Over a Haircut

Kid, now a Young Man, walks into a barber shop. It’s not just any old barber shop — or rather, it’s just not any of the new fancy swanky hi-funda men’s/unisex saloons (as they’re known). No sirjee, this is Ye Olde Haircutter, an establishment that has been around in Kid’s childhood neighbourhood for as little as Kid can remember.

He hasn’t been here in five years. On his way there, he notices that the new fancy men’s saloon that had opened across from Ye Haircutter five years ago (Ploom Groom) had now been upgraded to an even more alluring unisex place (Plooms and Permz). He’d been to Ploom Groom once. They had young, cocky, inexperienced staff (one of whom nicked Kid’s ear, causing him to panic about infectious diseases) and charged twice what he was used to paying at Ye Haircutter. This time, unisex or not, he eshwed this shiny temptation.

Pushing open the ancient dilapidated door of Ye Olde Haircutter, Kid wonders if they place is still run by the gay-looking barber and (presumably) his brother. As a kid, he used to wonder why they had three barber chairs, when there were only the two of them to attend to customers. Inside, he isn’t surprised to see one of the three chairs empty, while the gay-looking barber is shaving somebody and (presumably) his brother is massaging somebody else’s head.

There is also another person, an Old Man, waiting for his turn.

Kid (mildly disappointed): “Will it take time?”

Gay-looking Barber: “A little, have a seat.”

Old Man glowers at Kid for a moment as Kid sits down next to him. Old Man returns to watching Cricket on Telly.

A few minutes of silence-shave-pound-silence later, and GlB is done shaving somebody.

Old Man: Hey kid, you wanna go ahead?

Kid: No sir, you were here first…

Old Man: It’s all right, I just want a shave. I’ll watch Cricket a little longer…

Kid: Okay, sure…

Kid thinks, Oh my… how horrible of me! I’m the impatient uncouth youth of the world. I’m just as bad as those fancy saloons I avoided going to, just as in need of instant gratification as the wasteful children who support and frequent those places. Look at that Old Man. He’s in no hurry. He must have been coming to this barber shop for years, every day or every other day to get a shave. But is it just the shave? No! He’s here for the experience, for the chance to sit and soak in the snip-snip-snips and black-not-brown bickering of the clientele. He scornfully gives way to speed-freaks as if to say “Haha! I’m not going to help you out when you crash and burn, son!” Great. Here I am, with a desire to try and become good at observing the world turn and run, but I can’t even patiently wait for a haircut, and take in the charm of this quaint, run down old place, with all its stories and memories…

———-

*10 minutes earlier*

———-

…and GlB is done shaving somebody.

Old Man thinks, Oh no… that damn faggot wants to shave me now. No.Fucking.Way.

Old Man: Hey kid, you wanna go ahead?

.

.

.

flights and cheap hotels 2

as i walked across the threshold, i was overwhelmed by a strange cocktail of smells: cheap perfume lazily hung around in the air, unable to disguise the obvious stench of reflux. next, my eyes took a moment to adjust to the creatures lurking within the building.

the company i had on the plane was unusual to say the least. with my hat that’s shaped like a banana peel, i’m a shoo-in for ‘most-weirdly-dressed-person’ in any sort of gathering; here, i found that i wouldn’t have made it to the qualifiers. for starters, we had the fantastic four family: a dad in his oldest half-shirt and english mustard coloured pants, his wife in a bright pink and gold wrap-around with a matching blouse and platinum blonde hair in an afro do, their 7 year old obese boy wonder with an electric blue sleeveless vest a few sizes too small for him (and a beret to boot), and their precious 10 year old daughter in something terribly inappropriate. how do i mean? picture a little girl, barely clothed. a few fig leaves here and there. tattoo the rest of her, in psychedelically distracting patterns. remove fig leaves. 10 years old. I call her Negative Girl.

but the fashionless four, the rest of our copassengers — who came in all imaginable shapes, sizes, and halloween costumes — and me in my banana-peel hat couldn’t hold a candle to spectacle that awaited us inside the airport building. some of us who could comprehend the scenario suddenly felt like a child’s sketch hung in a room full of monets, rembrandts, van goghs, and da vincis: out of place because of our  sheer unimpressiveness, and utterly humiliated by it.

flights and cheap hotels 1

i got off the ATR sweaty, grimy, hungry, and alone, but my first action was to sigh in relief that the dilapidated machine successfully completed what i had no doubt was going to be one of its last journeys.

