Mexican Chef

This is what R calls me at times endearingly. This metaphor is due to the crop of facial hair adorning my upper lip. Sure enough. A Google image search with "Mexican Chef" throws up a poster of a chef with thin handlebar moustache in a Sombrero hat. However most other images of Mexican chefs are either of women chefs or clean shaven men. I have never been to Mexico or seen a Mexican chef in real life - in fact the closest I have been to Mexican food is at Taco Bell and Chilli's. A very pertinent question at this point of time would be what is it that connects Latin culinary professionals, facial hair and me. I must come to the rescue of the reader here. The genesis of this allusion had been a weekend stay in a hotel in Hyderabad in 2005. The breakfast lobby in this hotel had a small plaster statuette of a apron clad, pot bellied , moustached chef - complete with a toque and a tray of goodies in his hand. There must be some fair amount of similarity between me and this figurine. The bushy growth on my upper lip, love for food & cooking and a bulging waistline must have contributed towards this. The impression has been further reinforced lately since the proliferation of a chain of cookie stores in Indian shopping malls whose logo sports a chef quite resembling the statuette in Hyderabad.

On a more serious note - I must introspect that if indeed I resemble the mentioned professional - what is the effect of this on my own profession as an IT consultant? Am I starting on a wrong note even before I utter the first word in front of my clients and prospects? Am I conjuring images of black beans instead of Java Beans and rice rather than ROIs? Perhaps I will never have an answer to this question - but I do have some comments from my customers on my moustache. In 1996 I was working for a Japanese customer in Tokyo who was quite amused at seeing me and all my other Indian colleagues sporting moustache. He had commented that no "Salary Man" in Japan keeps a moustache. True enough - right from chairman to janitor - no one had a single strand of hair on their face. Also - the janitor wore specs and was so well dressed that it was easy to mistake him for the chairman.

So how do IT consultants look like? Google image search again comes up with stereotyped images throwing up pictures from various sales collateral of consulting companies. Apparently IT consultants should be wearing ties and jackets, wearing thin rimmed glasses and sitting in boardrooms in a bunch or gazing down on laptop screens. And yes - none of the males have any facial hair.

To Conform or Not to Conform - that is the question. Well - the fact that 12 years of marriage and 17 years of professional life have passed without too much problems - gives me the confidence to carry on as I always have. R has been a great supporter. Though she calls me MC (you know what I mean here) at times, and also calls me a North Indian milkman at other times, she really wants me to keep my whiskers. Just before my marriage - a cousin and her friend had tried convincing me to go clean shaven - saying that my wife would never like a moustache. I am glad things didn't turn out that way.