Running with the hair and hunting with the scissors

Raju Korti
I am generally self-effacing but it is never too late to pat oneself on the back. It was more than four decades ago that I realized I had a special talent with the scissors. I am not talking of the one that I used so prodigiously as an editor in the four decades that followed. Cutting fluff and cholesterol from bloated news stories was worth its sadistic pleasure when I got murderous looks from the reporters the next day. But the one I am referring to here lay dormant in me as I discovered later.

Better than a barber!

Keeping manes was a fashion in my college days. I had acquired one more out of neglect than out of fashion. But laid low by an illness, my hair had decided that it would take its own course. My mother, always so old fashioned, tried all tricks in the book to drive me to the nearest saloon and get a decent hair cut. I dodged all of them until she started calling me a sloth bear.

Loathe to sit head bowed down while the barber sheared my hair mercilessly, I decided to use the scissors at home to crop and discipline my rampant hair. Since Maths and Physics happened to be my choice subjects, the knowledge about slopes, gradient, parabolas and curvature came in handy. I didn't know I had done a neat job of it until my friends asked me how I managed to go to a saloon when I was supposed to have been convalescing at home. Excited by the new found me, I would make it a point to tell my close relatives, especially the senior ones, that they could hire my services for free. They would laugh it off.

My first opportunity came sooner than expected when an old relative discharged after long hospitalization came home with hair strands obscenely sticking out of his nose and ears, face a wasteland of thatched hair and eyebrows looking like a sidewalk lined up on either side by tall grass. It took me almost two hours to trim his facial fuzz. More than him I was pleased with my own performance. Thereafter I did many such jobs, each one turning out better than the earlier. I had a gut feeling that there were many who were keen to use my sccisor-ean skills but inhibitions probably kept them back.

I sharpened those skills perforce in the last two years when the pandemic kept the "nhai" or hair stylist as some would prefer to call, out of business and drove people to self help. I cut down the burden over my friends in the neighbourhood. They all thanked me profusely but it didn't occur to any of them that I deserved some compensation in the light of the situation if not for the labour. And to think of it, professional barbers charge Rs 200 or much more. 

Last week, barbers in Mumbai jacked up their prices by Rs 50. For the first time my penurious condition didn't bring a scowl on my face. It looked clean in spite of them and their silly banter. In any case, you are only as good or as bad as your last hair cut. Mine was about a fortnight ago. The pic is proof that I have done it well and it didn't cost me a dime.

Jaanee, hum apni hajaamat khud karte hain!