I was reading an interview / profile of Samuel L Jackson, when something made me want to write what I am about to write (although this is hardly the first time that I am thinking along these lines). The article on Jackson showed a scene from his latest film Tarzan, in which he (in character) is running, rifle in hand, along with Alexander Skarsgard who (no surprises) is Tarzan. Tarzan: Child of the civilised white man in the jungle of the uncivilised black man. (And there is Mowgli: A different story, but a similar premise.)

Exactly how many Hollywood films have we seen in which the white man comes to the rescue of a black one? (The last one I remember trying to watch was Finding Forrester. It has been hailed as a great film, but, frankly, I found it to be a load of pretentious bull-shit.) And how many films have we seen in which the man rescues the woman? Too many to remember.

In college, while digging through the books in the library, I had come across this phrase: "History is written by the victors." It was a realisation; something quite obvious, but something that had to be deliberately pointed out to me. But I had not understood the full import of the phrase. It is only now, years later, that I have gradually gathered what it really means, and what it will always mean.

And this not just applies to the political history of the world, but its social history as well. What if the history of the African nations were documented first by Africans themselves? What if Mahabharat or The Prince were written by women? What if Margaret Thatcher was a proclaimed homosexual?

When I have sometimes sat down to even contemplate what history really might have been had the victorious (every form of them--whites, men, upper-castes, heterosexuals, etc) NOT written it, it is like questioning the very foundations of most things that I have ever known. It is like waking up one day and being told that every single thing that everyone has ever told me about everything is probably a lie.

Forget about knowing others, it's almost like I don't know myself anymore.

And that, in a very strange way, can be immensely liberating. Because now I can make myself, without anyone else having made it for me.

The man who delivers my newspaper every morning is someone I meet once a month, when he comes to collect the subscription money. Which is fine by me. Every day, I hear a muted thud on my door when he sticks in the folded paper into the door latch. What I also hear is a rapid slap-slap of rubber slippers on the staircase. He takes the lift to the topmost floor of the building and progresses downwards.

One morning, when I was up and out way before my usual time, I caught him on his delivery round just as I was getting into the lift at my floor. He was hurtling down the steps from the floor above to mine at a manic speed (hence the slap-slap of slippers), with a stack of papers held under his left arm, and before I could even blink he had taken one set of papers from that stack with his right hand, deftly folded it into a cone, and stuck it with one swift and neat movement into the latch of my door. All this while he continued to hurtle down and, subsequently, turn the bend in the stairs.

That was very impressive hand-eye-brain-feet coordination.

But newspaper vendors tend to have such tricks up their sleeves. One of the most enduring images from childhood is that of the newspaper guy throwing rolled (and tied) papers up to the balconies of homes. So, the guy would park his bicycle somewhere, roll up newspapers individually (this was when households got one newspaper each instead of a truckload of them every morning) and tie them up with pieces of yarn. He would then proceed to chuck the newspapers up to the balconies of different homes--balconies on the first floor, on the second floor even; buildings didn't go much higher than that then. I would stand at my school bus stop and gape as the roll of newspaper glided up the length of a building, seemed to pause in mid-air just as it reached the edge of the balcony, elegantly curved over the balcony railing (like a pole-vaulter crossing the horizontal bar) and landed on the balcony floor, usually at a pair of waiting feet. Again and again the vendor would throw up paper rolls, and each time it would be an act to evoke the greatest of wonder and awe in me.

Where I live, buildings rarely have open balconies. And even if they do, they would probably be on the 22nd floor, or something like that. Can't quite chuck newspaper rolls that high, can you? Hence the likes of my vendor here, manically running down the staircase, making paper cones and snagging them in door latches.

They are inventive that way.

Till a couple of years ago, I used to feel somewhat sorry for men where their fashion options were concerned. They would only have the blues, blacks and greys to pick from, perhaps the odd tan or olive, where their trousers were concerned; the browns and blacks for their shoes; and the whites and blues (in various combination of dots, stripes, and checks) for their shirts. They couldn't do much with their hair either... either on their heads or on their faces. Poor things.

But the past year or so has made me change my mind.

The variety of hairstyles and beard-styles that are now doing the rounds is astounding; as is the colour of their clothes and shoes (green pants, yellow shirt, brown shoes anyone?). I am not sure how offices allow men to come in to work with a head that looks like a mop, or a face that looks like it needs serious shampooing. Someone said that this trend of facial hair is a reaction to the metrosexual look of a few years ago. So what does that mean? A few years ago men were looking like women, and now they are looking like cavemen? Why can't they just look like, you know, men?

The problem is, the men who are adopting these styles clearly don't have any idea how they actually look in them. Given that women were the ones who have traditionally subjected themselves to ridiculous fashion trends, I had not quite realized that men would do the same, once they got the opportunity. And now that they have got the opportunity, they are going hammer and tongs at it. Every brand worth its name uses Caucasian-looking men to model their clothes, posing against European-looking backgrounds. But when some poor paunchy bloke in Bombay decides to wear exactly identical colours... well, the effect is just hilarious.

Somebody should just tell these poor idiots.