Thursday, December 10, 2009

My first massage and other things

Haha! Got your attention with the title, didn't I? No, serious, I had a massage yesterday. The first time ever in my uninteresting little life, if you don't count the ones the barber gives you after your haircut, which is to a real massage what Fardeen Khan is to Lawrence Olivier, as I will demonstrate in this post.

Well,  it happened this way.The missus was on her way to a spa for one of her beauty treatments which, I keep telling her, are completely superfluous for someone of her poise and elegance. Women are all alike, however. I'm sure Cleopatra did her eyebrows every week and Helen of Troy gave Paris hell over the state of her upper lip.

Anyway, I happened to be jobless at the given moment and she dragged me along  for chauffeuring purposes. I dutifully obeyed, of course, chauffeuring being one of my two natural talents (the other being my aptitude for meticulous and exhaustive research on distillery and brewery products). I was also smug in the knowledge that I had tucked away in the recesses of the car my laptop, and a newly acquired USB modem which allowed me internet access from virtually everywhere.

This time, however, the missus, with sharp change in policy (she usually lets me shuffle off to a book shop or a coffee place and potter around) dragged me into the spa with her. I should have suspected the worst but like a doofus, I gambolled alongside, the picture of innocence, even when we reached an imposing desk and an even more imposing woman. Not for long, though. The missus' opening words made my blood freeze.

"Hi. What treatment would you suggest for his face?", asked the missus, pointing to Exhibit A, viz. my mug.

The amazon appeared to consider this question seriously, though I'm sure she would have said something like "In my opinion, a thick veil would be best" had she been a completely honest person like Abraham Lincoln. Fortunately, she was not.

"How about a rejuvenating herbal facial?" she asked

"Will it be good for the bags under his eyes?" asked the missus

"Oh, of course!" lied the amazon, and then proceeded to deliver a fake scientific sermon on the goodness of honey and cucumber, the free radicals therein, and god knows what else - oyster sauce and tiramisu entered into the equation at one point - that went into the facepack she was going to put on my dial.

My opinion was not sought, of course, and anyway, there was no point in arguing with someone who had biceps like that. "I would also recommend a rejuvenating herbal massage", she added. She evidently considered me to be something one would find in a morgue, so keen was she on having me rejuvenated.

And so I was handed over to a mild looking middle aged man, which i confess was a relief because for a wild moment, I thought the amazon would be doing the needful.

The masseur put me face down on what looked like an operating table and proceeded to rub some nice smelling oil on my back. He spent the next five minutes on trying to see if he could twist any of my limbs off, but luckily, he wasn't successful. After that, however, he decided on a policy of non-violence and gently rubbed my back in a most soothing fashion. Somewhere along the way, I must have fallen asleep, because I could feel someone shaking me by the shoulder and mumbling something about facials.

Thus ended my first massage. It is a superb feeling, very relaxing and soporific, and I strongly recommend it to anyone who has the time, the inclination and a thousand spare rupees he is not planning to spend on Apple products.

The facial, which followed, involved a great deal of fuss of which I could understand nothing, because the chap had firmly placed two large pieces of cucumber on my eyes. Soothing, perhaps, but definitely opaque. He was making funny faces at me for all I knew. I could deduce, from circumstantial evidence, that he was putting stuff on  my face, rubbing it a bit, then wiping it off before trying it anew. After an hour of this, he proudly showed me a mirror, which very honestly told me that I still looked the same jerk I looked before he did the fancy moves.

Somehow, I felt  relieved.

24 comments:

Mariya said...

Aargh I was hopin for some juicy tidbits! :D

Anonymous said...

Just stumbled across this blog; It takes a very secure man to blog about massages and facials, this Age of Metrosexuals notwithstanding :) (Doffs his hat)

wineye said...

you need to have have tht before/after pic on this blog Naren..

They say a pic speaks of a thousand words ;)

The Double Inverted Commas said...

Second Wineye. We want pictures..Nice reading!

Anonymous said...

I really expected something to happen during the massage.. but telling us you slept..but chaa..u slept off! :D :P

Enjoyed the post! :)

--Saranya

buddy said...

ah the joys of reading the travails of your life!

AlwaysHappyKya said...

The missus is super smart I say ( as if The Mr did not know already!)..massage by a man and all huh?

Where were the pretty petite massage gals? I bet you would have been far from falling asleep then :D

ANC said...

As someone who loves massages a LOT, I am jealous. And yes, sleeping off during a massage is the ultimate compliment you can give to the masseur/masseuse :)

jatkesha said...

So, you ended up being like George Costanza in Seinfeld who gets a massage.

Poor you Naren. I expected some pretty girl would give you a massage. Oh wait, you went with the missus. So, that is out of question!

Deepak Gopalakrishnan said...

Did all those F.R.I.E.N.D.S episodes come running back to you?

Don't worry, Anna. People around you will see the difference immediately. Remember what happened with the XBox when Anand used the other cable? Same thing will happen.

Kalyan Karmakar said...

Hi came upon the post from Cloud Cutter's blog. Yes the headline did draw me in. Good stuff. I went to a Thai massage at Bombay sometime back. No Amazon or lady from Saigon. I snoozed off too :)

Spaz Kumari said...

i had a terrible massage in kerala, i wasn't even close to asleep by the end. they hauled me up at the end and told me to sit in a large marble tub full of cold water. it had dried up rose petals and dead insects floating in it. then they hauled me out again and made me shower and get the hell out.

where was your massage?

Sowmya Srikrishnan said...

Know what, even I think the spa guys make funny faces at everyone after they place the cucumber slices. Not just you, Naren.

NightWhisperers said...

massages are such relaxing times...Good for you to doze off :)

Btw, to believe that you look different after a Facial requires a lot of self-belief ;0

Lol !

Mrinalini said...

i loved the post! u had probably the most honest and cute massage description out there! and yes, the difference is what others see, u just feel umm, relieved :)

Vinita Apte said...

hahha you are one funny dude :) Was expecting some description of a disastrous massage but still funny.

Wish I could con my hubby like ur missus did :)

Unknown said...

Exhibit A is Sah-rug-gan of Blogosphere. So the Amazon, to her credit, offered the perfect rest to you in your hectic schedules. Kudos to her and your missus.

And yes...pics please... popular demand. Or does the paparazzi already have them?

Cynic in Wonderland said...

WHY are these massage people always built like amazons? very scary they are. i think they intimidate one into taking it.

RukmaniRam said...

for some reason,i kept reading "massage" as "message" and kept wondering what messages they were that your barber was giving you!

Chethana said...

ha! Finally you have something less interesting than me. I went for a petty nail treatment and ended up with a full body massage by a pretty young oriental person in Goa!

workhard said...

HAHAHA...like the ending... this post is so tempting me to go for a massage...


Work from home India

Maddy said...

I was encouraged by the missus and various relatives to go for the full treatment at the new 'barber' shop (maybe i should call it hair and face treatment salon or something) in Calicut but i decided not to, maybe unwisely or so i feel after reading your musings. And that made me think of the barber shops of korea..where the full treatment was once upon a time indeed full.

Anonymous said...

You know. I read that "Helen of Troy giving Paris hell" and the imagery that came to mind involved the wrong Paris. Damn you internet

R Saraswathan said...

Moral of the story, "You get the Message after the Massage! Lol".