Over the course of my life there have been a handful places which I have always approached with trepidation. In school, it was the principal’s office which invoked a feeling of dread and foreboding. As we all know, nobody is summoned to the principal’s office to be congratulated; unironically, at least. (“Ah, Mr. B, so good to see you again. I must congratulate you for being such a monumental waste of my time and a drain on the school’s resources. You make us proud.”)
Looking back, you also realise how fiendishly clever it was for the administrators to have located the office at least a day’s walk from practically any other spot in the school campus. As you slowly charted your path towards it, you had so much time to imagine punishments and wallow in your misery, that you would be a broken, empty shell by the time you actually reached the guillotine.
In adulthood, the principal’s office was replaced by the boss’ cabin. Specifically, being called to the boss’ cabin in the late evening hours (which invariably portended a late work night), just when a surreptitious exit was being planned.
Who has not blanched at seeing an incoming call on their desk phone on a Friday evening, seconds after casting furtive glances to check for any supervisory presence in the vicinity and gently shutting their laptop? Who has not stared at the phone willing the call to end before two rings, thereby affording opportunity on Monday morning for plausible denial (“Oh, I didn’t hear the phone ring, you had called?”) or reasoned defence (“It stopped ringing just before I could answer so I thought you must’ve called by mistake.”)
With time one learns to negotiate and tackle these tribulations to soften their impact. But in all my years, there is one place which has doggedly retained its ability to make my blood run cold. The barber’s salon.
As a child, I had an entirely legitimate and deep-seated belief that the barber would cut my ears off. I cannot recall how this notion entered my head but once there, it settled in and made itself quite at home. It was well into my teenage years when the fear of cropping was replaced by the much greater fear of undergoing a baati chhat (Bengali: বাটি ছাঁট, literal translation: bowl cut) at the hands of a wilful barber. The term originated from the belief that some barbers placed a bowl on the subject’s head and razed it clean around the rim. Also known as the ‘mushroom cut’, this was inexplicably all the rage for some years, notwithstanding that it left the recipient looking like a partly sheared cockerel. Personally, I attribute its popularity to the hypnotic ability of barbers to make people get ludicrous haircuts.
In more recent times, my trips to the barber have been tainted by a different shade of the familiar anxiety. For I have discovered, through personal and repeated attacks, that the barber’s tongue is far sharper than his clippers.
Is it not natural and in the order of things for a man to face miniscule hair loss as he ages? Should members of a civilized society vociferously draw attention to such negligible matters, and that too in crude and hurtful terms? Have we wholly forgotten tact and subtlety in polite conversation? I have lost count of the number of times barbers have cheerily told me that I am balding; as if every impotent hair follicle in my scalp was a source of joy to them. I have moved cities, changed localities, switched salons, but it seems that barbers across the land have a hive mind and speak in one voice.
Recently, I encountered one who was at the top of his game. At the time of this visit, I had not gotten a haircut for almost half a year. The motivations for letting my hair grow out were varied and would perhaps be better explored, at a later time. Sat in the chair, I took pains to explain to him that I intended to continue growing my hair out and was merely hoping for a trim. Minimal intervention for the sake of neatness without compromising on hair length would be most appreciated.
He slowly orbited me with a furrowed brow, gingerly picked at my hair, and finally delivered his verdict: “Sir, long hair aapko suit nahi karta. Aap short hi rakho.” But it was not over yet. He took another step back and cast a critical eye on the top of my head, and pulled the trigger: “Hair loss bhi ho raha hai. Short hair mein aapka bald patch dikhega.”
He stood behind me, and our eyes met in the mirror; his gleaming with triumph, mine dimmed in defeat. The silence was unbearable, provocative, leering at me but I had no response. I stammered, coughed and mumbled something unintelligible. Mercifully, he did not prolong my misery with conversation. He smiled placidly and commenced cutting my hair just the way he desired. I suppose I should count myself lucky to have escaped a baati chhat.