These are not hair raising.. they are hair cutting
tales. They all relate to my childhood experiences with haircuts and
barbers.
Sunday best : For some reason quite unknown, as kids we always had haircuts on Sunday mornings, and that meant waiting and waiting. At least an hour each time. It wasn’t as if barbers were not open on weekdays. Or that there wasn’t enough time after school on weekdays. But it HAD to be a Sunday morning , …perhaps because our parents were not logical minded , maybe because time was not at a premium, or something like that. Unfortunately several thousand parents in the city had the same mental make-up. So we ended up waiting an hour at least. Forty years on, things have not changed . Sundays still see a logjam in barber shops all across India. I know that, because in the last 20 years or so, I have twice made the mistake of getting a haircut on a Sunday morning.
In recent years I have often wondered why indian barbers don’t smarten up a little and offer differentiated rates depending on weekdays. Like TV advertising has highest rates at prime time. Must suggest it to my barber.
Red Haircut: Why were all barbers in India communists in the 70’s ? The only thing we could do while waiting interminably on Sundays was to swat flies, and to read the well-thumbed magazines the barber-shop had. And they used to be mainly Russian magazines, in English and Hindi. Sovietland is one name I remember. These magazines told us all about the glorious advances being made in Soviet Russia, and they had pictures of sturdy Russian style buildings and and sturdier Russian women driving tractors and trucks. At a time when there weren’t too many tractors around in India, to see one driven by a woman was a little amazing. There used to be also a brightly coloured Children’s magazine from Russia. So I sort of reasoned that Indian barbers were all communists. The hard working proletariat, plotting the overthrow of the Kulaks and reading Sovietland for strategy and inspiration. Only many years later this did mystery of haircut-commmunism get resolved. The Russian magazines were the cheapest available. They filled up the waiting room without costing much and so the barber shops preferred them over Filmfare etc.
Miscellany : One of the embarrassing experiences of childhood is something like this. When you are about 5 or 6 yrs old, you are so short that when in a barber’s chair, the barber has to bend very low to do his work. It’s inconvenient for him, so he puts a plank on the armrests of the chair and makes you sit on that. His problem is solved, but he doesn’t know the mortification it causes to the little soul to have his smallness on public display. It’s truly embarrassing. But one grins and bears it. And then comes the day when you have grown a few inches and the barber does away with the plank. It’s a great feeling. Grown up, man of the world, sitting in the chair just like your elder brother. Sometimes though, more embarrassment is in store. By a freak of chance, the barber who had ”graduated” you was shorter than his colleagues. So the next time you get assigned to a taller barber, you are back to the plank. I swear it is NOT a pleasant experience. Its like being banished from heaven.
Sunday best : For some reason quite unknown, as kids we always had haircuts on Sunday mornings, and that meant waiting and waiting. At least an hour each time. It wasn’t as if barbers were not open on weekdays. Or that there wasn’t enough time after school on weekdays. But it HAD to be a Sunday morning , …perhaps because our parents were not logical minded , maybe because time was not at a premium, or something like that. Unfortunately several thousand parents in the city had the same mental make-up. So we ended up waiting an hour at least. Forty years on, things have not changed . Sundays still see a logjam in barber shops all across India. I know that, because in the last 20 years or so, I have twice made the mistake of getting a haircut on a Sunday morning.
In recent years I have often wondered why indian barbers don’t smarten up a little and offer differentiated rates depending on weekdays. Like TV advertising has highest rates at prime time. Must suggest it to my barber.
Red Haircut: Why were all barbers in India communists in the 70’s ? The only thing we could do while waiting interminably on Sundays was to swat flies, and to read the well-thumbed magazines the barber-shop had. And they used to be mainly Russian magazines, in English and Hindi. Sovietland is one name I remember. These magazines told us all about the glorious advances being made in Soviet Russia, and they had pictures of sturdy Russian style buildings and and sturdier Russian women driving tractors and trucks. At a time when there weren’t too many tractors around in India, to see one driven by a woman was a little amazing. There used to be also a brightly coloured Children’s magazine from Russia. So I sort of reasoned that Indian barbers were all communists. The hard working proletariat, plotting the overthrow of the Kulaks and reading Sovietland for strategy and inspiration. Only many years later this did mystery of haircut-commmunism get resolved. The Russian magazines were the cheapest available. They filled up the waiting room without costing much and so the barber shops preferred them over Filmfare etc.
Miscellany : One of the embarrassing experiences of childhood is something like this. When you are about 5 or 6 yrs old, you are so short that when in a barber’s chair, the barber has to bend very low to do his work. It’s inconvenient for him, so he puts a plank on the armrests of the chair and makes you sit on that. His problem is solved, but he doesn’t know the mortification it causes to the little soul to have his smallness on public display. It’s truly embarrassing. But one grins and bears it. And then comes the day when you have grown a few inches and the barber does away with the plank. It’s a great feeling. Grown up, man of the world, sitting in the chair just like your elder brother. Sometimes though, more embarrassment is in store. By a freak of chance, the barber who had ”graduated” you was shorter than his colleagues. So the next time you get assigned to a taller barber, you are back to the plank. I swear it is NOT a pleasant experience. Its like being banished from heaven.
No comments:
Post a Comment