"Eighty Rupees for only haircut, Sir." said the saloon owner with a slick hairstyle and slicker smile.
"Okay. Tutu, go sit there.", my father said.
Don't get this wrong. I am mature enough to get an haircut on my own. This scene, however, is of my father making sure I get a haircut.
I sat down in the chair without taking my eyes off the reflection. My hair was all over the place, but in my eyes, it was very becoming. I must be deluded, because my dad had labelled it a lot of things that I really don't have the heart to put down.
"Short-a medium-a?"
Short or medium? Short or medium?? I don't want any! I shot a look at my father, before I mumbled "Short."
He took out a shiny pair of scissors.
SNIKT SNIKT.
I reminisced to back when it reached its normal length, and people started the usual "Machan, get a haircut" comments. Generally, long hair never agreed to anything in my routine, like Basketball or general maintenance. But then, the distance between my parents and me, and the general ambience of my college (Amrita. Enough said.) aroused a rebellious spirit in me, far more rebellious than ordinary (which is saying something) and I decided to wait and see how long my hair could get before I myself got disgusted.
SNIKT SNIKT.
The scissors' blades were a flash over my halo of hair, and my halo fell around me in many small streaks of black. A fallen angel. I smirked. Angel. Right. In the days that followed the birth of the new "Me", I had unconsciously become more loud, uncouth, brash and self destructive. I would become over-defensive and give people around me the look that said "What do you think you are staring at? I like my hair, so fuck you and your suggestions." It was a refreshing change when people stared at me in fear, as though I was floating in heroin. All this in security of the knowledge that I believed myself innocent and a decent character. (Talk about self-conceit.)
SNIKT SNIKT.
The pair of scissors continued in rhythm to some local tamil music blaring from the television set perched in a corner of the room. I remembered the joy of headbanging to heavy metal music and feeling my hair bob in tandem, yet lagging behind my neck's movement. I remembered the astonishment of finding out that my hair could be pushed back so far as to tie a pony tail. I remembered how I argued with my Materials Sciences professor about whether I was "consuming". I remembered ducking under corridors when my Head of the Department passed by. I realized how my life seemed to have revolved around my hair, like a mother's around her new born's. It depicted how starved I was for change from the regular monotony, and had desperately clung to the trait that made me and my life unique, worth waking up to. I realized how utterly jobless I had become in my drive to do anything other than what my hated college ordered us to do. (Oh yes, studying was quite on top of the list.) I realized how low I had sunk. I sat stunned in the light of the revelation.
SNIKT SNIKT.
The pair of scissors vanished from view, and my head was pushed forward. I sat staring at my shorn locks on my lap and wondered how these keratin deposits had made me change so subtly that I justified things I would have thought twice about before. "But", argued a small voice in my head,"what difference does it make that you grew your hair? Its not like you did something that went against nature?"
That's true.
What HAD I done wrong?
Nothing.
If so, why had I changed?
"Its the society.", proclaimed the Voice smugly.
Absolutely true. The society viewed long haired guys with piercings with quite an amount of (justified to a certain extent) foreboding. But this was no longer the 80's! This was an open minded era of information shattering myths and Old Wives' tales left, right and centre, obtained from the numerous sources of information that sprout on a yearly basis.
Or was it?
"This is India", the Voice reiterated, like the many mindless and unimaginative defeatists I had the unfortunate fate of meeting, albeit with more than a hint of sarcasm.
Also true. The Indian society displayed astonishingly vast levels of stubborn-ness in letting go of the many short sighted and almost stupid beliefs that had taken seed along the way from the days of Independence. They found it fairly easy enough to adopt child marriage and sati, but it was like sticking a gun into their mouth to let people display their affection in public, or accept a man grew his hair. (Do I sound venomous? Sorry.)
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!
I was shaken from my reverie by the loud buzz of the trimmer as the man added his finishing touches. I stared at my reflection, brutally ordinary and acceptable, taking time to comprehend. It was done. The pains I had taken to preserve the Halo were reduced to a mass to be swept into a basket, to be sold to a Wig making company. I stared bemusedly at the mental picture of my efforts up until this point on one scale of a balance, and the effort this man had taken in shaving. I added the Society onto his balance. Now the balance seemed satisfactory. There. Left Hand Side equal to Right Hand Side. Conservation of balance. Sigh.
"Over, Sir." said the man in the unctuous voice that he must have honed over the years to become the Ideal Tradesmen.
I walked out of the saloon and watched the multitudes that made up The Society pass by. I suddenly recalled the line from Jack Black's "School Of Rock", in reference to the society.
