JOIN USAt the time when hairstylists were simply known as barbers without any professional euphemism, I was once commanded by my magisterial grandpa to visit the hair-cutting saloon as my locks had long crossed the permissible length. Food will be denied, he warned gravely, if I dared to disobey. Since abundant hair and sumptuous food were my two favourites, I found myself on the horns of a dilemma. But as a celebration involving a grand feast was on the cards in the family, I made a beeline for the ‘shearing’ centre.
A newly-furbished saloon with a change of management greeted me. The owner, who had a rakish pencil-line mustache and wavy hair, beamed at me and guided me to a chair. This done, he lowered his face close to my right earlobe from behind, and asked in a conspiratorial whisper, “Cutting?”
Since my visit there was not for growing more hair, I nodded. Soon he set about with a pair of clicking scissors and a comb. As he rotated the swivel chair for positional vantage, I could look at all the walls. Previously, they displayed dull paintings of natural scenes, but this time around, it had glossy photographs of Hollywood actresses in semi-clad state. That of Marilyn Monroe struggling to contain her billowing gown in a gust of wind was deemed by him as crème de la crème. It was enjoying prime space.
In between his bee-like humming, the hairdressing artist was engaging me in puerile chatter to distract my attention away from his slips in snips. I could not decide if I disliked his camaraderie more or the cloying jasmine perfume he wore that made me choke.
Furthermore, though a certain amount of physical closeness is deemed inevitable between a barber and his customer when the former is plying his trade, I thought his was inconveniently tad closer. I had to therefore squirm and move away, but he gently brought me back to the proximity he desired. The double whammy of losing the carefully cultivated bumper crop on my head at the hands of a person who, adding insult to injury, smirked now and then enjoying his cruel act, made my gorge rise. The dour expression of the previous owner, that went well with a teenager’s panic while losing fast his crowning glory, was subdued, apt and humane. Mercifully, the session ended when I started resembling a bristling porcupine in the mirror, and told him to stop.
Months rolled by and my hair grew joyfully in leaps and bounds. I dreaded an order anytime from my grandpa for the next shearing, but it didn't come forth. This mystery was solved by one of my friends who espied my grandpa taking a look into the new saloon from outside. It seems he had hurriedly left the place, possibly shocked by the photographs there. My luck held till the morning the rustic barber who did house calls showed up after his long illness in our wet backyard with his rusty box under his arm at my grandpa’s bidding. He was squatting on his haunches, striking the pose of a wicket-keeper sitting close for slow spin bowling. I couldn't conclude which one was worse. The frying pan? Or the fire?