These are the first few lines of an Odia duet I overheard at a Barber's Haircut Saloon the other day.
Boy - TO SEXY SEXY ANTA DEKHI
MO DIL FIDA HELA.
(Looking at your sexy waistline,
My heart was satisfied).
Girl - TO STRONG STRONG BODY DEKHI
MO NAZAR LAKHI GALA.
(Looking at your strong body,
My eyes were fixated)
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 the legendary Odia singers Akshay Mohanty, Chitta Jena, Prafulla Kar et all take rebirth and save Odia music from adulteration, cataclysmic alteration and its eventual extinction. I requested the guy giving me haircut and shave to save me from any further torment by switching from this "Sexy Sexy" song to something less sensuous and more listenable. He dismissed me nonchalantly - "AGYAN AJI KALI SABU EIYA KU SUNUCHANTI (Sir, these days all folks listen to this). He made his point.
We NRIs are champion hypocrites who give bombastic speeches about the low cost manual labor in India. But when time comes, we take the guilty pleasure of fully taking advantage of the low cost, grabbing it at the very first opportunity. It was my turn to do so today by visiting a Saloon, as a Barber's shop is called in local lingo.
This Barber shop aka Saloon was clean. It has improvised over the years, a wall mounted AC unit blowing cool air being its latest addition. But I hardly noticed any changes in the profile of the folks gathered inside. After entering the Saloon I noticed a few guys, thinking they were ahead of me in line. So when the hair dresser signaled me to occupy a chair, it surprised me, putting me in a spot. Sensing my hesitancy he insisted - "SAARE, BASANTU (Sir, please take your seat).
Soon I realized the reason of me being pulled ahead of the rest. Those guys ahead of me were not customers, but free roamers and freeloaders needlessly hanging around. The reluctant hair dresser is no fan of these guys whom he refers as BALUNGAs (worthless weeds) and wanted to avoid any PUNGA (not to mess around) with these local brats. He tolerated the unavoidable nuisance as an occupational hazard in his profession. He had confided to me about this earlier.
One of them was combing his hair backwards standing in front of the big mirror from time immemorial, whistling from the top his snorted piggy lips. He took a break, wiped residual hairs off the comb, checked it again by turning it over. Not satisfied, placing it close to his mouth, he tried to vacuum it off by blowing hair through his pouting lips.
He resumed his combing operation, ploughing his hair backwards, uttering in Odia - KIRE KUNA (a common Odia nick name) TA SHAALI BAHAGHARA RU PHERILA (Did Kuna return from marriage of his sister-in-law) ? A 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 destined to be missed but expected to be returned at the earliest).
The tete a tete continued as the barber focused on giving me a clean shave, used his blade in surgical precision reaching out to 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. I thanked him for giving me a clean slate. Adding my tip to the final payment it cost me just a little more than couple of dollars. It can't get any cheaper than that. Can't complain, when I had a close shave for a tiny amount, as close and low it can get.
Plumbers, Electricians, AC Mechanics et all thrive well in Bhubaneswar, making decent amount of money. There is always demand for them due to the city's explosive growth. The dignity of labor hasn't quite matched up to their earnings in a feudal society where manual labor is frowned upon. But due to an upward demand curve and mobility, the dignity of labor is bound to grow as years progress.
Thursday is the best day for banking. I have an account at the local State Bank of India from the 18th Century. This Thursday when I visited the Bank, it was conspicuously less crowded. Then I realized that Thursday is the day of MAA LAXMI, our Goddess of wealth - so a monetary transaction is best avoided on that day, lest one wants to attract the wrath of our Goddess, running the risk of left in penury. I was glad that I was there on a Thursday facing a lot lesser crowd and my transaction at counter done in few minutes.
In spite of Pax Americana, we still have our indelible inheritance from the British. The most conspicuous difference is the way we write the dates. Here June 9, 2022 is written as 09-06-2022 in MM-DD-YYYY format. Found this the hard way at the bank when I wrote 06-09-2022 in American MM-DD-YYYY format on a Check (Cheque in British English) only to be rebuffed by the young lady at the cash counter.
I changed the date on the check back to the correct DD-MM-YYYY format and handed it back to her. Without lifting her head or making any eye contact, she continued to click away the computer keys with her eyes going back and forth between my check and the screen. She again pushed the check back to me, still looking at the computer screen - "PACHHARE SIGN KATANTU (Please sign on the back). I duly obliged.
She pulled out a bunch of Rs.500 bills (notes) and put them on the counting machine. It whirred for a few seconds before displaying the amount on the screen. Then she bundled those bills in a rubber band and handed over to me. "Thank you ma'am. Have a nice day" - I replied. Now I not only raised her curiosity, I got her attention too. She raised her head, made an eye contact with me and suggested to count the money before leaving. More later...
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