The sketch was drawn by my friend, Bhavana.
Note: This is a mix of both fact and fiction. It is not meant to be taken too seriously.
D-Day had arrived. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the headache I had woken up with had been a premonition of the day to come. To be honest, I had considered cutting my hair for more than a couple of weeks now. I had never progressed beyond the stage of contemplation. I had been wanting to grow my hair, and cutting it every so often would be a dealbreaker. Having gone more than three months without a haircut, however, the previous day, I had made my decision. I had resolved, against wisdom and intuition, to cut my hair. Making this decision was an ordeal in itself. But the bigger challenge lay further forward.
The psychological stress that one (I, anyway) goes through while speculating about the end result of the barber shop experience is difficult to put into words. This stress transforms into mental harassment when one, not unlike me, is an overthinker. Would he cut it too small? Will my three months of effort go in vain? Will I come out a changed (for the wrong reasons) man? I have always had my trust issues with barbers. I mean, come on, this guy and “barbarian” seem to have the same root word. There must be something in that!
Since the time I can remember, almost every time I have gone for a haircut, I have come out of the shop regretting my decision to go there, in the first place. The only exceptions being the occasions when I have had my hair cut so short that the next shorter option would be to go fully-shaven. These guys have hands that constantly move like those of a clock. If only they could replicate their precision. In my home town, the barber shop where I and my brother go to, there are three barbers and, therefore, three chairs in the shop. Both of us are afraid of the guy who cuts the hair of those sitting in the middle chair. We call him the middle-man and to have your hair cut by him would be one of the most dreadful experiences in this world. You are now probably inclined to ask me why we keep going there in spite of that. Let me tell you why. One of the others is among one of the better barbers I have seen. But find yourself in the hands of the middle-man and your hair is doomed for certain. Hence, every time, we have to visit the shop, we hope that we do not get the middle-man. Ultimately, though, it’s the gods playing a game of dice.
(If you’re a barber reading this, I hope you take it upon yourself to reach the highest level of “barbership” possible and invite me to your shop so that my older hairs can finally die a peaceful death.)
With all this in mind, you might now have a vague idea of how difficult it must have been for me to come to my decision to cut my hair. There was a change, though, today. I decided to try a different place. It was a risk, indeed, but one worth taking, I believed.
So I strode off after breakfast to this place, hoping for a paradigm shift in hair-cutting experience. As I was about step inside, vivid streams of visuals kept playing in front of my eyes and I stood there trying to process it. This was my last chance to save myself from yet another potential hair-nightmare. After a long pause, though, I decided to give it a go.
Usually when I sit on the chair, while the barber ruthlessly cuts off my hair, I look in the mirror at myself, imagining the falling hair cursing me on its way down. And I look blankly at my reflection in the mirror as if to say, “Don’t look at me. You did it.” It was surprisingly different today as I seemed to be enjoying the experience rather well. He was doing exactly what had been told to him. Every piece in the jigsaw seemed to be falling perfectly into place. In the meantime, we even had a short conversation about hair care that made me more knowledgeable than when I had first stepped into the shop. All in all, all my ghosts were banished to their rightful places and I left for home feeling happy and refreshed, something I had never felt walking out of this kind of an arena before.
It is perhaps fitting that I publish this on a Tuesday, a holiday for barbers here.
If you have had a weird haircutting experience, feel free to share it with everyone in the comments.
Satin Veneer 
Ha!
LikeLiked by 1 person