Hairy Horrors

A barber is a teen’s best friend. Or his worst enemy. Being of simple needs (and, apparently, taste) as far as hair goes, I shun the quality up-market services of a Headmasters or Matrix Lounge. Not for me is the preening, colouring and ooh-la-la (and utterly unpronounceable) trimmings associated with the like. I am a real man; my machismo and apparent retro-sexuality lead me to a hole-in-the-wall type barber shop where for a quarter of the price, you can have four times the hair shorn off. That’s sixteen times the value for money. Mathematically, it is much better…
The problem, however, lies in the choice of barber. My barber is the worst enemy I started this with. A real Soviet, Mafiosi style sun of a gun, whose sweet talk and stiletto like scissors will put many a Corleone to shame. For he believes that the sixteen time value for money is highly underrated. He is intent on rendering me bald or too embarrassed to show my face, or rather scalp, in civilised society [sic] again.
His shop was always a hole in the wall. Located in a busy market in the PU campus, it was the equivalent of a College Street (It’s in Calcutta) chai shop – dingy, demented and frequented by the scum of society and the greatest of intelligentsia. The newspaper report stuck on the window loudly proclaimed the glitterati who had had a haircut from his expert hands – policemen, mayors, even a third rate movie star. A wide array of hair accessories adorned the shelves, unused, expired, bubbling with weird green things you would more likely find in a biology book than the Coco Chanel catalogue. The calendar was for 1986. The India Today proclaimed the death of Rajiv Gandhi. It seemed that time stood still in this little niche…
The last time I came here, I was going through a teenage phase of physical superiority over the mere mortals who aided my existence. Life was good. He met me with a Machiavellian smile, and sat me on the barber’s chair. Talking to me throughout, he would cut and snip and cut and mow. He would untangle my locks and annihilate all possible facial hair. The general reaction to my coming out would be, “Hmmmphmm… Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!” which usually involved the water the observer was invariably drinking spurting out through his/her (mostly her, unfortunately) nasal cavities. My face would usually resemble a boiled egg, as I was told on numerous occasions by various ‘friends’.
But no more, I decided, after a particularly humiliating day. I take a stand this time. I was going to barge into the barber’s like I owned the place, and ask for – no, demand – a hairstyle that suited my dynamic and dashing personality. It was like Gandhi said, actually I don’t recall what he said, and anyways it does not matter. What matters is that the spirit of revolution, as instilled by Bose, Che Guevara and Mandela got my blood boiling and I determined to overthrow the doyen of this barberic rule.
But Alas! Due to unavailability of cuttable hair, I was unable to storm into the shop and demand the exercising of my rights just then. It is not natural for a boiled egg to go to a barber and demand a haircut. So I bided my time, waiting for the opportune hair length. Unfortunately, the Tour de Langkawi (An inconsequential cycle race in Malaysia) came around and I devoted all my time and energy to watching the highlights. And as I watched, I lost interest in all matters hairy and the next time I was due for a haircut, all the fury was just a throbbing pain on my medulla oblongata.
Nevertheless, I remembered that I had to do something special, something angry, can’t quite remember what… His shop had undergone a sea of change. Gone was the newspaper report. Gone were the mouldy things on the shelf, replaced by emami (of Fair and Lovely fame) products. The calendar was of 2007, but the magazines proclaimed the Kargil War. Somehow, the scum of society had mysteriously disappeared. Of course, it was still a hole in the wall…
I was impressed with the sea, though the non availability of the scum made me a trifle insecure about my existence. Still, I was on the protest cut, so I pretended not to notice. I just waited in line (non existent earlier), reading the magazine like a good boy. My turn finally came. I went into the cubicle with my fury back, but it was the bib that decided me. It was a dashing black Fair and Handsome bib, with a pocket. A POCKET! I decided that if a man could have a bib with a pocket, he must have changed. So I benched the protest and demurely sat down myself.
The cut was short and sweet. About the hairstyle, I won’t comment. Let it suffice that a good many people have tried to scramble my head for breakfast. My perspective of human nature has changed forever…

Depressed and Confused