Other than a tourist taking a bus ride for leisure and fun, it is a trivial activity. For me, as a designer, it offers an opportunity to witness lot of interesting encounters.
These days, I am playing tennis over the weekends with my friend Kunal who lives in Minneapolis. Every Saturday and Sunday, I take Bus 94 to 2nd Avenue and 2nd Street. The trip time is around 30 minutes.
I do not prefer to carry a book, an ipod, or PSP for entertainment for such a short trip and end up spending time looking outside the window or observing people habits – mostly weird. It is funny to see people with bizarre fashionable clothes, piercings, and behavior.
Last weekend, a gentleman in his late thirties, wearing beige suit and a hat hopped on the bus I was traveling. Besides clothes, the other noticeable thing about this man was his “Dali” mustache. (A narrow mustache with long points bent or curved steeply upward. Named after artist Salvador Dali. More: http://www.americanmustacheinstitute.org/MustacheStyles.aspx)
The gentleman takes the seat and starts grooming his mustache. No, I am not objecting mustache grooming. It is his personal property and he has all the right to groom it in public. As far as I know, grooming mustache is certainly not a crime according to either Minnesota or Federal laws. However, the real problem started when grooming turned to obsession.
By his mustache’s appearance, I could see that it was gelled for perfect styling. He starts with pulling his mustache away from the cheeks, extending the middle section (including ends) upwards and finishing with pointing the ends. That act of pulling the mustache in itself was so gruesome that I - including other passengers – felt repulsive. It was difficult to see the cruelty that he was bestowing on himself. Perhaps, he was enjoying the act of pulling, therefore, continued it for almost 10 minutes. During these painful moments, he pulled the mustache to the extent of ripping it apart. Because of the sheer force of pulling, his upper lips would protrude out of his face and make him look like a chimpanzee showing his upper teeth. I wouldn’t have cared if the pain remained with him but he was spreading it to all of us through our locked stares. We all prayed to God to take off his pain and bless him including us.
Finally, the grooming ended and all of us took a sigh of relief to realize that there was more to come.
Within a minute, his hands went inside his bags and found a CD. I thought that he would play music. My assumption was horribly wrong. He took the CD out of its cover and started using its reflective surface as a mirror. This time he wanted to ensure that the grooming was perfect by examining it with his own eyes – instead of his fellow passengers. By this time we already had become fans of his exotic mustache style.
Mirror is a strange and powerful object. It forces people to groom themselves even when not required. This gentleman, the modern Dali, also could not resist his instincts of giving final touches to the perfect master piece displayed on his face. The grooming session started again with the same intensity, however, for a change, this time it lasted only for 5 minutes.
The moment, he kept the CD back into the cover; we passengers knew that the session had ended. Within next minute he went into deep sleep of peace and accomplishment. Of course, the excruciating pain and the herculean effort in the pursuit of perfection took a toll on his body.
I felt tremendously lucky and blessed to witness this artistic feat. Long live mustache. God bless mustache.
