Salon Salsa: The Final Cut

Once my professional life began I realised that few of my friends no longer visited the barber shop. They had started getting 'salon treatments'. Out of curiosity and a bit of peer pressure, I too visited one of the popular salons that had a rather French sounding name (not that I know French, just that I had never heard the name before. I doubt even the salon employees knew what it meant).

As I entered the salon, I was greeted by a receptionist, which made me think if I had entered a wrong place. Nope. The salon had a receptionist who asked if I had an appointment. I didn’t because no one told me I was making a sales call. And all I had to do in a barber shop was to wait for 10-15 minutes glancing through 5 year old issues of Filmfare or Cineblitz.

Anyway, the receptionist glanced through a diary to check if she could ‘accomodate’ me. I looked inside and there was no customer; just few employees in black and wearing an apron. The apron had pockets in which rested all of the barber's tools. Finally the receptionist smiled widely and motioned me to enter. The waiting employees immediately parted to guide me to a chair. One of the guys came up to me and asked “What would you like to do sir?”. I was disappointed. Because my local barber was more of a self starter. It didn’t matter what I wanted. He cut the hair as he pleased.

‘Just a normal hair cut’, I replied.

The stylist then proceeded to examine my hair. He grabbed a few strands with his fingers and made a face.

‘Sir did you wash your hair before you came?’

I hadn’t because I usually did that after a haircut. Apparently my hair was too greasy to cut and it would damage his scissors. So I had to get a hair wash which would cost extra. I nodded along as I didn’t want to come across as someone who rarely bathed. So I got my hair washed. And then the cutting began. For the first time I saw how hair could be cut in a sophisticated way. Heck he put clips all over my head. and my hair was not used to such pampering. Because at my barber place this is what usually happens.

Ok that is an exaggeration!

After he was done, he asked if I needed a head massage. I refused. He asked if I needed a shave. I refused. But he was quite adamant on giving a facial. Apparently my face was too dirty (and he said that in as many words) and in dire need of a facial. Out of curiosity I asked for the price. As soon as he quoted the figure I hurriedly got off the chair. Because I had not planned on selling a kidney for a facial. I walked towards the receptionist who handed me the bill. An astounding 650 rupees. That was worth a whole year of haircut at my barber shop. But she wasn’t done. She then tried to sell me a membership which would give me many benefits. I refused again, to which she gave me a 'saale gareeb' look and suggested that I make an appointment next time. The smile had vanished. And so did I.

So once the corona thing dies out, I will be back to the barber shop, happily waiting on the couch and glancing through 5 year old copies of Filmfare, and Femina too because my barber shop is now unisex. Till then I hope my hair growth slows down or something. Or hide the trimmer at least. My son has been looking for it and keeps looking at my hair with hatred. I get the feeling that he is planning something nasty.

The End!

Note: All images sourced from the internet

Salon Salsa: Part 2

So yes the Urban Company guy came and gave my head its sane look back. Nothing is more annoying than waking up in the morning and seeing your overgrown hair looking like this.

I guess that’s what being grown up is all about. You can no longer tolerate Ustad Zakir Hussain like hairdo on yourself. But it wasn’t always so. While growing up, I put my hair through a lot of trials and tribulations to look cool.

The first 18-19 years of my life I couldn’t do much because of my dad’s ‘my house my rules’ rule. Since he was the provider, he dictated how my hair looked; which is the case with almost all Indian families. 

If there was ever a template for an Indian hairstyle then this was it; find a partition and comb the hair on either side of it (like some sort of red sea parting but with hair). The hair on either side was always in an 80:20 ratio. And the partition was never to be crossed by any unruly hair. They were held in place by a spell called the Indian Hair Oil. Indian parents would apply a generous splash of oil (mostly home-made or parachute) and there it was. The look that gave rise to the term ‘champu’. But even hairs have rebels. There will always be a few strands at the upper end standing in defiance.

Likewise I too rebelled against my parents; and as always the rebellion was quashed by my dad. It was the 90s and a new hair style gathered rage among all guys. The 'Katora Cut' or 'Tapeli Cut'. It looked something like this. 

And like all things naive, I quickly believed that barbers would put a Katora on your head and fashion the cut. Hence the name. Well the barber didn’t do anything of that sort. If anything then he was overjoyed because he could now cut less hair for the same price.

I reached home hoping to live a normal life. But getting through the security check that was my dad was never easy. My father looked at me in silence. He was expressionless. He grabbed my head without affection and rotated it to get a better glimpse of the latest rage in Indian haircut industry. If his touch was any indication of how pissed he was, his eyebrows which converged downwards and formed a V confirmed it. But he didn’t say anything. He grabbed me by the arm and took me straight to the barber; no words were spoken between the 3 of us. The barber made me sit on the chair and proceeded to give me my regular cut. No way was my dad going to be robbed of money for a job half done.

