We NRIs, myself included, give bombastic speeches against the low paid manual labor in India. At the same time we take the guilty pleasure of taking full advantage of that, grabbing it at the first opportunity when time comes. It was my turn when I visited a local saloon for a shave during my last trip to India.
This barber shop close to my house was a clean saloon by local standard, in fact it had a wall fitted Air Conditioner. The nostalgic in me was expecting to see an old fashioned BHANDARI (barber) wooden cabins around, with huge posters of movie stars, only place where Amitabh, the one man Bollywood industry of our time, would be overshadowed by Mithun Chakraborty. But my hope was belied.
Ever since, these hair cut saloons have improvised themselves. But I hardly noticed any change in profile of the folks inside it. After entering the saloon, I discovered a few ahead of me in line. I did not want to cut line, but soon found out why I was called ahead of the rest. Because, there were many free roamers inside who were not customers, but needlessly hanging around. The reluctant hair dressers, not fan of these BALUNGAs (worthless weeds), wanted to avoid PUNGA (not to mess around), so tolerated their presence as unavoidable nuisance.
One of them was combing his hair backwards standing in front of mirror from time immemorial, whistling from top his snorted piggy lips. He took a break, wiped residual hairs off the comb, check it again by turning it over. Not satisfied, placing it close to his mouth, he tried to vacuum it off by blowing hair.
He resumed his combing operation, ploughing his hair backwards, uttering in Odia - KIRE KUNA (a common Odia nick nsme) RATIRE BAHAGHARA RU PHERILA (Did Kuna return from marriage last night) ? Uttered his counterpart reading a vernacular newspaper - BAPI (another popular local nickname) E JAYE MEESSI KALA KARINI. (Bapi hasn't given me a miss call, which means a call on cell phone which is destined to be missed).
The tete a tete continued as the barber chose to ignore their barbs. He focused on giving me a clean shave, used his blade in surgical precision reaching out all the nooks and corners of my face which I can rarely reach. Ignoring these obnoxious weeds inside his saloon, he continued weeding out the unwanted hairs off my face, gave me a nice massage, soothing my jaded nerves.
I thanked him for giving me a clean slate by adding a hefty tip to the final payment, a tiny fraction of what it would have been in USA. Can't complain, when I had a close shave for a tiny amount, as close and low it can get.
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