The barber wrapped a towel around my neck and trussed me up. “Mobile switch off maadi saar, relax maadi”, he told me. He started with the left sideburns, working his way through the back of my head and onto the right sideburns. The gentle “whirr” of the trimmer made me close my eyes and drift into a kind of suspended animation.

Satisfied with the trimming work, the barber replaced the trimmer with a pair of scissors and attacked the crown of thick hair on my scalp. The “wichu wichi wee” follow-through of the scissors had a hypnotising effect on me. In a matter of just about 10 minutes, he had reduced the thick mass of hair to a close crop, just the way I wanted it.

Then came the best part of his operation – a head massage. He first poured a generous amount of cooling oil on my head and worked it into the scalp with a circular motion of his hands. After about five minutes, he started thumping my head with the palms of his hands.

And very soon, before you could say “Dagwood Bumstead”, I found myself floating somewhere near the ceiling, looking down on myself slumped in the chair. It was an enlightening sight, albeit a slightly blurred one.

I did not know how long I was in this state of stupor, but came down to earth when I found my head being twisted smartly to the left and right, each twist bringing with it an audible “crick”. I woke up and looked around.

Nothing had changed, but everything seemed nicer. The customer-in-waiting, seated on the bench behind me, was beaming into an old issue of the film mag he was holding. The barber looked happier and contented and the helper boy was whistling a jolly tune as he swept the floor.

As I paid up, I felt everything was alright with the world. Ah, the pleasure a haircut and a massage can bring is a profound experience that can not be described adequately.