All because I went for a hair cut!

The Chennai barber has metamorphosed so much that I can hardly recognise him. Gone were the days when there was a rickety old chair in the middle of the salon which had half a door closed with an old fan rotating lazily/screechily above and the barber just went clippety clip for a full 45 minutes. By the time he finished I had a nap and also managed rosy dreams of fair, lipsticked actresses whose semi nude pictures adorned the dirty walls of the barber shop. After 45 mins I gave a 5 rupee professional charge and walked out happily light headed, the weight above my head reduced by almost a kilo!

Nowadays the barber's sports a trendy and cool look replete with a lot of paraphernalia and even a fish tank. I swear I dont understand what is the fad with aquariums in Chennai that soon the cobbler on the road might be seen having one. Everyone seems to be in a hurry to have their hair cropped or their stubbles worked on that they barge into the place and demand a quick haircut or a shave with a result a long queue of people sit (can one 'sit' in a queue?) impatiently waiting for their turn. I always have this feeling that on the days I go to the barber's the whole town seems to be there.The ever compliant barber gets to work in a jiffy and one can see that he is in a hurry to finish his job rather than caress the lock of hair sending the client into a peaceful trance.

The modern day barber shop is a busy one as opposed to the days of yore when one frequented the barbers just to have a look at the vernacular papers and ogle at the sexy, slim actresses pinned on the walls. It was a place where politics, cinema, and education were discussed at great lengths. The barber kept yakking while the customer went into a hypnotic state. After cutting the hair, the barber donned the role of a masseur : He massaged the head and back. He even assumed the role of a chiropractor or a podiatrist. In fact the first surgeons were barbers. We had a barber in our men's hostel at Stanley Medical College and we cynically called him the 'Stanley Surgeon'.

I just returned from the barber and I should say the experience wasnt too memorable. I closed my eyes and old memories surfaced in my tired mind and I sat oblivious of the barber using a harsh comb and a rough pair of scissors. The days when Devan, my childhood barber came home to cut my unkempt hair on a sunny Saturday afternoon slowly took shape in my mind's eye like a well projected PowerPoint presentation.

Devan was a short and bald man in his fifties with a thin line of hair for a moushtache at the edge of his upper lip. I always wondered who cut his hair or did he do an auto-cut? He did have a salon in the main road at Yercaud, Salem Dt, but visited my house on my father's insistance. We (my brother and I) as kids were very scared of the going to the salon and my Dad thought it was a better idea to ask the barber to come over. Usually it was a Saturday because we had only half a day of school on that day and on Sundays the barber was too busy in his shop that he couldnt make a house-visit.

He came at around 2 pm carrying a black box with all his instruments inside. As soon as I spotted him coming (I usually sat perched on the compound wall near the gate), I would yell: "Appa, barber vandhaachu" (the barber has come). Immediately I would be admonished by Dad: "How many times have I told you to say 'Devan uncle has come? You never listen, useless fellow!" Dad did not like us addressing him as 'barber'. But I always wondered secretly: "How else would anyone call a barber? Dont we call a teacher as teacher and not as Hendricks aunty?" I dont fathom why my father did not want us to address him as 'barber'. Perhaps he thought it was an insult? No work is inferior, isnt it?

Sometimes when the barber came we were so engrossed in our play that it would require our parents to yell at us to go and sit in the chair which had a plank of wood across the arm rests (so that we were at the right height for 'Devan uncle') and get going with the hair cut. One day we didnt turn up even after a few yells from my Dad that he got so angry and even pulled a toy car that I was playing with very harshly and threw it with such force onto the floor that it got smashed to smithereens. I got hurt so badly and I never forgave my father for that.

Ok, I digress. Devan was a very strict man and he wouldnt tolerate any of my pranks. The hardest part of the hair cut was bending my head forward while he cut the hair behind my head. It seemed like a few eons and even if I moved my head a little he shoved it back ruthlessly into position threatening me that he would cut my ears! Devan had an irritating habit of burping and I could almost smell his gastric contents while he burped right behind my ears! Sometimes I thought he would ralph on me. Eeeks.

After I had my barnet cut (usually my bro and I had a fight as to who will get the first haircut and it was me who won) I would lounge around while my brother was having his, irritating him all the while knowing fully that he couldnt do anything to me then (he had the habit of throwing whatever he could find on me).

When Devan finished, my Dad gave him 10 rupees, he received it gratefully and left only to return a month later to burp in my ear.

This evening I missed Devan and even wondered if he was alive. May God bless him wherever he is.