A hair-raising experience

Going for a haircut is one of my favourite pastimes in Chennai. The salon owner promptly switches on the AC and the TV playing a Tamil movie – or better still -- Sun TV-type sexy siren songs – as I slouch into the chair and let him have a go at my mane.
Despite the general calm I experience sitting on that chair, I have, at least thrice, noticed that my instructions to the hair-dresser go unnoticed, unheeded. I like to wear my hair really short – especially the sides and the back -- and I tell him that before I slouch into the chair and he switches on the AC and the TV playing the sexy siren songs. But everytime I come out of the salon looking like a baboon.
He keeps the hair long from the sides and back, crops it short from the top and leaves a tuft of hair that curls up like Dev Anand’s.
So this time I wanted to make sure that I got a haircut the way I wanted it – so I mustered up enough courage to tell him how to do it. (As an aside, you have to be really careful not to anger your barber… you know the kind of ‘mistakes’ they can make)
So I started off in English.
“Short from the sides and back, short from top so that I don’t need to use a comb.”
“Wokay”. Just like he says everytime I tell him that.
“No. Listen. Do you know Hindi?”
I knew I had pissed him off. H stared at me for exactly three seconds.
“Maloom. Maloom. Bolo.” (I know, I know. Speak up) and then he exhaled, just like someone does when too much adrenaline wells up in your body. And that happens just before you hit out.
So I repeated the instructions in Hindi.
“Wokay.”
And he started off.
Within five minutes he was done.
And I was again looking like a baboon. My hair long from the sides and back, short from top and a tuft curling up like Dev Anand’s.
“Wokay?” he asked as he showed me a mirror.
“No short from the sides and back. Short from the top like I told you so.” I said all that in Hindi.
He started off again. Finished in five minutes. I was still looking a baboon. And you know the rest about how my hair looked.
“Short from the back and sides,” I said.
No wokay this time. He sighed and called his partner. They mumbled something to each other and my barber then nodded his head.
I can bet my life it was something nasty that they discussed because my barber took out his razor.
“Not with a razor, I don’t want it that short.”
So the two partners conferred some more and my barber took out what we call a “zero machine”. It’s used to give you a haircut like Aamir Khan’s these days.
“No. With a scissor.”
If this scene were playing out in the The Godfather, this was the time my barber would have pulled out a string and garroted me – just like Peter Clemenza did to Carlo Rizzi in the movie.
Thankfully, I was in a salon in Chennai with no Sicilian connections whatsoever. I doubt very much if my barber has seen The Godfather, however film-crazy this state is.
So I walked out content that I had stood my ground despite the threats and got the haircut just like the way I had wanted it.
Back home I found that my barber had had the last laugh. He cut one of my sideburns short despite express instructions not to touch them.
Well, every barber has his day.