i can never get used to arriving at an unknown airport. even on family vacations, where my child/tween/teen self would have been handed no responsibility except keeping to myself and not causing a mini-riot (after the pet-gerbil-in-my-handbag incident of ‘93), i would feel a sense of apprehension, of burden. here was me, in a unknown  land. can i indulge in my regular childish habits and run across a road dogding cars? my mother’s firm grasp on my tiny wrist served as a not-so-subtle hint that i could not. with such conditioning have i grown. perennially in fear of making a mistake, and often without the tools to understand how not to.

at this tiny wayside excuse, we, paying passengers, were made to walk to the airport building. where were the 4-seater electric carts, or even a frigging bus? i thought it best not to ask; didn’t want to offend the locals so soon. i was here, after all, to examine the effects of improper disposal of chewing gum on the environment of this dustbowl (by order of the Supreme Ruler), with power to ban the chewing and spitting of all items not meant to be swallowed. and i suspected that should i recommend this, i would be offending a lot more people than one airport officer, and hopefully would be really, really far away at the time.

one consolation was that we were not made to carry our own suitcases from the aircraft, just our handbags. if i haven’t already told you that i regretted going on this journey, allow me to inform you that i regretted going on this journey the moment i sat in the damn ATR. tray tables that wouldn’t shut fell out at odd angles, poking poor passengers. seat cushions, where present, were in a state of disrepair. the smell of stale cigarette smoke lingered in the air. the skimpily-clad oh-so-sexy stewardess mentioned that there may not be a floatation device under our seats, so in event of a emergency landing over water, could you please share with your copassengers, tee hee! the whole scene resembled an airline uniform strip poker racket that had just been busted up a few hours earlier.

but even if i wasn’t entirely loathing the entire experience (thanks to the fact that nobody talked to me the entire flight, ah what bliss!), this quickly changed once i entered the airport building. the plane wasn’t even the tip of iceberg; what i beheld inside was nothing short of a liveried brothel of tease.

vogon prose 2

what am i doing here?

something was  amiss.

do you think he will figure it out?

i don’t know, we’ll have to wait and see. can’t ever tell about dear Alex. but one thing for sure, we’re stuck with him. or are we? what choices do we have?

i… i don’t know.

huh. well, all right. so, coming back to Alex…

how did i get here?

wow. i didn’t see that coming. i thought he’d say something more like ‘oh no, not again’.

really? i was going for a long ramble, something like

imagine a room full of people. any people. they don’t all have to be the same, or even similar. but they don’t have to be different either. it just has to be a random bunch of people. think of something you’ve seen. yeah. hold on to that. what is it? come on, tell me… what’s your room like?

isnork! he said “what’s your room like?” as if he’s trying to get to know a girl

how do you know he’s not trying to get to know a guy?

you bastard.

now now, be polite. he asked you a question.

He did NOT ask mE a question.

ooooOOooo touchy! touchy! fine, then, i will. could you tell Alex what your room is like?

it’s muddy hole with diamonds for entertainment… ilikeawhisper!

what kinda stupid room is that?

metajour 1

Friday, October 2:

Party tonight! Should be a nice menagerie of school, college and bschool friends. Today I learned what steampunk is. Fascinating stuff what fankids do these days. You really have to be into a thought, an idea to put together some crazy cool stuff, like this.

Saturday, October 3:

It’s now the next day. As always, I have only the foggiest memories of the shit that went down last night. I still can’t focus on the computer screen. Anyhow. My holiday has finally come to an end; I catch a flight back to Hyderabad at 4 today. Fine; I don’t start work till Monday, but this break was about Delhi, and that’s going to be missing shortly. .

Random rambling, on the same day:

“Said gap ‘twixt ‘d’ and ‘f’ shall not slip from lips” … one of the flashes of brilliances in Gilmore Girls.

Today:

What does one tag? (Immediately ‘metablog’ comes to mind) Wrote something about going mad on the tags a long long time ago, which I can’t find any more. I’m amazed how people meticulously link to their older posts, especially those who’ve written hundreds of them!

I suppose one way is type them in this here “Post Tags” field as we go along. Another, and what I’m told is a good practice for writers, is to read an entry once you’re done — you might come up with some ideas for tags, then.

Right now’s issue, of course, is the fact that my wordpress theme seems to limit my tag cloud… so all my new tags post like a year ago don’t show up.

I will try and remedy this, without picking too hideous a theme.