By Alok Joshi
The other day, I went to Hathibarkala Market in Dehradun Cantonment area to look for “the” barber, Shamshad Bhai, who used to cut my hair in the late 80’s and 90s. The shop was gone and nobody could give me any trace of my favourite barber. I had to go to another area and another salon. As I sat on the chair while the process of haircutting lasted, my mind took me on a journey of haircuts though my life from childhood until the present.
When we were kids, my father used to summon a barber to our home on a Sunday, for a “family haircut”. His name was Babu Ram. He used to wear a white pyjama-shirt and ride a bicycle. Sensing his ominous arrival, we brothers used to hide in our rooms. Mom used to shout but nobody wanted to open the innings. He only listened to my dad, whose crisp orders were “chhote chhote kar do sabke”. We hated Babu Ram because he made sure we looked ugly in our crew cuts and became the laughing stocks in our school the next morning. Being the eldest, I had to be the first one to be his victim.
As I grew up and went to college, as a protest, I grew long hair. I tried to ape the fashion of film stars like Rajesh Khanna. Every time my Principal met me on the College campus, he would remind me not to grow hair like girls. Today, when I look at my old pictures, my curly hair resembled big headphones and I could be mistaken for a lady from behind.
In the University, it was dating time. I had to be extra careful about my hair. Luckily, I found a barber who listened to me even though he took away most of my pocket money. He would even trim my moustache for free. I was loyal to him for years before he died and his sons converted the shop into a ladies hair salon. Whenever I returned home after the haircut, my mom would look suspiciously at me. She never believed I had a haircut. How could I convince her that a barber’s skill lies in cutting hair without making it look as if he had done anything!
Then it was Europe, where I went to do my second masters’ degree in Management. It was very expensive to get a haircut with my limited stipend. From Babu Ram to the nimble fingers of a beautiful European female hairstylist was too big a jump for me to digest. If I had more money, I would have visited her more often.
Some years later, I reached a North African country for work where barbers used only razors on the customers’ heads. In the violence prone nation, it was a security risk to step outside the residential premises for a haircut. The mission from “Tango 1” to “Tango 2″ was monitored by radio security. I took the risk and ventured out for my haircut. Despite all my long explanation and instructions, the very first barber screwed up my hair and made me look like a local African. All I could do was to curse him in my language with a smile. Thereafter, I always took my local English speaking driver for such ”operation haircuts” whose main job was not only to drive me safely but to translate my English instructions into Arabic and hold the barber’s hands tightly once he realised enough damage had been done to my looks.
Luckily, my short stint in the Middle East was reasonably okay without much hair-raising shocks because of the absence of any language problem.
Then it was China time.
My maiden haircut was a disaster because of the language barrier. It took me a change of season to look my original self. Then I discovered an expensive foreign salon where “barber” was a disrespectful word. They were called hair stylists/ technicians/ directors.
Well, they were expensive but good. The haircut price depended on who was available to cut your hair. I used to go when the cheapest one was available. They didn’t speak English so the receptionist literally acted as the translator-cum-interpreter. One smart salon used the mobile phone translation app to communicate and understand my requirement.
In my experience, China was the only place where they did shampoo before as well as after the haircut. Then, finally, I discovered a neighbourhood salon where the charges were only one-tenth of the market price and they did a fair job without communicating a word.
People who wear glasses like me have a huge problem. After removing glasses for the haircut, we cannot monitor what the guy does to our hair. The mirror is too far for us and we cannot see much. Our hands are inside the apron, which prevent us from holding our glasses.
I used to be always proud of my thick growth of hair and styled them like Anil Kapoor for many years. In fact, my father-in-law once confessed that my first look had impressed him because of my hair and moustache and he agreed to marry his daughter to me. But over the years, more and more hair said goodbye to me because of my experiments in haircuts. The salons fooled me into buying products and the chemicals killed my beautiful mane. I do envy people who have managed to save their hair.
One day, I’m afraid, the hair salons might charge me more than others, not for cutting my hair but for having to take the trouble to find them. Now I tell my barbers to survey my balding head and then decide how many hairs to leave instead of focussing on how much hair to cut. I also remind myself that one must have a positive attitude like the old man who had only four strands of hair on his shining head. When asked tauntingly by the barber, “Do you want me to cut your hair or count them?”, he proudly replied, “Colour them.”
(Alok Joshi is a freelance writer, author, trainer, motivational speaker and an HR Advisor based in Dehradun)
