Dressing up in the restroom

This rant is flowing out from pent up thoughts of many years, probably decades. The irksome act that has triggered this post is what the ubiquitous young Chennai male does in front of the mirror in a restroom.

When a desi “doood” enters the restroom, please bear in mind that the primary purpose is dressing up and the secondary is putting the flush tank to use. He stands in front of the mirror to take in his awesomeness and then stands there for more. Next, he gets on to washing his face, an act which requires about 2 litres of water being splashed on to the face, with some 1 litre flowing from the tap to the drain.

After water has been passed on from the inlet pipes to his face, the drain, the mirror and anything in a 1 foot radius, he slowly rises up to check if his awesomeness is still intact. He then resumes the act of taking in the awesomeness that was not washed away and with a generous pull-out of paper towels, he wipes his face and hands clean. After disposing the used towels, it is back to taking in some more of the awesomeness.

The “doood” then pulls out a small comb or some such contraption that has been procured primarily for its small size that can fit into the back pocket of a trouser. He now proceeds to comb his hair, repeating the sweep many times over. The hand that doesn’t have the comb goes around patting the combed hair just to quell any rebellion the strands may have planned. For added effect, there is a liberal movement of the neck for about 180 degrees, to ensure that not a single strand has moved away from its prescribed position.

Now comes a small variant in the action, caused by the presence or absence of facial hair in some “dooods”. The ones without any facial hair move on to the action in the next paragraph, whereas the ones, who don’t, move to the next sentence. The comb apparatus is now used to brush the moustache and beard if applicable, again with a lot of focus on aligning the strands to the prescribed position.

Finally, the said comb is then tucked back into the rear pocket with or without a wash, based on the time available on hand. Then it is again back to taking in the awesomeness. You see, I am fine with all this grooming because the probability of hairstyle to change in an hour or so is quite minimal, unless one is in the path of a major gust of wind, the probability of which is even lower, especially in Chennai. What I simply cannot understand is the next stage of the dressing up activity.

This next and in most cases final stage, involves the tucking in of the shirt inside the trousers. Sometimes it is also a T-shirt, but I digress. The fashion rules of Chennai somehow mandates that one should tuck in the shirt such that some portion of the tuck, spills over to the belt. Maybe it is a rule created to cover up the grossly worn out belt or the fact that the belt is so big that it wraps to near your rear.

The “dooods” spend a good part of the next 4 minutes to pummel the shirt inside the trouser, brush it to ensure that it sticks to the position over the belt, adjust the trousers by jiggling them a little, once again brushing the shirt, then jiggle some more….you get the drift. There is of course a liberal turning of one’s body to the maximum extent possible, so that one can see how the shirt is tucked in at the sides and part of the rear.

You wonder why I don’t understand the need to spend so much time in tucking in the shirt? Simple. The minute you take 5-6 steps, there is a clear movement of your clothes and all the tucking in will slowly ease itself out of the contrived placements. Also, invariably, the “doood” is going to sit on a chair either at his work-desk or in the cafeteria. In any case, physics and biology clearly dictate that the shirt will move, thereby negating all the time spent in correcting it in the restroom. So why do people still do it? Is it because they want even a casual onlooker to ignore the fact that the ubiquitous young Chennai male is wearing a striped t-shirt, tucked into a dark terry-cotton trouser with a white sneaker to complete the ensemble?