MY NOSY NOSE KNOWS!

Originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm

MY NOSY NOSE KNOWS!

They say opinions are like noses. Everybody has one.
I beg to disagree.
I have seen too many blank faces with no opinions whatsoever! You can always find one or two candidates during presidential debates with that classic deer-in-the-headlight stare when asked, “How do you plan to balance the nation’s budget?” The person's nose may twitch, but he or she will never give a satisfactory answer.

You could always stump someone by asking, "So, when did you stop being nosy?"

Unlike opinions, noses are ubiquitous. I have never come across a face without a nose, or at least a semblance of one. Even if a person loses this prominent appendage on the face, say due to an accident, you will still find remnants of that missing nose. Just like a fallen branch from a tree leaves its stump behind, you will find a stub of a nose with two holes left for breathing. It may not be a pretty sight, but it should be enough for the person's respiration until expiration.

Noses come in many shapes - some you are born with, while others may be acquired through plastic surgery. Nothing punctuates a face quite like the nose, literally.
Here are a few designs to prove that there is nothing plain about the nose on one's face:
First you have the 'Comma' nose, which in my opinion is commonly found on most ordinary faces.
Then you have the 'Exclamation' nose, which is basically a long stem culminating in a large spherical object.
A 'Semi Colon' nose indicates that you may have a deviated septum. A dysfunctional septum is not easy to live with.
If you happen to be the proud owner of a 'Colon' nose, well, that is nothing to be proud of! Your face will be scary for anyone standing inches from it!
A 'Question Mark' nose begs the question, "what happened to your nose?" If one chooses to cut off this nose to spite his face, it is highly understandable.
My sympathies however lie with the owner of a "Period" nose. Apart from the sheer discomfort of not possessing two properly functioning nostrils, that lone nostril of yours is an eyesore! It is time you replaced your period nose with a more contemporary one. Plastic surgery may be your only option.

Someone once said that a large nose is the mark of a witty, courteous, affable, generous and liberal man. No one said if the same applied to a woman.

When I was a young girl, I had an ordinary nose. It was a standard snout located approximately two inches from the top of my forehead, and a centimeter above my upper lip. It was an inch and a half in length with a gradual tapering downwards. It was so uninteresting that I hardly paid attention to its existence.

I refer to my nose in the past tense, not because I lost it, but because it metamorphosed into something that became the center of many conversations.

When I turned thirteen, I first realized that the view in front of me was being obstructed by a strange protuberance. A little squinting with both eyes (one eye squint would have worked too) revealed that there was a small bulge developing smack in the middle of my nose! What used to be a straight flat stem had run into a road bump of sorts! If my nose had stopped there, I would have continued being a busy thirteen year old without further distraction. But my nose had other ideas! As if to challenge Pinocchio, it decided to go on an uncontrolled growth sprout! I tried being as truthful as a thirteen year old girl could afford to be, but Nos(e)tradamus had a prophecy to fulfill! It wasn't too long before others started noticing my nose.

I come from a family of long snouts. Mine was probably a few millimeters longer than the others and so it attracted a lot of unwanted attention. Strangely enough, they were all positive comments. A long nose, it turned out, was considered to be a powerhouse of good luck!
"She will succeed in any task she undertakes," said my grandma. "Decorate it with a nice nose-ring," she ordered my mother!
Fortunately for me, my mother turned her nose up on that proposition.

"That nose is destined to go places," said my wise aunt with the short snout.
I just hoped it would not leave me behind!

It was not too long before I discovered to my dismay that my nose was destined not to go into certain places. Take for example the time when my family went on a tour to South India where drinking a cup of coffee is as routine as inhaling. My father stopped at a small coffee shop somewhere in Tamil Nadu and purchased four cups of strong, hot coffee. With flair, the barista poured coffee from an elevation of six feet down into a seemingly invisible container that was embedded within the palm of his right hand. It turned out to be a tiny stainless steel cup, or 'glass' as they call it.  My father passed the cup into my hands with great care. His burly fingers were not able to find enough surface area to grab around the rim of the cup. Transferring this delicate steaming tumbler of coffee from his hand to my hand was perilous as he had to make room to accommodate my thin bony fingers too. The cup was approximately 2.3 inches tall with a diameter of 2.3 inches, give or take 0.1 inch...not that it would not have made any difference.

It was probably my first experience as a teenager with my newly acquired elongated schnoz. I lifted the cup to my mouth, but my nose decided to go for it first! The top part of the rim hit the tip of my nose, while the bottom part stopped at my upper lip. I looked around embarrassed hoping no one noticed my lack of hand-mouth coordination. It took me a few tries before I realized that small motor skills were not the problem here. The length of my nose was longer than the diameter of the cup. Being used to drinking from my mother's gigantic stainless steel tumbler, I felt that this cup was woefully deprived of steel. The rest of my long-nosed family did not seem to have any problems. My parents were both able to nudge their noses just enough to get the coffee down their throats. The only way for me to get the hot potion down the hatch was to place the rim on my lower lip and lift my head backwards as far as I could.  It made me look like that insatiable angry movie star sitting at a bar, chugging down tiny shots of Vodka, in sheer frustration.
Lifting the cup forced me to gulp faster than I wanted to, but it got the job done.
 
