When I was in high school, I'd often see a middle-aged man, paunchy but dressed in clothes that were tailored to fit his form closely, hair permed in tight, frizzy curls and done up in a sort of pompadour, face covered in thick pancake make-up, with the skin pale white, lips livid red and eyes surrounded with dark, thin lines of kajal and a pencilled-in zorro mustache walk around the neighbourhood.

Apparently he was some sort of Kannada stage actor who lived nearby and also ran a xerox shop across the road. Sometimes I'd see him sit down for a meal in a local cafe with his wife and son, who seemed comletely nondescript and nonchalant.

I wonder if the hair was a wig.