"Don't let The Man get to you."
Kudos. You got me.
"Okay. Tutu, go sit there.", my father said.
Don't get this wrong. I am mature enough to get an haircut on my own. This scene, however, is of my father making sure I get a haircut.
I sat down in the chair without taking my eyes off the reflection. My hair was all over the place, but in my eyes, it was very becoming. I must be deluded, because my dad had labelled it a lot of things that I really don't have the heart to put down.
"Short-a medium-a?"
Short or medium? Short or medium?? I don't want any! I shot a look at my father, before I mumbled "Short."
He took out a shiny pair of scissors.
SNIKT SNIKT.
I reminisced to back when it reached its normal length, and people started the usual "Machan, get a haircut" comments. Generally, long hair never agreed to anything in my routine, like Basketball or general maintenance. But then, the distance between my parents and me, and the general ambience of my college (Amrita. Enough said.) aroused a rebellious spirit in me, far more rebellious than ordinary (which is saying something) and I decided to wait and see how long my hair could get before I myself got disgusted.
SNIKT SNIKT.
The scissors' blades were a flash over my halo of hair, and my halo fell around me in many small streaks of black. A fallen angel. I smirked. Angel. Right. In the days that followed the birth of the new "Me", I had unconsciously become more loud, uncouth, brash and self destructive. I would become over-defensive and give people around me the look that said "What do you think you are staring at? I like my hair, so fuck you and your suggestions." It was a refreshing change when people stared at me in fear, as though I was floating in heroin. All this in security of the knowledge that I believed myself innocent and a decent character. (Talk about self-conceit.)
SNIKT SNIKT.
The pair of scissors continued in rhythm to some local tamil music blaring from the television set perched in a corner of the room. I remembered the joy of headbanging to heavy metal music and feeling my hair bob in tandem, yet lagging behind my neck's movement. I remembered the astonishment of finding out that my hair could be pushed back so far as to tie a pony tail. I remembered how I argued with my Materials Sciences professor about whether I was "consuming". I remembered ducking under corridors when my Head of the Department passed by. I realized how my life seemed to have revolved around my hair, like a mother's around her new born's. It depicted how starved I was for change from the regular monotony, and had desperately clung to the trait that made me and my life unique, worth waking up to. I realized how utterly jobless I had become in my drive to do anything other than what my hated college ordered us to do. (Oh yes, studying was quite on top of the list.) I realized how low I had sunk. I sat stunned in the light of the revelation.
SNIKT SNIKT.
The pair of scissors vanished from view, and my head was pushed forward. I sat staring at my shorn locks on my lap and wondered how these keratin deposits had made me change so subtly that I justified things I would have thought twice about before. "But", argued a small voice in my head,"what difference does it make that you grew your hair? Its not like you did something that went against nature?"
That's true.
What HAD I done wrong?
Nothing.
If so, why had I changed?
"Its the society.", proclaimed the Voice smugly.
Absolutely true. The society viewed long haired guys with piercings with quite an amount of (justified to a certain extent) foreboding. But this was no longer the 80's! This was an open minded era of information shattering myths and Old Wives' tales left, right and centre, obtained from the numerous sources of information that sprout on a yearly basis.
Or was it?
"This is India", the Voice reiterated, like the many mindless and unimaginative defeatists I had the unfortunate fate of meeting, albeit with more than a hint of sarcasm.
Also true. The Indian society displayed astonishingly vast levels of stubborn-ness in letting go of the many short sighted and almost stupid beliefs that had taken seed along the way from the days of Independence. They found it fairly easy enough to adopt child marriage and sati, but it was like sticking a gun into their mouth to let people display their affection in public, or accept a man grew his hair. (Do I sound venomous? Sorry.)
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!
I was shaken from my reverie by the loud buzz of the trimmer as the man added his finishing touches. I stared at my reflection, brutally ordinary and acceptable, taking time to comprehend. It was done. The pains I had taken to preserve the Halo were reduced to a mass to be swept into a basket, to be sold to a Wig making company. I stared bemusedly at the mental picture of my efforts up until this point on one scale of a balance, and the effort this man had taken in shaving. I added the Society onto his balance. Now the balance seemed satisfactory. There. Left Hand Side equal to Right Hand Side. Conservation of balance. Sigh.
"Over, Sir." said the man in the unctuous voice that he must have honed over the years to become the Ideal Tradesmen.
I walked out of the saloon and watched the multitudes that made up The Society pass by. I suddenly recalled the line from Jack Black's "School Of Rock", in reference to the society.
"Don't let The Man get to you."
Kudos. You got me.
