A Math question for today,
MO NAZAR LAKHI GALA.
Girl - TO STRONG STRONG BODY DEKHI
MO DIL FIDA HELA.
Calculate how many English, Hindi and Odia words are there in this so called Odia song loaded with tons of vulgarity. It is high time for the legendary Odia singer Akshay Mohanty to take a rebirth to save Odia music from adulteration, cataclysmic alteration and eventual extinction.
As this song was playing in the background, the barber at the local saloon put an inch long shaving cream on my cheek and lathered it. We NRIs (including me) give bombastic speeches about the low cost manual labor in India. At the same time we take the guilty pleasure of availing that, grabbing it at the first available opportunity. It was my turn to do that by visiting a saloon close to our house.
This barber shop was clean, improvised itself over the years, a wall mounted AC being its latest addition. The young man who knows me over years asked me while putting his blade inside his hand razor - AGYAN TRAWMPAW KEMITI ACHHI (How is Trump doing) ? I replied - "He is fine, I guess".
As he mowed the first chunk of my facial hair and smeared the beared sprinkled lather on a piece of paper he informed me - "Do you know that Trawmpaw consults Narendra Modi before taking any important decision ?" I replied - "No. This is news to me. But where from did you get this piece of information" ? "AGYAN, WHATSAPPE RE DEKHITHILI - I saw this on the Whatsapp", he replied back. I didn't want to dishearten the BHAKT (devotee) in him for whom Whatsapp is gospel. Apparently the social media cell of political parties are doing heck of a job in brainwashing the commoners. Goebbel, the propaganda Man Friday of Hitler who successfully brainwashed the Germans with the false notion of Aryan Supremacy must be missing Facebook and Whatsapp.
Our tete a tete continued as the barber 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. He continued weeding out the unwanted hairs off my face, gave me a nice massage, soothing my jaded nerves.
A guy suddenly slammed his bike in front of the store, toed its leg stand to park, barged in, grabbed a comb and brushed whatever hair available on top as he had mowed down his sideburns and hair above both sides of his ears with an ear ring on the left. He was ploughing his hair backwards standing in front of the mirror exposing his wrist tied with multiple multicolor threads whose color was fading. He started whistling from his lips snorted lke a pig to the song - "TORA SILKY SILKY ANTA DEKHI DIL FIDA HELA". He took a break, wiped the residual hairs off the comb, checked it by turning it over again and again mumbling something to the rhyme of the song in the backhround which sounded like "MAMA MYAON MYAON, MAMA MYAON MYAON". Placing the comb close to his mouth, he tried to vacuum it off by blowing air through his pouting lips. He resumed his combing operation and mumbling "MAMA MYAON MYAON".
Here are some samples of typical Saloon conversations - "KIRE KUNA (a common nick name) TA SHAALI BAHAGHARA RU PHERILA (Did Kuna return from the marriage of his sister-in-law) ?" The guy reading a local newspaper got up, walked to the front door to spit out his betel stained saliva and replied - NA MA. SE E JAYE MEESSI KALLA KARINI. (He has not given me a miss call - a call on the cell phone which is destined to be missed but expected to be returned).
The barber once confided to me that those guys were not his customers, but free roamers needlessly hanging around. The reluctant hair dressers, not fan of these BALUNGAs (worthless weeds), had no desire to mess around with the local brats - simply tolerating them as a nuisance and unavoidable occupational hazard.
I thanked him for giving my face and cheek a clean slate. Adding my tip to the final payment it cost me less than one dollar. Can't complain, when I had a close shave for a tiny amount, as close and low it can get. More later...
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