If you are a normal male you would be doing what a normal male usually does -- take a bath every Sunday whether you need it or not. But if you are a male and not normal, you are probably making money by investing in stocks. Let us, for the time being, forget that most normal males make more money opening up national franchises of earwax than from stocks. Whatever their shortcomings on the fiscal front, normal males are very fastidious about hygiene whenever they are sober enough to spell it. This obsession has led to their being obsessive about their personal hygiene as is apparent from my friend Sudarshan's (not his real name) desk, on and under which you can find everything on earth and then some. Sudarshan, let me hasten to add, is very much single. Anyway, that's not our point. Our point is cleanliness. Every normal male uses a substance called 'soap' for attaining this state of physique, after which he is convinced that he looks like Tom Cruise... oh, never mind the paunch that is roughly the size of Soviet Russia. For generations soap was used by him, until he had reduced it to the size of a postage stamp. At which juncture, he had to take off the wrapper. Most normal males are convinced that soap wrappers are meant to serve as soap cases, which is irritating because it is obvious that the real use for that is to roll into tiny balls for your dustbin shooting practice. This system of Plain Soap worked well for many, many years. And then one fine day our normal male woke up and found that the marketing guys were bulldozing him with gels, scrubs, washes and the like. Taking it for a nightmare, he did what every normal male does when confronted with such situations. Had a beer. This is also, by some weird coincidence, exactly the sort of thing a normal male does when not confronted with such situations -- but let that be so for now. The gels, washes etc confused the normal male's mind, 85 per cent of which was loaded with Sex and the rest with More Sex. I want to ask all these marketing guys (most of whom are still in the process of finishing the immigration formalities, which is something all migrants from the planet Sabater have to do): Why are you doing this to us again? You did this to us once with pasta. Got away pretty lightly too, considering the number of people who are still struggling to differentiate between spaghetti and spirelli. Let us be, we will manage on our own. It is very important that you use the right type of soap. If you do not, the Sabaterians will turn you into a frog and if you happen to be Sunil Shetty, they will turn you into a human. Look at this: A Normal Male walks into a store and asks for soap. Sabaterian A: Would you like a scrub, sir? Normal Male (flustered): NO... NO... I will have that myself when I get home. Right now I just want some plain soap. Sabaterian B: I presume you are just looking for a gel, sir? Normal Male: Hmm, er, well... yeah! Sabaterian A: The regular one or the vitaminised kind? Normal Male (relieved): Vitaminised. Sabaterian B: The plain body gel should be just right. Normal Male (eagerly): Yeah, yeah... Sabaterians (in chorus): Hahaha, there is no plain vitaminised body gel anymore, you stupid earthling! Normal Male: Croak!!! As you see, the consequences are really unpleasant. Because, once you turn into a frog you can kiss your beer good bye -- and it won't turn into a prince. Time and again Normal Malekind has faced deadly challenges. We have had disasters like world wars, famines, bell-bottom. We survived all those. This too shall pass, though I am not sure how. One way could be to ask your wife/girlfriend to buy what you need for you. The other is to skip bathing altogether. A wise guy would go for the first option, but we are talking about normal males here. Rahul Phondke is very much a Normal Male. IIlustration: Dominic Xavier Tell us what you think of this diary
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