a fair trial within the provisions of these stringent laws and to simultaneously ensure speedy trials of such delicate issues as it is well said, "Justice delayed is justice denied." Should comment no more on this matter, as it is already decidedly off course from the actual subject of this blog post.

Barring the above observations, probably the supreme agony of a man (I don't mean teenagers and below), is the daily errand of shaving the stubble of his chin. It is an enormous tragedy that an activity which even for a highly cautious man would demand no more than 15 minutes of his early morning schedule can become such a hurdle. I for myself consider my twice a week breakup of this task a huge disheartened performance of the job, considering the fact that my old man has been shaving his chin every single morning of my life, and I'm almost sure it has been so, even prior to my birth. There is something mysteriously eerie about this task that even the most ardent saloon-chic guy friends of mine are put off by the thought of having a shave in the morning or at best at the local barber shop. It is a phenomenon I have observed over years as a reluctant observer, even when I was a kid. I remember hearing my older cousins, dad's friends and even some boys with overcharged hormones (who had incidentally started having a full growth beard way back in tenth grade itself!) frivolously cribbing over what a pain in the ass this task was. Back then, I used to, out of curiosity, wonder what the feeling would be like. I remember several times in my childhood I had discreetly tried using my dad's razor on my hairless dimpled cheeks and ended up with nasty cuts which were too difficult to explain once they came under my mom's vision (which had the obscene knack of spotting where trouble might exist). My childhood travails apart, I must admit, the more curios I got of this razor business, the more reluctance was shown by my body of development of this primary puberty characteristic. I was among the last in my known social circle to acquire that manly greenish tinge that a shaved chin displays. Till almost my second year of college I used to shy away from guy talk comprising of shaving fundamentals. Though no one ever pointed this out, there was a time when I actually used to sit and wonder, is there anything wrong with me? Nevertheless, it was after much waiting and hopeful desperation, I finally managed to have enough facial hair that needed use of a razor. There are no words to explain the exulting feeling!

This is one memory I shall never forget. I associate this event of my first shave in the annals of my mind with the following thought that erupted in my brain on that auspicious day. I had my first swig of beer and my first drag of cigarette even before my first shave. Well as days progressed I had a comfortable time gap of around a couple of weeks between shaves and I managed it with elegance. I used to pity guys who had to shave daily or even every couple of days. I used to love shaving myself and I used to dread those days when I had to go to the local barber's for getting it done. It's like driving a car, you can't trust yourself to anyone else, I used to reason.

And then the time gap reduced gradually till I started having a subtle one-day stubble and a more pronounced two-day chin. To my chagrin, twice a week became mandatory as by the fourth day I used to cease looking like any part of the civil world. I stubbornly maintained twice a week till the immigration officer at the Delhi Airport failed to liken me in my third day stubble to the boy whose photograph was pasted on my passport. I had to reluctantly, upon the above said incident and after numerous tiffs with mom, start a routine of shaving every day. It was ironical. When I wanted to use the razor as a kid, my parents used to refrain me and when now, I felt reluctant to do the same, I was being pushed into it by them only. Nevertheless, I steal the opportunity to skip shaving every little when I can and now have truly recognised that shaving is such an arduous task and I would any day opt out of it. The cherry on the cake is that we can't even opt for permanent hair removal (for obvious reasons!). And I'm writing this today primarily because, yes no prize for guessing, I haven't shaved today!