Friday Features: Hair Raising Times by Sunder Sharma

by Sunder Sharma

Me and my barber never see things eye to eye. For one thing, he’s always doing his dirty work behind my back. I’ve never come out of his shop without feeling like a pale-face who’s had a close brush with the Red Indians – happy to have his scalp intact!

But this has been a part of my life from my early youth. My parents recount that it would take four strong men to hold me down while the village barber ran his shears over my head. The fashion then, among the elders, was a close cropped head – so close, as a matter of fact, that after the barber finished one would have a tough time believing that he didn’t use his razor instead of the scissors.


My battle with the barbers was not merely a monthly affair. Among the many beliefs we South Indians have, one is the sacred offering of human hair to various deities. My mother, especially, was a devout believer in the efficacy of this sacrifice, and as the eldest son, it was my lot to have my head shaved every time my mother willed it so. Any minor ailment was enough to make her turn to God and pray for our well being, the bargain being my hair. Summer vacations would always haunt me – a family excursion to the south of the country would find me as bald as a billiard ball. Not that I was a willing victim. But all my schemes would fail – my mother forestalling all my arguments with her calm statement that what was promised to God had to be paid.

What remains a mystery is this appetite of out Gods for human hair. I can’t conceive of any plausible reason why any deity should demand from his devotees the offering of their hair – what use can He possibly have for it? Perhaps some anthropologists would find the connection between our ancestors and the American Red Indians – which would explain those gentlemen’s tastes for collecting white scalps. And, mind you, the barbers at out temples could teach them a trick or two – the way they wield those dull razors is as near a thing to scalping as anything else!

And apart from the sting of the barber’s razor, going back to face a classfull of boisterous schoolboys with a bald dome was inviting trouble. Boys will be boys, and a bald head must be knocked upon to check authenticity. The first few days would see lumps rising on my head, not all of which could be credited to the boys. Some credit accrued to the teachers too – somehow, the sight of a shaven head seemed to inspire teachers to knock some common sense into their students’ head by the direct method.

Old Enemy


Adolescence was marked by more hair raising battles with my old enemy. The dictates of the early seventies fashions demanded that hair be as long as one could possibly grow it, but sadly, the dictates of my parents hadn’t changed. Every brush with the barber (a middle aged man, who shared my parents’ idea of hair styles) left me close to tears, viewing my mangy crop, and comparing them to the flowing locks of my more fortunate friends.

Ah! How I envied those leonine manes – and those long discussions on how hair was to be washed, shampooed, hot-air dried and lovingly patted into that precise place over the ears, and curled round the necks! Not for me those avid  discussions on who was getting his hair styled where – I knew what my lot was!

But the meek will inherit – at long last, a job which brought along with it a three-month outstation training stint allowed me to give full rein to my tonsorial passions. At the end of those three glorious months, when I could happily thumb my nose at all baber shops, I had achieved my mission – hair that snaked silkily down almost to my shoulders. And on the day when I had to report to my new boss, I was all set – my mane washed, brushed, and set to the frenzied whims of the most ‘in’ barber in town.

Fortunately, my chief was a man with the times, and his hair was, if anything, glossier than mine, even though it was mostly grey.

All good things, however, have to come to an end. Mine lasted a week, exactly. A surprised audit discovered that my chief’s system of keeping accounts was as wild as his hair, and we had to part company – he to his new home where the haircuts were free along with the uniform and chains. I was pondering over the workings of fate as I stood at the airport waiting to receive my new boss. My hair was back to its normal mangy crop. I knew what the new chief would like – after all, he was my father!

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Sunder Sharma is the COO of Jetair Tours who harbours an intense passion for knowledge along with the talent to write.