I've always been fond of short hair on my head. But like most other Indian youngsters who have been through college, I've had my share of 'trying-to-grow-long hair' days and attempts of masquerading the hair so that I looked less like Abdul Kalam and more like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible 2.
The last time I had tried growing my hair long, a fellow and one of my prettiest classmate had commented rather rudely that I needed a haircut and that I looked like one of those villian's sidekicks from south-Indian movies. That was that, I never attempted to grow my hair long again (at least not intentionally).
I have been kinda infamous amongst my family (immediate family and the extended one too.....far far extended) for visiting a saloon or 'Barber shop' as it's more commonly known in middle-class India- to get a haircut at least twice a month...that's once every fortnight. Of course, I would confidently defend myself by saying that I had a thick mane of hair and that my hair grew faster than other mortals (I still think it's true btw). My mom and siblings made it a point to humiliate my publicly by saying that I didn't even look like I had had a haircut (this was right after I got home from a saloon...freshly trimmed hair et al. ) thus hereby questioning my decision to get a haircut and 'waste' Rs.20 (Rs.10 before soft and proud hair started sprouting above my upper lip).
The funny thing is that I have almost never been satisfied with a haircut that I had get. There have hardly been four or five occasions where I remember getting that perfect haircut ....the one that I had envisioned. Our desi-barbers seem to have a mind of their own when cutting our hair and not to mention the scissor in his had has a mind of its own. No matter how many times and in how ever many languages you tell them how you need the hair to look after he's done cutting it, he would nod vigorously and set about cutting the hair just the way HE liked and not how you'd have liked, all the while listening intently to the discussion on the radio about how houseflies can be tamed or whatever. And you end up looking like you’re taming a porcupine on your head or sometimes are left squinting at your reflection to see if there’s actually hair up there or is it a layer of charcoal dust the the ‘naai’ peppered when you weren’t looking. The barber though with so much pride in his eyes that you begin to doubt if the government has awarded him the Padma Bhushan or something. The sad thing about haircuts is once it’s messed up, you’re as screwed as that harry potter guy minus his wand in front of Voldermort. There's no going back-- only wait for the jeers you'd get from your friends at school the next day, from family members who think you are ridiculously wasting 80% of their income on haircuts, and from your neighborhood stray cum pet dog who would growl at you as you walk past it on your way back from the saloon showing its distaste of your new haircut. You suddenly go from being ‘that crazy fellow from the last bench’ to ‘that guy with the funniest haircut…haa haa haa’…..God I so used to hate it when that happened.
Now, after having moved to USA, I found to my utter disbelief, like most other Indians there, that each haircut costs more than 20 times than what I paid for in India (after we convert the USD to INR). Wow! I will have to get used to haircuts only once every few months. It's going to be more difficult than getting over drugs at a rehab center, but I think I will live through it. God will give me the strength to live through this... sniff. I am almost used to it now btw.
