LOCK, SHOCK AND BABBLE

I have 'bowed my head' to a galaxy of barbers in my lifetime but I am yet come across one who, like the Trappist monks, observes a vow of silence.The phrase ' silent barber ' is in itself an oxymoron. The quintessential barber is a multi-tasker; while his scissors snip, he plays the talk show host. Unless, of course, he is a practitioner of  'Oil Pulling' in which case he gargles a mouthful of oil all the time making it difficult for him to babble. Or, maybe, when his doctor placed a thermometer in his mouth and forgot to take it out.When it comes to his chatter, your friendly neighbourhood barber always finds the ' flavour of the day ', something around which his chat is built. Last Sunday, when I visited my barber, he was developing on the theme of 'the statewide bundh'. His invigorating account on the subject included a scholarly discourse on '5  Ways To find food during bundh.' 


Unlike other professionals, especially the lawyers, a barber is quite lucid in his expressions. He is the only professional whose conversation you can follow, even though he talks over your head! When he holds court, a barber's peppy gushings can be a delight for the grandstand. The absolute depth of his erudition can make Wikipedia sound like pulp. And there is more.



At a barber's salon, stormy workshops are conducted at which red-hot national and international issues are analyzed threadbare. A keynote address by the barber sets in motion the brainstorming plenary sessions on topics ranging from LPG gas leaks to Wikileaks. It is at a barber's lounge that you can gauge the mood of the society you live in; whether the society is in a jolly mood or if there is a furrow of anxiety on the society's brow. It is here that many journos get their scoop.


Present day Gen Y 'hairstylists' have taken the multitasking to a new level. These colts watch the TV (that is kept for the benefit of waiting clientele) while they cut the (h)air. Add this to the customary banter and you get the proverbial powder keg. And if you happen to be on one such barber's chair, you get into 'shear' panic. What if the bloke pokes your eye with the scissors or shaves off your eyebrow? So you think of the old adage that the hair on your head is worth two in the barber's brush.Consequently, you try to divert him into a chat on, say, Rajinikanth's "Enthiran The Robot" before he starts acting like one.  Or else, yours could end up being a case of ' hair today and gone tomorrow '. 


Finally, there is one question that has always confounded me: When one barber cuts another barber's hair, which one does all the talking?

********************************************************************************************************************

LOCK, SHOCK AND BARE-ALL

"My tools leaped, bouncing off the wiry coils of hair," recounted Sanju, my barber, referring to a shaggy head he tackled during the hippie era. "Yet, two hours and two twisted scissors later, I could subdue the shrubbery. But the end of the 'harvest' saw my salon crawling with colonies of dispossessed lice, ticks and bugs besides a baby centipede. He was exaggerating, of course, as is the wont of men of his tribe. But I kept mum letting him get on with my haircut.

"Then came the age of inverted pots," Sanju pressed on, spreading his tonsorial wisdom. "A generation of youth went around with their shaven heads glistening in the sun like leaky oil cans. Once sitting in the balcony of a cinema, I saw the screen images in full reflected over a sea of tonsured heads in the stalls - a kind of 'cranioscope' instead of the CinemaScope." Ignoring Sanju's wild imagination, I just said, "Uh-huh."

I thought of the current crop of cutting-edge-technology kids with their chisel 'n' mallet hairdos. Their hair styles mostly resemble leftovers of a dinner devoured by ravenous moths. A young bloke once told me irreverently that the parallel tracks carved out on the side of his head were for the lice to go on their morning walks!

"But, of all the weird hair styles, the pilot cut of yore was the hairiest," carried on Sanju wistfully. I squirmed in my chair. His allusion to the 'pilot cut' reopened an old wound transporting me to the mid-sixties.

Let me explain what pilot cut is all about. It entailed medium-clipped hair over the rear two thirds of the head blending into a long thick mop in front which was brushed sideways with a short parting. Unfortunately, as a 12-year old lad, my experiment with the pilot cut ended in a 'crop failure'. The then barber of mine, a wily old fox, chopped the hair on the rear of my head down to the scalp leaving a long bushy shock in front. The net effect was I looked like a bald ostrich with a frontal tuft.

But unlike the proverbial ostrich, I did not hide my head in sand till the status quo ante was restored(for being young and uninitiated, I was oblivious to the fact that the barber had created a monstrosity on my top). I attended a wedding where a rough-neck kept stroking my head with a feigned awe as if it were a rare meteorite rock. A thug tugged at my forelock causing me to howl in pain.

Then I felt that someone was playing tabla on my head. It was Sanju starting his customary head massage and waking me up from my trance. "Shall I give your hair the porcupine finish, sir?" he asked, making my hair stand curl. I answered in the negative not daring to shake my head lest he carved a 'lice track' on my head.




Video Courtesy: http://www.youtube.com/
Image Courtesy: http://www.angelfire.com

You May Also Like:

'Chitting' At Exams
Dollar Dreams
A Cat-alytic Conversion