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Man/Hood
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 There comes a time in every man's life when he needs to
prove his manhood, he needs to show that he's a "real man"
- or about to become one. For the typical male, this isn't
a one-time act, but something he feels compelled to do
every few years, just to reassure himself, just to calm one
of his greatest fears - that his manhood is shrinking.The first act of proving his manhood usually happens early in life, when he's still a teen-ager. He looks in the mirror, discovers that he has grown a mustache and, with great pride and excitement, shaves it off and applies aftershave. He purchased the aftershave five years earlier in anticipation of this historic moment. He forgot to buy a razor, but thankfully he has no trouble finding his sister's. If he lives in certain parts of the world, this first act may be starkly different. It may involve circumcision, a word that's derived from Latin and literally means "Ouch! My manhood!" (Trust me, there's no more painful way of proving your manhood than losing part of it.) It may involve fighting and defeating a large, ferocious animal - a lion or bear or professional wrestler. In some African tribes, you aren't a real man until you've gone to the forest and come home with a lion, preferably a dead one. Bringing home a lion is a daunting task, needless to say, especially if you can't afford the prices set by the local entrepreneur, the one who has a chain of Rent-a-Lion stores. During a man's lifetime, proving his manhood may involve any or all of these acts: climbing Mount Everest, bungee-jumping, swimming the English channel, dating Padma Lakshmi, winning a drinking contest, running from stampeding bulls, barreling over the Niagara Falls, and, of course, eating an extremely HOT curry. The latter is how I proved my manhood. I was with a group of friends at an Indian restaurant and decided to impress them by ordering one of the hottest items on the menu, something called "mutton vindaloo." What I didn't realize is that vindaloo is a Hindi word that means "only idiots order this." The waiter asked me if I wanted the curry to be hot, medium or mild. "Hot," I said, feeling a little offended that he should ask. Couldn't he see that I was a real man? When the dish arrived, I took a bite and smiled at my friends. "It's not that hot," I said, feeling for a moment like a comic book hero: SuperCurryMan. Then all of a sudden, my tongue seemed to burst into flames, like the chef had seasoned the dish with a mixture of curry powder, chili powder, and gunpowder. My friends laughed as I gulped all the water on the table, trying in vain to douse the fire. This is what I don't like about Indian restaurants: they keep salt, pepper and sugar within arm's reach, but don't have the courtesy to supply each table with its own fire extinguisher. I had to run all the way to the kitchen to find one. I may have scorched my tongue, but I still felt like a real man for trying the dish. Until, of course, I heard about Anandita Dutta Tamuly. The Indian woman recently earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records by eating 51 of the world's hottest chilli peppers in two minutes, and then celebrated, as most people would, by rubbing some of the chilli peppers into her eyes. I'm not sure if she was trying to prove her womanhood, but she certainly managed to unprove my manhood. Now I need to find a way to reclaim it. I'd climb Mount Everest, but I've heard that women do that too. They also bungee-jump, swim the English Channel and run from the bulls. They don't date Padma Lakshmi, but it's only a matter of time. Melvin Durai is a Manitoba-based writer and humorist. A native of India, he grew up in Zambia and has lived in North America since the early 1980s. Read his humor blog at http://www.Nshima.com. RECENTLY ON JAAL: Slumdog Sequels Gupta Girls Go Ga-Ga Dialing 9/11 Nano's No No-No The New F Word Cup Shup The Hu Do Pak Exports Unlimited 10 Reasons To Boycott The Da Vinci Code Movie Bangalore aka Waterlogged It Vill Be Wery Helpful Breast Beating Loving Patient Tourists 'Roids'R'Us Dude, Turbanheads Differ Waves Of Generosity Muslimphobia Musings Queer Queries, Asinine Answers Time To Lighten Up Gandhi Still Leads The Way Outsourcing Our Work To India Expect More Excitement In 2004 Talk Is Cheap A Saint Like No Other Happiness Doesn't Need To Cost Much Goodbye Idibhai Unfinished Business The Worms Rule Pell Mall Who's Afraid Of Sonia G? The Babu Web Election Anthrax Graduate With Osama Slum Chums Dil Chahta Ha Ha Phooling All The People All The Time Achtung! Poleizi! Talks In Fool Swing Musings On Mush Amma Mia Poll Vault: The Rough Guide Delhi's Traffic Jam Being Believed Extinct Exists!! Truth Or Bare Holi Wholly Unholy Asking For The Moon Excise Excise Bush Speechless The Moron's Hack Miss Whirl Chatterbox 6 Chatterbox 5 Chatterbox 4 Chatterbox 3 Chatterbox 2 Chatterbox 1 Cloud Nine The Son Always Shines Glam Slam Autonomy Retort The Sri Lankan Mulberry Bush Take The Green Quiz A Tiger By The Tail 1000000000+ Chandrachud Rereported The Second Coming Of Bill Are You A Bollywood Buff? SEND US YOUR FEEDBACK ABOUT THIS ARTICLE: Email The Editor
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