The Hair Cutter...

One of these days I was sitting in office when Betsy our radio announcer started shouting about some Fiscal Haircuts. Just brought back a memory.

I was 10 years old, in Asansol, before I had ever heard of the concept of a Jawed Habib haircutting saloon. The barber I used to frequent was a gentleman called Lalloo, Lalloo dadu I used to call him, and his hair cutting was exactly like his name. Made me look like a Laloo, such was the brand value. Anyways this barber had been frequented by all my uncles and my dad in days bygone, so by tradition I had to go there too and get my hair cut for Rs.10 only.

There was a new buzz in town though, those days of a saloon called Maya. Air Conditioned it was and supposedly could cut your hair like any Bollywood star you wanted. Anyhow he charged Rs.20, double of my hair cutting budget, so then it was beyond my means. I crossed by it often on my cycle and looking at the dark glass and air conditioning, I wondered what it would be like from inside. I pictured a dude with an Elvis Pressley hairstyle, wearing dark glasses, and cutting hair with the swagger you would associate with a Viv Richards. Air Conditioned saloons were a vogue, and I desired to be a customer.

Anyhow, one fine day, I broke my piggy bank, and decided that enough was enough, I was going to get my hair cut there, albeit at the expense of my entire savings. So go there I did, and dressed myself up for the occasion, wearing my best clothes, hoping to impress the hair cutter enough to give me a Shah Rukh Khan type hairdo.
I was in for the shock of my life.

Air Conditioned it was, most definitely, but beyond that my imagination could not have been more deceived. The Elvis Pressley guy definitely wasn't there, the dark glasses too were missing, Insted brandishing the scissor in their hands like swords, were what seemed like four Bihari gentlemen, each of them completely bald, well not completely, but the tiny pigtail of hair donning the back of their shiny heads, and all of them ready to attack.

For all you do, you definitely do not want a bald man to cut your hair, just out of the fear that maybe they would treat your head like an experiment to express what was expressed on their shiny heads. At least my previous barber had hair, I told myself as I wondered what to do.

I did end up getting a hair cut there that day, and it definitely was no Shah Rukh Khan, but from that day forth, I reverted back to my old barber Laloo, at least there were no false dreams there, to be a Lalloo, is to be a lalloo...