Haircut - a losing battle !

Having a haircut in a new place is always tricky. Hair cut is a rather personal thing and you have to make your barber understand (and get him to agree to it) about what you want. In Shanghai its made even more difficult on two counts - first is the usual reason - language! But let me not cry again for that. Second one is the Shanghainese barbers themselves. Most of these are young girls and boys and they sport hairstyles that gives me a feeling that they need services of barbers themselves !! Weirdo hairdos are norm. Everyone looks like a budding rock star. So when I approach with a moderate hair growth on my head - they look at it with suspicion. Then comes a request from me for a decent hair cut that demands the hair to be trimmed on the similar lines of well maintained garden. For them its more a job of a gardener than gurus like themselves.

First question I invariably meet in a barber shop in Shanghai is "..shampoo..?". Now that means 20 kuai gone from my wallet. However you respond - they conveniently interpret it as yes and proceed with next one. You see, with age, my hair has acquired a respectable mix of gray hair and original black. I believe that this give me the aura of wisdom (that I lack and hence the desperation). But these young crowd looks at it as potential hair color experiment gunia-pig. I am shown all sorts of brochures and pamphlets and varied shades of colors !! I have to make it resolutely clear that my no means a no here.

That settled, the shampooing proceeds. Now that's a shampoo plus head massage together - with neck wrapped in towels, the head massage goes on for about 20 minutes. In the process quarter of a bottle of shampoo is turned to foam - at my cost - and scalp is scraped thoroughly. Then I am led to a wash basin. Its indeed a skill of these operators that they ensure that even the shirt collar stays absolutely dry in this entire process. Shampooing done - I am about to be dismissed when I have to remind them of the original purpose of the visit - namely the hair cut. With great reluctance (looking at me as if I am a spoilsport who wants to cut hair after all that effort of shampoo) someone else takes the charge. Another round of dumb charades to explain what I want and I settle in the chair. Here is where the trouble starts. I am asked to remove the specs. And then the activity begins. Interestingly, the system here is that comb is used to select the hair then the hair are held in two fingers and then cut. Entire head is worked on at the same time - possibly to achieve the symmetry that is desired. During this process, the guy (or the girl - depends on expert availability) - asks me if the cut looks OK or is it short enough etc. With specs removed - I am absolutely unable to make out anything and have no option but to nod in approval :-(

End of the exercise comes with a hair dryer and I get a monetary feeling of head-under-a-wind-tunnel ! Advantage is that it blows away even the tiniest of the cut hair. By then I would normally have accumulated decent bill. Then on to next ordeal. At home, my daughter looks and smirks, rolls the eyes. Meenal - my wife - is more direct. She asks for how much did I pay and then rattles of names of friends (are they really?) - who have had better hair cut at lesser prices. (Why do women share these kind of things ?)

Truly, I have come to believe that my bad hair cut is really not my doing - I did not have the scissors in my hand, right? But its a losing battle; futile arguments. Its best to keep quiet. After all, I do have that experience of similar futile arguments at work - so its one more addition to the 'learnings' !
(C) Abhijit Tongaonkar, 2007