Note: Reader discretion advised. This piece was written in a light vein and not intended to cause any offense. All name and characters used are fictitious and any resemblance to persons living or dead or events past,present or future is purely coincidental and not the result of the scheming, conniving or otherwise diseased mind of a bored blogger.
(Please check the blog section at -
http://www.sajha.com/guild/read.cfm?guildid=403 for a cleaned-up version of this article where any typos, gramatical errors and errors of carelessness will be fixed. )
When I grow up I want to look like Bruce Lee "When I grow up, I want to look like Bruce Lee" 6-year-old Sarin told his 9-year-old sister Pradita as he looked at himself in the mirror and flattened his nose with the thumb of one hand and used the other hand to pull back the skin around his eyes so it looked as though he had slanting eyes like Bruce Lee.
"Ha ha ha " his sister Pratida laughed at Sarin. "I don't know about Bruce Lee, but right now you look like Rana Uncle". Rana uncle was their next-door neighbor. A handsome man in his late forties, he had an oval face with a Roman nose that was slightly flat towards the tip. He had thick eyebrows, a bushy military moustache and here's the Bruce Lee bit : slanting eyes. He was a very handsome man judging by how all the older cousin girls were always giggling and talking about him in hushed tones.
Encouraged by his sister's remark, Sarin went downstairs to the living room where he had heard his parents talking. He burst into the living room and put on the act again and this time instead of saying Bruce Lee he said "Mummy, baba look at me, I look just like Rana Uncle".
He expected his parents to go hysterical with laughter just like his sister had. Instead their faces were frozen. Seated there in the room in the big green sofa, holding up a cup of tea, was General Megh Sumsher Jung Bahadur Rana, the future commander in chief of the Royal Nepalese Army a.k.a "Rana Uncle" to the children. Next to him was Kaushalya Aunty, his wife and a former headmistress who had gained notoriety amongst the neighborhood kids for the big long "imported" cane she kept in her house. Rumour had it she did not spare the rod on anyone who so much as set a toe-nail on her orchard while playing hide and seek.
Rana Uncle saved the moment by making light of it all with a witty remark about how Sareen still needed to grow a moustache. Right after the guests left, Sareen was chased down by his mother, smacked on his bottom, and confined to puja kotha in the attic till dinner for his behaviour.
He never did the Bruce Lee or Rana Uncle act again.
***
Sarin never thought about his physical features again till he went to boarding school. It was in the second or third grade that someone told him he had a nose like a Brahmin.
"What is a Bramhin?" he asked
"Someone who sings Hare Ram Hare Krishna " came the reply.
When he came home for summer vacation, he asked his parents why his nose was pointed unlike the rest of the family and most of the kids at school.
That's when he learnt about plastic surgery. His mother, a gynaecologist by vocation, mentioned plastic surgery in passing to his father. She of course meant it as a joke but the idea got etched in Sarin's infantile mind and would stay there for a long long time.
***
Sarin was a handsome kid. He was the darling of his primary school teachers and the girls in senior classes who would buy him candy after looking at his face and going "How cute". He never quite understood it but it got him free toffee so he figured there must be something else right about his face other than his nose.
Sarin forgot his features till he was in the sixth grade. He was rudely reminded of it again in boxing class when his opponent, Dhiru, two grades his senior and whom he had overwhelmed and pinned to the ground in two previous rounds, took aim at his nose. Seething with pain and anger, he retaliated by hitting back at his opponent's nose. The result: one week of detention, two bloodied noses and a lot of bad blood when his opponent whispered to him in the detention room that his nose had been deliberately targeted because it stood out.
It then dawned on Sarin that he looked different from many of the people around him. Some of his classmates looked like him, while others looked different and it seemed all because of their noses. He started looking at peoples noses more closely. The American principal's nose was different from his Chinese class teacher's. One seemed excessively long and the other unfairly short. Ever the do-gooder, he wondered what would happen if the Principal sliced away a bit of his nose and gave it to his teacher. He giggled at the ingenuity of his thoughts.
"What are you laughing at, Sarin?" Ms Chiu was suddenly at his desk "Are you day dreaming again? Do you want to do another week of detention?"
"No, miss"
"Then pay attention when I am teaching" she went on "at this rate, you are not going to pass this class" she said and moved away from his desk. "First he picks up a fight with senior boys and gets beaten up and now he has stopped listening in class"
"What is the square root of 256?" she then asked the class.
"But miss, I didn't get beaten up. He was the one who almost fainted" he clarified clearly disturbed at her understanding of events and completing ignoring the square root of 256. The class burst into giggles and nervous laughter. In those days it was not too common for students to talk back to their teachers without getting scolded or punished.
"Shut up now or I will add one more week to your detention" Ms Chiu could get really mean. I hope she never gets a slice of the principals nose he said to himself as he said "Yes, miss" . The thought of her being stuck with a stubbed nose for the rest of her life made him feel better.
The nose business soon turned into an obsession. He took out a ruler and measured the size of his nose. He noted it down. He would measure again in a few days to see if it changed.
***
It was in the 9th grade that he noticed an add in the newspaper from a medical college in the US that was looking for volunteers to take part in a plastic surgery recovery study. He cut the ad from the newspaper, saved it inside one of his text books, took it home during the winter holidays and promptly filled in the application and posted it to America.
***
Soon after, he started forgetting about his nose again. He had changed schools and was now in a school where more people had noses like his. In fact, he was now a strong and well built boy who had found that in spite of his nose, he seemed popular, both with the guys and girls. He still wanted his nose fixed someday, but was content for the moment.
That state of contentment would give way to despair whenever he fought with other boys, which was rare, but it did occur a few times. Or when he would "break-up" with one of his girl friends which was much more frequent between the time he was in high school and the time he graduated from college in the US.
***
So Sarin was pleasantly surprised to get an email from John Poppins University asking if he was still interested in the study. This was almost 7 or 8 years after he had applied for it. It seemed like a very good offer. All his medical expenses would be paid and he would constantly be monitored through video and other technology by a group of researchers 6 months before and after the procedure. And he could chose how he wanted his nose shaped although he would be guided by a team of experts who would explain his choices to him and help him make the best decision.
He had a week to get back. He was really excited. This was what he had wanted and finally he was getting it. He called up his girlfriend and shared the good news with her.
"But what is wrong with your nose?" she asked when she heard the news
"What do you mean? Haven't you noticed how my nose is shaped?" he was getting a bit annoyed that she wasn't being supportive.
"Are you kidding me? You have the cutest nose I have seen" she said. He thought she was saying that only to make him feel good. He called up a few other friends to get their opinions. He got mixed views. Some said do it if you want. Others said, what, are you crazy? But he heard something that surprised him: not one of them said there was anything wrong with his nose. No matter what their final advice was, they all seemed to think he looked great the way he was.
He even called one of his friends from the school with the American principal and the Chinese teacher. He had reconnected with her a few years ago and they had come to be good friends again. He came to find out that she was now married to Dhiru, the guy who had punched him in boxing class, and they had a 2-year-old son with another on the way.
"You are funny!" she roared with laughter when he brought it up. "Why would anyone want to change such a sweet nose?" she continued almost hysterically. "Did I ever tell you I had a crush on you in Ms Chiu's class? As did Sarita and Vicky."
Sarin declined the John Poppins offer.
He currently lives in the suburbs of Washington DC in peace with his nose, his German Sheppard Dhiru, a golf set, 2 tennis rackets and 2 laptops that he uses for blogging and other recreational activities.
