New Perspectives in Male Gazing - A Psycho-Sociological Analysis of Behavioural and Dress Patterns in the Modern Indian Male Aged Under 30

Standing on the fourth floor of Garuda Mall and looking down, literally and figuratively, at other people also standing and looking down, into the central quadrangle, Arun (much thanks for the extensive inputs) and I engaged in a sociological study - of classifying people at Garuda Mall, and thereby males under the age of 30, into various categories. Read carefully, these categories help you form strong first opinions of people you see, not only at malls, but anywhere else, and will earn you the coveted title of a ‘snob’.

Category 1: The Ninjas

No, the photograph has nothing to do with these ‘ninjas’. A typical ninja wears a bandana, really tight, cheap jeans, check-out-my-six-pack tight t-shirt and rides a Yamaha RX100. A ninja also worships the actors in Dhoom 2 A typical ninja also speaks bad English, but speaks English nonetheless. A typical ninja usually has ‘bleached’ hair. I use the term ‘bleached’ as opposed to ‘coloured’ because it looks more like the hair has been bleached, with some form of acid, as opposed to coloured.

Category 2: The ‘kewl’s

i rite dis prt n sms lingo cos dats hw da kewls tlk… da kewls r of 2 typs… da call center typ n da punju typ..da 1st typ hv dis weird us typ accnt coz de hv 2 tlk on da phn wid ppl frm da us in dat accnt…da 2nd typ lyk 2 act lyk dere in a karan johar mvie..neder cn spll in eng vry well..2th hv dscvrd da plsrs of mobs[1]…2th drss lyk sak[2] in hum tum…mite hv colred, strgtnd[3] hair…de luv action mvies…”yaar, mi3 mein kya jump kiya, yaar”…nrmly wid kewl galfrnd…

Category 3: Engineering

Now, in a mall, when you see a bunch of guys (crucial: they are ONLY guys) hanging around with backpacks, walking aimlessly around the mall, usually hanging around the places where the one commodity that they lack in their engineering lives – the women[4] – hang around, you can be sure they’re all engineering students. The clothing they wear ranges from Man U/Arsenal jersey (bought by themselves), to checked shirts (bought by mommy). Sometimes, they have with them the engineering chick (relevant music and drum roll)! Now this is that one chick who is surrounded by seven men, all with backpacks, with each trying to outdo the other. In theory, only one of them is ‘behind’ her, to use the engineering lingo. Subconsciously, they all hope for a group study with the academically inclined, Chamarajpet, MES College, CET rank 400, PESIT free seat, Infosys-job chicka.

Category 4: Metal

Either from Engineering Colleges or Christ College. Black T-shirt with some random metal band on it. Blue, torn jeans with stuff written in blue ball point pen – usually angsty messages about killing people and initiating world peace. Random hair growth on face. Longish, unkempt hair on head. Present having consumed performance enhancers at rock shows. Many a time, part of metal band. Otherwise, best friend is guitarist in metal band. Can play four or five chords on a guitar[5]. Can growl like metal vocalists. Sometimes, hard of hearing due to all the heaviosity in music heard. Have strong opinions on serious issues such as death[6], legalising marijuana[7] and globalisation[8]. Usually, buy branded clothes and original, capitalist metal CDs.

Category 5: The Wannabes

The title is self-explanatory. They are the types who want to fit in. Usually, the saddest cases in all of the sociology, because their aspirations of fitting in are thwarted by the various groups that they try to fit into – they’re too unkewl to be the kewls, they’re to civilised to be ninja, their ears are too cultured to be metals, and they don’t do engineering. They are seen at malls, but are unwilling to spend anything. They are seen at rock concerts, but usually look too bombed. They are seen at Engineering college fests, but look on blankly when the “tech-events” happen. And they do have bikes[9], but cant bring themselves to zip on them even though they think Dhoom 51 was the coolest movie ever.

Category 6: The Hip

The last-but-one category in this sociological analysis considers itself to be the coolest, and the one that everyone should aspire to be in. What they don’t realise, however, is that people are happy being where they are – as ninjas, engineering or metal. And the hip, in their own snobbish world, derive their own pleasure, laughing at the ninjas, the engineering and the metal for what they are. So, everyone’s happy.

Category 7: Arun[10] and me

This category doesn’t have a label because as theorists[11] we firmly believe that labels are not important, although attaching labels to people can be a lot of fun. We don’t fit into any category, and because we don’t want to fit into any category, we’re not wannabe. We are above everything. We’re citizens of the world. Citizens of the Universe, in fact. Given the Big Bang theory, we are a part of this ever-expanding, label-neutral universe – as a wise man once said, “We’re atoms in the universe – A universe of atoms”. Although, we sometimes do ponder over whether the Multiverse theory is more attractive!

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[1] Short for ‘mobile’.

[2] Saif Ali Khan

[3] Straightened.

[4] Note: The average sex ratio in Engineering colleges is around 1:13. One woman: Thirteen Guys!!

[5] Which is all that is required for random metal growling. Note: Here, I make a distinction between metal and ‘metall’ – the latter is the meaningless screaming that Bangalore ‘metall’ fans consider music. The former is metal understood in its usual sense.

[6] “Lets just kill all the people, ra. I think it’ll make the world easier to live in. It’s all solipsistic assonance.”

[7] “It does nothing to us. Really!”

[8] “Ra, we must fuckin oppose the fuckin globalisation. It fucks the fuckin economy.”

[9] Sometimes, Activas (Activae?) and Scootys (Scooties?).

[10] Of the “Mami man, I am in love!” fame…

[11] We came up with this classification!