The Barberic ordeals

Its that dreadful time of the month again. An hour to be wasted in worsening my appearance. A good day and two's abuse to be had for how funny I look. An extra bath to be taken, albeit without a closure, without that feeling of complete cleanliness. An hour's emptiness to bear, looking at other people dreadfully look at themselves in mirrors, and sifting through women's magazines. Oh, its time for a haircut again.

Well hair has never really been my best physical asset. I seemed to have been born with a good wave of it, but somehow over the years it transformed itself into this mad rush of, well, rushes. I was very deservedly called the porcupine- my hair resembling an army of hapless warriors in retreat, some of them attempting to run away, some brave enough to fight, and some others wondering what the fuss was all about. All they needed was an able leader, an insightful hairdresser. And thus became the quest of my life.

Now hairdressers in India are a funny lot. If you judged their haircutting ability by their own coiffeurs, you would never step into any of those salons and volunteer yourself for a hairdo. Unfortunately as a middle-class kid I didn't really have much choice, so I just used to pray, take a deep breath and keep my fingers crossed, hoping that the next free hairdresser would cut me a good deal. It came to the point that on the rare occasions that I found my haircut satisfactory, I politely asked the hairdresser's name, hoping that Id make him my regular- but no luck there too, I always forgot their names, and there never seemed to be around the next time I mustered my courage for a trip. Moving to London only worsened matters- I dabbled with the 4-pound Mr.Topper's for a while, and thats exactly how they treated my hair too- start to finish in 15 minutes! Grudgingly I've moved to Supercuts.

But my dreams have always remained unfulfilled. Month after month, it is the same story- sometimes they cut it so short that my medical-school-attending sister used my skull as a prop for a bone-identifying quiz with her friends, some other times they cut it so uneven that I have had to blame it on the paper-shredder at work. Of course, partly, I am to blame- I have lesser of a clue of what to do with my hair than they did. I still awe at those hairdressees who sit confidently on the high hairdresser's chair as if it were a director's and rattle off orders (I can imagine them shouting "Cut!")- I always preferred to utilize the time to catch up on my afternoon nap. Perhaps was a result of the realization that the result of that ordeal was going to give me some sleepless nights in the days to come.

Which in itself is ironic, since sleep is when our body hair grows the most. So, in the wake of the mishap, I get up from bed every morning, casting a glance at the mirror, hoping to catch the extra hair grown on my scalp. And so it goes, the life cycle of a haircut, the relief at it finally having grown to a respectable level, the week of basking in that joy, and the swift transition that occurs between then to the moment at work when your boss mentions, "Mate, I think you need a haircut". Hair we go again :)