My 3rd speech @ ToastMasters

Here is the text of my 3rd speech.

Gone are the days when only women had the inclination to look pretty, though they still spend endless hours at salons and countless money on products to look gorgeous and ravishing. They spend on beauty products like mascara, eyeliners, lipsticks, mesmerizing perfumes and "n" number of other fancy items to have a different look. I guess natural beauty is only a myth now. Also women keep on complaining that they lag behind men in some fields like in automobile industry or in aviation industry for becoming an airplane pilot. Similarly, we men also think that we lag behind women in the particular field of looking beautiful. Never mind, we are catching up in this field as well. Let me give you an example, earlier there was "Fair and Lovely" cream exclusively for women, so we men thought, "Why should girls have all the fun?" so now we have "Fair and Handsome" cream for us. Women watch out - here come the men.

I am sure that the men salon concept across India is close to being identical but I must say that experience has been an eye opener. The place I visit always has a surprise for me so I thought of sharing some of them.

This groom-to-be had come with his entourage to get ready for D-Day. He probably wanted to look 'fairer' so he must have tried at least two-three treatments to wipe off the dark shade pestered on his face. All attempts failed. To give you the exact picture - imagine 20 pounds of talcum powder on Courtney Walsh's face. His entourage was loyal and they encouraged him to put 20 pounds more.

Before I explain the next incidence you have to understand that men share a lot of details and talk a lot with the barber. Owing to this fact I found out that the guy sitting next to me wanted to spend 3 hours at the salon as his mom-in-law was going to be at his place for that long. To kill time the dude took a hair cut (he was partially bald), took an oil massage (the sound of the barber's hand whacking the bald terrain was something), took a facial and got his nails cut (now that is really disrespecting the mother-in-law). He was so adamant that he had more time to kill; he would have started helping the other customers too. By the way I will not discuss what I was doing for those 3 hours.


The entire salon went quiet when a Chinese national walked in. He must have been a gutsy one. He could barely speak English so the barber had to turn to me for help - 'Arey - yeh haka noodles kya bol raha hai'. I explained to the best of my capabilities. Unfortunately it turned out that my Chinese version of English is not good! Poor fellow was literally in tears and left crying.

I will be very honest. In spite of all of this chaos I really enjoy my time there, as it is 'the' guy space. No inhibitions and no hassles. I think I can say this with confidence that women don't have a single space like this and for that they should be jealous. After all men are from Mars.