It’s a truism from my childhood and adolescence: Many schoolboys did not have a girlfriend because their parents decided their barber. The brief was simple, make the child look as unattractive to the opposite sex as possible, so that the only option left was to learn linear algebra, go to college, and eventually succumb to an arranged marriage.
Even when you are old enough to earn your bread and pay for your haircut, the childhood trauma ensures you don’t really know how to brief the hairdresser. Like all of your choices in life, where you have played safe, tried to get the best of both worlds, be it your food or your haircut, when the barber asks “How should I cut it?” , you say, “Medium”.
I am that guy. We are the value maximisers, the guys who want their curries to be medium spicy, their golgappas to have both the red and green water, and their fresh lime soda “sweet and salt”. This middle-class trait has been burnt into us, the urge to try out two options at the price of one.
And here I was with my medium haircut, traveling to my hometown, to pick my parents for a visit to the Maha Kumbh. As I landed, touched my mother’s feet, she immediately noticed that my full head of hair was breaching the periphery of my ears. It was an emergency.
“What will the relatives think when they see you?” She turned to my father, “Please take him to Vinod (the local barber)”.
I intervened quickly, out of PTSD, and promised to visit Vinod the barber in one or two business days.
I was forced to go the same day.
Vinod, the family barber, named his shop, Lucky Haircutting Saloon, kind of a warning that there was some luck involved in getting a good haircut. The shopboard had two ’80s actors, Anil Kapoor and Sanjay Dutt hand-painted on it, the traditional brand ambassadors of hair vitality. The paint was peeling off from their faces, showing how long Vinod bhai has been doing this. He has been invited to enough arranged marriages of kids he used to give haircuts to.
As I entered the shop, several heads turned, people getting a shave done, with lather on their faces, staring at me, joined by their assigned barbers. An Indian barbershop is like a kaleidoscope, with mirrors tilted, it’s an infinite number of people getting their shave done, all staring at you. It’s intimidating. I was signalled to sit on a bench, which already had three people waiting, all of them engrossed in Stardust magazines from the 1990s.
One cover had a shirtless picture of a hirsute Akshay Kumar, and another had a prominent actress wearing a python, and just the python. There was a small TV kept on a higher plane, playing Zee Cinema movies. Most equipment, including the shaving kit, was from a museum. The square-jawed model featured on the shaving-cream box was most likely dead. It was a time machine.
Vinod is wily, he hasn’t put a wall clock in his shop, he says he doesn’t want people to quantify their wait-time. It’s an old trick though, now ruined by smartphones. Millions of such trade secrets run the Indian economy. Anyway, the loyal clientele of Lucky Haircutting Saloon aren’t really running late for breakfast meetings, so it’s fine. Including me, who’s here in his hometown, being obedient, giving in to the control his parents have exerted on him since childhood. The good kid.
Finally, it’s my turn. I am greeted by a wide smile by Vinod, he has figured out I am “Asthana ji ke bada ladka” (The elder son of Mr Asthana), and he asks me when I arrived.
I reciprocate with some small talk, as he drowns me in a black cloak, and starts spraying water around; he doesn’t bother asking me how I want my hair to be. He knows my answer. As I stare at the 6×6 grid of hairstyles he has hung in his saloon, featuring wiry men who look like my father in his youth, I sit motionless. I have given in. I notice the rainbow the droplets of the spray make, appreciating the art in this human museum.
Vinod sprays more water around my temples, on my neck, on my scalp. It feels good. I will slowly fall into a vegetative state, where he’ll upsell a facial.
Soon the clickety clack of scissors begin. It’s a surround sound near my temples.
In between switching his tools, this guy believes in throwing complimentary bursts of champi (head massage); it sounds awesome, but this is all part of a cunning plan. Slowly my eye-lids go heavy. And then at an opportune moment, the guy slowly whispers into my ears
“Sir bahut dandruff ho gaya hai, ek naya serum laga du?”
(Sir there is too much dandruff, should I apply a serum)
By this time the logic processing unit of your brain has shut. It’s like a narco test. I barely manage a grunt. And he takes this as a go ahead and applies a potion made of pigeon tears or a similar formulation. His apprentices are impressed by their Boss’ upselling skills and they all make a mental note of this smooth sales pitch.
Now Vinod has reached the climax of my hair cut, he takes out a fresh shaving blade, neatly breaks it into two, asks me to check the authenticity, assuring me he isn’t giving me complimentary HIV infection with a haircut, and proceeds to slide it in his ustara. The whole routine is my favourite, after the powder work of course. Questionable talcum powder, lavishly dabbed around your neck. It’s been 30+ years, I still don’t why exactly they do that.
My haircut is done. Vinod introduces another hand-held mirror to the kaleidoscope, to help me check the haircut at the back, I nod. The cloak is taken off in a flash, the seat is being prepared for the next bench-warmer.
I’m done and I offer him some extra cash. Vinod gets a bit overwhelmed. I feel it’s a small fee to be paid for cutting my hair such that my only option was to master linear algebra and reach where I am now. Thanks, Vinod!
Abhishek Asthana is a tech and media entrepreneur and tweets as @gabbbarsingh. The views expressed are personal
