Barbershop – The way we were

With all the grim news of death and devastation coming out of India these days, I need to go dig back to simpler times. To remember my city when things were sparse,  seemingly innocent, and unencumbered by the trappings of technology. During those glorious times, at least in my aging nostalgic memories of  “How Green was my Valley”. Hoping for some levity with this narrative, during these dour times.

Growing up in Vile Parle, Mumbai circa the mid-70 and ’80s, there were a bunch of “bhaaiya” barbers congregated around a tree outside the railway station. They’d wait for customers and had a small foot-stool placed in front of them and their clientele would sit on these stools to have their coif styled or trimmed or tonsured, or whatever was needed. It was fast, efficient and effective and above all, quite cheap. You were in and out of there in 10 minutes max. Well, we didn’t get our hair cut at this fine establishment, but where we went seemed a close second in those days.

“Scissors” was the place we frequented to manage our unruly tresses growing up. It was a rickety shop, back then with 2-3 wooden chairs lined up in front of mirrors and tube light. The owner was a glib-tongued immigrant to Mumbai, from Andhra, Nayan and he had his ways with his customers. He was everything to everybody, of course not with us kids but the adults. He could discuss the cloth business with the gujarathi cloth traders or the stock market vagaries with the stockbrokers and the bosom size and filmi gossip with the college studs. And us, those below 10 years of age, he would just brutally slap around. No, not really, but pretty close, since he’d hold us down and cut our hair the way he wanted and not what we were begging for. All India Radio blared its scheduled fare on a radio, somewhere in one corner.

As kids, the most enticing part about going to the barbershop was gawking at the film magazines, which he had a healthy stackful, in one corner. Sometimes we’d also eavesdrop on the lewd conversations that Nayan had with his adult clients and that could pass off as our unofficial ‘sex-ed' class. One time he was explaining the workings of a condom to one of his customers, who sat in complete bewilderment not believing the possibility of a contraption that prevented pregnancies. And that’s precisely also when it dawned on me that the rubber balloons that we kids would accidentally find outside people's windows in our society, were not meant to be blown up with our mouths and thrown around!!! I thew up a little in my mouth now, just thinking of those days.

When we were a bit older, maybe 8 or 9, my father would drop us at the barbershop, pay Nayan and go back home, expecting us to walk back after we were done. We’d try and prolong our stay at the barbershop as much as possible primarily for two reasons. First was to avoid the harsh razor that he used on the nape of the neck after our haircut and second to imbibe all the unsolicited ‘gyan’ (knowledge), that came our way from the conversations around us. The college-going studs would show up to get their hair “set”. "Setting" was nothing more but getting your hair blow-dried, which Nayan or his assistants executed with great flourish and theatrics.  

The middle-aged men would get their hair cut washed colored, beards trimmed whatever, and then many of them would lift up their shirts so that their armpit hair could be shaved. Some of the more adventurous ones had the hair on their backs shaved off as well. As kids, that was the most hilarious sight for us. A grown-assed man with his shirt pulled up over his head getting his armpit shaved. We’d wonder how Nayan could stand the stench of the sweat since we could smell the unvarnished armpit sitting 6 feet away!!!  Some of the adventurous college boys and younger uncles, I suspect, must be dropping their trousers under the cover of darkness in the evenings to get a version of Nayan's own Brazilian wax, I’m sure.

Over the years Nayans establishment continued to be upwardly mobile. His staff increased over the years to employ specialists for the specific “hairy” tasks. The shop was airconditioned, fitted with fancy chairs, expensive foreign colognes, and after-shaves lined the displays, central music piping through hidden speakers. I stopped going there during my college years and of course not after I moved to the US. Once during my trip to India, I decided to go check out  “Scissors”, just for old time's sake. An older, wiser Nayan was still at the helm, though he'd just sit and barked out orders as his “boys” took good care of his customers. He recognized me after all the years and insisted on giving me a haircut himself. We talked about the old days, laughed at the stories when we were growing up and he caught me up on all the neighborhood gossip. Heck, I even let him “set” my hair that day. It was a good cut.