But then came college. And with it came life in a hostel. It meant that I could experiment with all the cuts that the Indian haircut industry could possibly come up with. But this industry has one major flaw. It is trained to cut hair in very limited templates. It is similar to the hotel industry that caters to the middle class. The menu might say Continental and Italian. But the chef can only prepare ‘tandoori roti, butter paneer/veg kolhapuri (which I believe is a sham as all sabzis with veg as prefix are more or less the same), dal fry and jeera rice’.

I remember that I had come home for the weekend. I decided to get a haircut, and asked the barber to give me a crew cut because Lakshya had just released and Hrithik played an army guy, and girls loved Hrithik, and I for some reason believed that a similar haircut will also alter my face to resemble Hrithik’s. 

I remember that day clearly. I specifically asked that idiot if he knew how to give a crew cut. His confidence when he nodded in the positive could only mean that Hrithik came to him every month for his haircut. And the scissors snipped and snapped. The barber was lost in concentration. If he were to die the next instant, my head was to be his swan song. Given his seriousness, girls were going to line up to date me the moment I reached college. I paid him and walked home. 

God chooses the most embarrassing of ways to convey that you have messed up. When I reached home, one of mom’s friends was sitting on the couch. I greeted her. She responded as well. But she seemed to be intrigued by my presence. She didn’t smile but looked at me with concern. After I had freshened up and the lady had left, my mom came up to me and said,

“What the hell did you do to your hair?”

“It's the latest style”

“It's pathetic”

“You wouldn’t understand”

“Why do you always embarrass me in front of people. The lady asks me if you were sick or dying of some disease.”

That was a jolt. And as I looked in the mirror, I too started seeing what the lady meant. Instead of Hrithik, Tom Hanks from Philadelphia stared at me. 

The stupid cut received further validation when I reached the hostel on Monday. Thanks to some amazing roommates, I had to endure countless jokes and jibes till the hair grew back to normalcy. 

And I learnt a valuable lesson...Stick to the Template...Always Stick to the Template!

...to be contd

Note: All images sourced from google/internet

Boys to Men 5: Salon Salsa

If there was anything that the lockdown did (other than cause mayhem), then it was encourage people to pursue new (and at times life saving) hacks. So suddenly people were exploring new talents. Some were welcome while some should have remained incognito. 

Did you know that Microwave ovens could do more than just reheat food? Suddenly these machines were doing what they were actually meant for. Bread, cakes, cookies, they started making them all. 

Newfound painters started going beyond the traditional ‘house with the well by the hillside’ scenario and became adventurous in their imagination.

Poets lamented about 'how the mighty humans were humbled by a virus, and how man had become a prisoner in his own home'. 

For some sad souls their primary task became counting the number of lockdown days. Some of them seem to have lost track as they still put a hashtag in their posts which reads something like ‘#lockdowndiaries; #day127oflockdown’.

What also increased was the sale of yeast as well as google/ youtube searches on how to brew your own liquor. I for one have started seeing beetroot and pineapple in new light.

Those who lost their jobs due to the pandemic could now look at an alternate albeit dark career and fulfil the dream of becoming Vijay Mallya (when he was in India selling calendars).

Wives were the most overjoyed as husbands showed keenness in helping with the household chores. Incidentally, cases of domestic abuse also rose significantly.

My first task during the lockdown was to cut my son’s hair (coz screw hidden talent!). Since he is only 4 he couldn’t fathom the damage I had done with a scissor and trimmer. At the end of an arduous half hour (arduous for my son. For me it was Da Vinci at work) my son's head looked somewhat like this.

When he looked in the mirror, it took him some time to register that it was in fact him in the mirror. And if he could abuse he probably would have. Thankfully his school syllabus has just two letter words this year.

But what goes around comes around. It was my turn to get a haircut. As I looked around for volunteers, my wife’s enthusiasm and confidence caught me by surprise. She snatched the trimmer from my son’s hand who was looking at me menacingly. We made a makeshift apron from a newspaper (courtesy Javed Habib); and set up chair in the bathroom, because my son's episode had taught me that hair can be quite a bitch while cleaning up. The newspaper was from pre lockdown era. I call it the Good Times of India (I found it amusing when I first thought of this joke and just had to include it here).

The fully charged trimmer started buzzing. The absence of a proper sized mirror made it impossible for me to look at what was happening with my hair. But the occasional gasps of my wife told me that the situation was grave. After a couple of minutes my wife went unusually silent; the silence only broken by her soft apologies; and my groans as the scissor pulled at a bunch of hair hard. But I let her continue cause there was nothing else to do. My wife and I neither spoke nor looked at each other as we cleaned up the mess. 

That was two months ago. My hair has grown back. And today I have booked professional help from Urban Company.

...to be contd