India Rising, and so is my Barber.

Few months ago I took a short two and half week vacation to India. My visit to India has come after a long gap of about four years. The changes that came about in my hometown caught me my surprise. The country and my hometown are undergoing a transformation and there are huge infrastructural changes in works. New roads, underground drainage, flyovers construction, new telephone lines have made the daily commute a night mare. This and other societal changes are happening at a rapid pace.

One thing that I look forward to, among other things during the visit to my hometown, is a haircut from my favorite barber. In my childhood we had a barber come in to our home for a haircut. The barber who my dad appointed to do our haircuts at home was older than my Dad. So his haircuts were very traditional and left the hair very short. This changed with the onset of teenage. I wanted to assert my independence and I felt that the barber was doing only a traditional cut that were fashionable enough. I needed a more contemporary haircut and decided that a change was due. I started going to the barber shop at the end of our street. I liked the haircuts at this shop and I became a regular customer until I moved out of town. There were many reasons why I liked my haircut here. The haircut was contemporary, the barber was a teenager who was in touch with the current trends, and most of all I got the latest gossip on the happenings in our street. Not to say, I had some good memories of my teenage and early adult life from this place.

So every time I visit my hometown, I make it a point to get a haircut at this barbershop. The added bonus was it gives me a latest on people that I know with who I am no longer in touch. This time the experience was something different. My schedule was hectic and I wanted nothing more than a quick haircut. I went there and found that the shanty barbershop I remembered had undergone a sea change like the rest of the country. Like a butterfly, the small barbershop with 2 chairs and some mirrors had transformed to a multi-chaired, AC equipped, full fledged beauty salon with about 10 employees. Meaning it was not just a barbershop anymore, you can get haircut, hair dye, massage, facials etc. It was no longer a shop only for men. The barbershop was undergoing expansion to provide services to the ladies with more employees and there was visible construction work going on. The then teenage barber who did my haircut when I was young is all grown up. He was supervising the work, gave me a customary hello and said that his brother would take care of me. He was obviously doing well for himself and it was very visible from the way he carried himself and his bling. His fingers were loaded with gold rings and had a heavy shiny gold chain round his neck. There was no hiding his ostentation's.

I go in and was greeted by his brother. He had me seated on a high, cushioned chair. The room was Air Conditioned. My barber's brother apparently doesn't do a haircut either. He only supervises and takes care of important people. That made me feel superior. With my bloated ego, I had my hair cut started. He started telling me the gossip and I was listening. Somehow I got convinced that I needed a dye. I thought how much can a dye cost. A regular haircut costs (Rs.50) and dye may be double that. I thought I have enough and agreed. While this was going on, he started taking about, the black heads on my nose and white heads on my chin. I had no idea what they were. He said that a facial would rejuvenate my skin, and I would look very fresh for 2 weeks straight without a shower. I did not believe that, but persistence has its way of convincing the toughest nut. The kid was believe me persistent. I asked how much time it would take, he said only 15 minutes. He said this without a blink. The important matter of taking my Dad to the dialysis could wait 15 minutes. Besides how much more can a facial cost, triple the cost of a haircut? Sure I have 300 bucks for all of it. Not exactly.

A 30 minute haircut, turned out to be a 2 hour full blown trip to a salon. My family while I was away began to worry as it was getting late and I had not been out of home for such a long time. I had not carried a phone and the front desk guy at the barber shop did not know my brother-in-law who was sent by my mom searching for me. That put me to shame. The shame that followed was nothing compared to the shame put by my family searching for me. When all this was done, my care taker got me the receipt like you get in a restaurant. I opened the book and was shocked at the amount - Rs. 1000. The receipt read - Rs.50 for a haircut, Rs. 250 for a dye, and Rs.700 for the facial. I had never spent that much money on a haircut visit anywhere before. But that was not the matter, I only had Rs.400 on me. The visions of cleaning pots and pans in restaurants by unpaid customers were before me. What would these guys make me do? Hair cut to waiting customers or mop the floor.

I somehow managed to bring down the bill to Rs.800. I paid Rs.300 and got out of there with Rs.500 in debt to my barber. I repaid him the next day of course. I did not reveal this adventure to my family as that would put me in a storm of sympathy and tirade at the same time. I did not need that after the humiliation.

I later found that my barber from teenage times is actually doing very well for himself. His net take home income runs into Rs. 50K/month, he is the president of the Visakhapatnam Barbers association and is very active politically in his class. The only saving grace was that my wife felt that I looked fresh despite my whining about the dust and smoke on the roads in India. Looks like that facial did actually work after all.