Through the years, I discovered that there were a few other disadvantages to having a nose like mine. Hiding something right under my nose was the best place to conceal ‘it’ from me! "Follow your nose" was not exactly the best piece of advice given to me. Walking right into a glass door was just as bad as walking into a wall - my nose always took the beating. At least it protected the rest of my body by acting like an advanced warning system.
Licking my favorite food off the plate was a hassle, although I always managed to clean up the sauces by turning my head sideways and extending my tongue out by a few extra inches.
A long nose also came with wide nostrils. Turning up my nose, either with pride or in disdain, was not advisable without first giving a thorough scrubbing.

My Aunt's prediction about my nose 'taking me places' came true in 1990 when I got an opportunity to travel abroad for my very first full time job! I had worked hard to acquire the necessary skills and qualifications for a couple of years in order to get the job, but all my efforts went unnoticed. When I ran into an old classmate one day and shared the good news with her, instead of congratulating me, she quipped, "With a nose like that, I always knew that you would go abroad!" It was a blow directed to my face alright! My nose was now starting to steal commendations away from me, and I was stuck with it for life!

Over time I realized that the gargantuan package on my face had a few surprises stored for me as well.

I remember my first encounter with my mother-in-law who decided to sit right next to me, barely inches from my nose. Her intense scrutiny was making me fidgety, but my nose helped conceal half of my facial quivering from her piercing glances. I think she was satisfied with my attributes and gave me a passing grade to advance to the higher level of examination - that given by Mr. Microprocessor (who became my future husband). The higher level exam turned out to be far easier than I had expected. Mr. MP was himself the proud owner of a bow shaped nose, and he too had been the beneficiary of its good fortune. Being a thorough gentleman, he did not have the nose to sniff down an innocent girl right in front of her parents. I was able to escape without a scratch. The next day we agreed to marry each other and consolidate our powers by keeping both our noses to the grindstone.

Since then, I have reconciled and accepted my constant companion to lead me through thick and thin. I am still talking about my nose here!

A long nose with a longer rap-sheet does not make a tiny button sized nose angelic by any measure! There is no reason why someone with a cute nose cannot have an ugly disposition just like the rest of us. It is the right of every person, no matter the size of his/her nose, to pry into other people's business without any inhibition! A nose for bad news knows no bounds!

Say you are at a party, sitting in a corner, sipping your orange juice. You are hoping not to run into your estranged nasty friend 'A'. Lucky for you, she is not in town. But in comes your old friend 'B' who decides to share your cozy nook with you. She has got the looks and a nose to go with it - a small, narrow, adorable apparatus, symmetrically placed in the middle of her face. Do not be fooled by her alluring facade. Her little nose, not wanting to be ignored, suddenly jumps into action! It forces your friend 'B' to ask a very personal question knowing about your broken relationship with 'A'.
"So when did you last visit 'A', hmm?"
'B' knows very well not to ask this question, but her nose knows not!
You are aware that 'B' is well informed and fully enlightened about your stale relationships, but her perky nosiness still catches you off guard! You can even sense that she knows the right answer, but you decide to mumble anyway, "Mmm about five years."

"Ow that is a long time dear. Hope there is no problem between the two of you!"
She's holding her breath waiting to squeeze some juicy gossip out of you, but you will not budge. Very soon you will notice her face going red! The fact is that a tiny nose is not a good reservoir of sufficient oxygen for prolonged periods of respiration. Studies have shown that nosiness takes the wind out of a person! Lucky for you, she rushes out of the suffocating room to get a breath of fresh air without even waiting for your answer. You and your big reservoir of air are happy to inhale and exhale in relief!

Yes, we humans value our noses highly. Whenever it malfunctions, we panic. Shortness of breath or last breath may be the result of a struggling lung, but the emergency treatment only comes through the nose!  The seasonal cold, however, can put most noses out of commission. A blockage of any size can cause a person to panic and blow the nose like a bellow to remove the obstacle quickly.

So when my son had a cold recently, I noticed that he continued to play his clarinet with his partially blocked nose. I asked him if he was having difficulty at all playing his instrument.

To my utter surprise, he replied in a calm voice, "Nah! I do not use my nose that much!"

What? I had never heard of anyone being so unemotional and disconnected from his nose! How could a wind instrument be played without the use of nature's own wind instrument? It turns out that most clarinetists suck air through the instrument itself and store it in their cheeks through a process called circular breathing.

In a second, my son had taken the notoriety out of this vain, puffed-up windbag called the nose! It was enough to make a plastic surgeon cry!

Copyright © 2010 Ranjini Sharma All Rights Reserved