Shaving and Spectacles

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There are a number of things I am going to miss when I leave India in a couple of weeks. I will definitely miss the people and the service you get anywhere. I will miss the food of course, and I will miss having somebody drive me around. I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to shaving when I get home though. I think this is number two of things I am looking forward to (#1 being my friends and family in the States).

Let me tell you shaving in India is one of the most difficult tasks to do here (other than shipping packages) and I never realized how much I took the luxuries I have in the States for granted. See hot water is a luxury here. Everybody has a water heater, but they are all really tiny and only hooked up to a shower. Most houses have one that is 10.5 liters. Mine is huge, it is 25 liters. Wow that doesn’t sound so bad you say?? Well next time you go to the grocery store, look at the shelf with soda on it and count out 10 Coke bottles. That is how much hot water I have when I take a shower. I have 10 and ½ 2 liter coke bottles of water.

But that is only in my shower. None of the sinks actually have hot water, they only have cold water, and actually the water is pretty nasty so you wouldn’t want to use it for shaving anyway. So they way I have to shave is as follows:

Step One:
Get a bowl and fill it up with purified water. (I prefer kingfisher water since it is local and I want to give the locals some business)

Step Two:
Microwave the water until it is boiling. Now granted I am using purified water, but the bowl it is in was washed with nasty sink water, so you need to purify that as well.

Step Three:
Put a washcloth on top of the bowl to get it moist with hot water. I tried dipping the cloth into the water but ended up with second degree burns on my face and hands, so I find just putting the cloth over works well too.

Step Four:
Lather up with baby oil. Why you ask am I putting on baby oil? Well this is a little hint from Heloise; see the oil prevents your skin from drying out due to the extreme temperature of the water.

Step Five:
Put the razor in the bowl of boiling water.

Step Six:
Later up with Shaving cream. (Self explanatory)

Step Seven:
Shave as quickly as possible using the water in the bowl. I took my time once and the water got cold and I ended with cuts on my face. I guess if you shave slowly, then you can just boil another bowl of water, but that just seems wasteful

Step Seven B:
Using only the bowl of boiling water, tap the excess hair off the razor while shaving. I made the mistake of trying to rinse the razor in the cold water while shaving and ended up with cuts on my face.

Step Eight:
Rinse off razor when done with remaining bowl of water.

Step Nine:
Pour remaining hot water on the rag to use to wipe the excess shaving cream off your face. See if you don’t do that, then you will waste some of the precious water from the shower which means you only get to take a 3 minute shower instead of a 4 minute shower.

Step Ten:
Put tissue on the cuts on your face that you got while shaving too quickly.

Now I know some of you are asking why shave at all? Why not just grow a beard? Well if you ever saw me in a beard you wouldn’t ask that question. The second question I am sure you are asking is why not just buy an electric razor. Well I can’t shave with one, it hurts my skin and I break out. However after four weeks of shaving I finally broke down and shopped for one this weekend. Well I have discovered the only thing in India that costs more here than in the US. A regular electric razor that would retail in the US for about 25 bucks costs $4620 or about $105.00 US. An even cheaper item, a bead trimmer with about 20 dollar US retail price goes for $3740 or $85.00 US.

Now on the flip side of this, today I went shopping for spectacles. I last purchased glasses in the US about 2 years ago, and as my vision isn’t what it used to be, and as I heard that the prices here were reasonable, I decided to see for myself. The last pair of glasses I purchased was from lens crafters and they cost me about $300.00 because I bought the scratch resistant glass and bendable frames. So today, my friend Sriram and I ran around town checking out optical shops. After much searching I found two pairs that I really liked. Sriram was quite shocked at the price tag and thought I was buying glasses that were very expensive. I also went overboard and got not only the scratch resistant glass and bendable frames; but also got the glare resistant glass as well as the tinting on one of the pairs (you know the ones where if you go outside they get dark but inside they are regular glasses). I also had an eye exam with an optometrist who went to school in Boston. So the lady rings me up and it was $4488 that is $102 US dollars. So I got two pairs of high end glasses for about a third of the price of one pair in the US.

So lesson today: Electronics: very expensive in India, everything else: dirt cheap

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