Never Has a Razor Made Me Homesick Before

First, happy Thanksgiving, everyone, but I'll get back to that in a later post. First, a quick story about last weekend.

“Hey, I know you! You’re Matt from Boston.” She said. I had no idea who she was. All I knew was that she was blond, and from her accent, I guessed she was from Germany.

“Oh, yeah, hey. Yeah, how’s it going?” I decide to try to play this cool. I was in this for the free razor. I was trying to figure out who this person was.

“It’s me, so-and-so, you know, from the club, and Utkarsh’s birthday, you remember, right?”

Right. Of course.

We had just finished up playing paintball, I was sweating balls, and was trying to cool off in the mall next to the paintball field. I had been watching the giant tent set up in the center of the mall passively while eating some waffle with ice cream.

It was a promotion for Gillette, a company based out of the great state of Boston. Looks like Gillette had decided to follow Bobby and I over to India. They had a team of women in short skirts, clear aprons, and a black t shirt shaving guys.

The women working at the tent would have gone unnoticed back home in the US, but here in India, it’s something that is only starting to become common, in a country where PDA is strictly not allowed. But there will still be companies or bars that will ask girls to stand around and look pretty, and hand out samples or maybe make small talk with people at the malls. It’s pretty common to see foreign girls working these gigs, since its easy money and the foreign girls are in short supply. Unfortunately, I’ve never received any similar work offers.

Andreas explained to me the promotion. You go up, sit in a chair, get shaved, answer a couple quick questions, and get a free razor. A free Gillette razor. I was interested.

The razor that I’ve been using (since my electric died out on me months ago) is a simple two blade knock off Gillette that I bought for about fifty cents. It had lasted me a while, but also gave me nasty cuts and fierce stubble whenever I shaved. I knew, then, it was time for me to be shaved. Andreas and Florian volunteered to photograph the occasion.

I had no idea that I would end up being recognized by one of the people working there. It would be awkward enough as is, had I remembered who it was:

“Oh hey Matt, how’s it going?”

“Oh hey so-and-so, I see you’re shaving strangers in a mall while being leered at by strange Indian dudes. How’s life?”

Not knowing who this person was made things only awkward-er. But that’s how it is being an expat in Pune. Every expat seems to know everyone else here. Maybe this is why going away parties are so big here.

Much to my relief and disappointment, I was saved by some boss figure from the awkward moment of being shaved by a stranger that kind of knows me but I have no memory of. He sat me down and had one of the other girls perform the ritual.

I’ve never been shaved by another person before. It was a weird experience. Sharp blades on my neck are not normally something I volunteer for. The girl was also completely inept at giving a shave. C’est la vie, at least I got a free American quality razor out of it, and Andreas got lots of pictures of me looking awkward.

While I was at the mall, I made a conclusion about what I would consider India’s top three most popular Americans.

#1 Obama
Not much of a surprise here. Even when the right calls Obama a socialist, that is hardly an insult in a liberal socialist country. He recently treated the Prime Minister to a fancy dinner at the White House. When I was walking in Kerala, a street vendor asked where I was from. When I told him I was from America, he lit up.

“Ahh! Obama people!” He excitedly told me what a great man Obama was, and that all Obama people love to buy his postcards.

#2 Akon
He’s everywhere. People who never learned a word of English before seem to know all the words to Right Now. Seriously, Akon is everywhere.

#3 The cast of Friends
Okay, so this isn’t one person, but whenever I’m surfing the channels on the TV, I can almost guarantee an episode of Friends will be on somewhere. Every bookstore/DVD shop, from the outlets at the mall to the guy on the street corner will have a boxed set of Friends Season Whatever. It’s like a cult around here. A cult of Friends.