“bhaiya side se chote rakhna…aur..mmm..upar se spiky kar dena” and the sound of snips ensues.I stare at the images in the mirrors put adjacent to each other which show my cranium from never seen before angles and i wonder “is this how i look from 6’o clock ?”.
Visits to the barber shop have always been a tedious affair for me.First there is the usual haranguing by parents about how shabby i look which shoots down my attempt to look like robert plant.Then there is the curse of having wiry hair which makes the barber look at me like-here comes the antichrist. Besides these there are other trifling issues like the barbaric hair tugging,razor cuts and the occasional hair-in-the-eye scenario.
All this may sound outlandish to the fashionable janta who spend a fortune at jawed habib salons just to get rid of excess inventory from their skulls,but this is what you get at your average budget barber shop in delhi.
Though luck favours the brave it seldom favours me at my mission to get a haircut.The recipe to get a good haircut consists of many variables.It depends on how lucidly you describe your expectations,your dream of the perfect haircut which most of the time i manage to botch up,it depends on the barber’s work experience(every barber should have a resume on display…adds to the transparency of the system), it depends on the barber’s mood (he may be having a bad hair day),it depends on the number of people waiting for their turn with a pertinent question in their eyes-“ho gaya tera?”,it also depends on the viscosity of water,the sharpness of the scissors,etc.
So when so many factors are at play how can you improve your odds to get a decent haircut.After more than 253 visits to the barber during the last 22 years and many hours of careful deliberation i have come to the conclusion that-the best you can do is close your eyes when you sense that your vision of a decent haircut is not coming through and thank god for it will grow back.Don’t worry,better luck next time.