Barber
In boarding school, one could not have long hair. Any hair growth a centimeter above the scalp or more demanded a trip to the barber. One rarely went to the barber by one’s own accord. The decision mostly was made by either the matron or the warden, whose duties among other things comprised ensuring proper grooming of the boarders.
The barber shop was a tiny room under the staircase that lead to the dormitories. The ceiling of this room, followed the slope of the stairs such that you could not reach the far end of this space with bending your back. The barber usually came for a few hours on Thursdays and Sundays. These were the only two days when boarders had enough pockets of freedom from their daily routine to sit under the razor. The tiny room had space for only one hairdressing chair and naturally for only one barber. This was kept at the entrance of the tiny room, where the ceiling was the highest. In front of the chair was a standard mirror and a desk for the hair-dressing paraphernalia.
Students often lined up in this tiny room to wait their turn with the barber. The duration of this wait was often a source of annoyance because it took away from important free play time. To add to this was the hierarchy one had to abide by. The queue was not impartial to one’s position on the food chain. If a senior walked in, one had to wait till they got a haircut before the queue progressed again.
The barber himself was a tiny thin guy, who barely said anything. He was focused on doing the job quickly and handing out as many haircuts as one could possibly fit in that short time frame. To accomplish this, he used a hand operated trimmer and barely touched the scissors. And for the most part, this worked. Every scalp that went under the barber’s practiced hands, was quickly rid of long hair. What remained fit what the authorities desired — a coarse haircut with evenly sized short hair front, back, left and right. There were no style requests. No customization. No scissors. Just a quick haircut.
Unless one could bribe. If you could hold a ten rupee note with your right hand under the hairdresser’s cape, the barber knew just the right moment to slip it away from your hands into his pockets. And then, the barber would go for the scissors — not the trimmer. And then the barber would listen if you told him to stop, tilted your head, and asked him to cut a certain section more finely. Or to let the hair flow this was or that way. Then there was style. Then there was customization. Then the barber even thanked you. And would also brush off the hair on you with his hairbrush and touch it off with some talcum powder. As a frequent ‘briber’, he would recognize you and let you skip the line too.
Oh, how we were — an entire airline business within one tiny barber shop.
