The ubiquitous barber has been an intrinsic part of Indian lore. They were like a social platform for the exchange of gossip. Conversations and time spent here could make or break family life and friendships. Political ideologies were shaped here with the barber doubling up as an agent, while snipping away deftly.
Barber shops continue to be a hub of activity, particularly in small towns and cities and time spent here makes for an interesting study of human behaviour.
So, in that sense, it is more like a social institution. Two rows of seats, a wall-to-wall mirror with pictures of calendar gods and goddesses peering over your grooming process, and a TV or a cheap sound system blaring out local hits characterises them. An hour of grooming including half an hour of waiting time can set you back maximum by a hundred rupees even now.
There was a time people shaved once in three days and had a haircut once a month. Being recognised and acknowledged by the barber was treated as the first certificate of an adolescent into manhood. He would be considered man enough if, in the later years, he got the offer of a waiting seat and is given a pan or included in the rounds of tea order unasked. That is one of the methods by which a man in our society marked his territory as being someone important. Those days, the service comprised recognition, acknowledgement, respect, and elaborate talk on various issues both local, national, and personal followed by a haircut or an odd body hair shave and a spine-chilling message to end the session. The quality of a haircut was the least priority and people were supremely confident of their appearance in spite of their oddities.
Traditionally, barbers, as a clan, could carry any potentially lethal weapon nearest to the jugular of the most powerful person in that area, and their massage skills gave them access to the most sensitive spot that every man tries to protect after perhaps his eyes. Scores of stories and hearsay depict the shrewd barber as a manipulative character. His proximity to kings and such power centres made them develop their art of glib talk to keep the powerful engaged while being groomed. It gave them enviable access to powerful ears too. To plant a suspicion for mischief or gains or to extract a personal favour. The trait had become genetic and would have continued had the disruptive culture of new age salons not come up.
People would stroll in with scant regard for the person on the seat, pick up a comb or a pair of scissors from the tray on the ledge in the front and start to give themselves a groom while picking up a small or a serious chat. The one silently sitting in the waiting chair for the last half an hour would randomly choose his unsuspecting audience and target his opinion on some issue that he discovered in the newspaper, without bothering to check if the issues interested his audience or not. Someone or the other would catch that thread and the discussion would continue ad nauseam. One was free to join and exit the discussion anytime as the barber would act as a moderator and would keep the discussion stoked with his wisdom and quips long enough. Regulars chose their timings. Mornings were the usual rush time. Sunday was a lean day and Mondays, and Thursdays were the leanest. For many, the trip was more social than anything else. T
Barber shops are like a confession box for many. A bar with a good bartender serves the same purpose in the West perhaps. Today, I was privy to simmering tension between a man and his wife. The man talking to his wife over his cell phone chose to get up immediately without getting a haircut to mete out instant justice. By this time, he was out of the door, having made his intentions and plans public. After being exposed to the cold, dust, and fog in the morning yesterday, a land agent was lamenting how he is down with a bout of cold and chest congestion. His misery seems to be never-ending as he was just recovering from a surgery, and he had to endure to rupture an abscess on his Hydrocele (sic).
This place of social interaction headed by the lead barber himself was no less than a social institution itself. Our cities till sometimes back were dotted with such shops. They were known by the names of the barber, not by the shops’ names. And fortunately, some still exist as the shadow of their former glorious bests. Our preference for conspicuous consumption in the name of hygiene, style, and comfort is depriving us of experiencing what is called glib talk. I won’t say much about the voyeuristic pleasure we derived from peeping into others’ lives as collateral.
