The haircut

I miss the haircut I used to have during my Bihar days.  I used to frequent a shop of an uncle who knew my father and I was quite comfortable with this arrangement.  During haircutting, he will ask me about my dad, how his business was going, how my studies were going and so on.  After hair cutting, he would do a light massage of my head and neck too.  That was a long time back.  Now residing in Kerala, I wince every time I go out for haircut, why? Well receding hairline being the primary reason, as there is no difference in money charged for a fully-haired man, nouveau baldies, and baldies in making (like yours truly).   There is a secondary reason also for this wincing, which is lack of communication.  Mostly Tamil barbers are working in Kerala and Malayali barbers are an extinct species in here.  They may be cutting hair of sheikhs in gulf countries, but here in God's own country, we are dependent on barbers imported from TN and now even WB.  Being from out of state, they cannot usually do blah blah like a traditional old barber would have done.  They are polite and do work okay, but they keep mostly to themselves.  After a wait of 10 long years, on Sunday May 8, 2011, I came across a barber, who was a Malayali, it was not about being Malayali only, he actually did a good job with my hair too and he in fact solved one of my problems regarding the route to take for my interview the next day and the icing on the cake was the gentle massage he gave like the one barber uncle used to give me in those good old days......hmm....so let me enjoy the camaraderie with the new found barber as long as my hair permits.....;-)