Rejuvenate

People believe that to find eternal peace, one must sacrifice their souls to prayers and meditation. A dip in the holy water of Ganges or a trip to the divine mountains of Himalayas or Arabia is enough to cure one of all the internal pain and suffering he or she has been suffering. This may or may not be true, I’m no one to judge, but I do like to believe that if someone really wants to forget their suffering for a moment, they should come down and pay a visit to my barber.

A long, hectic and tiring week at the college leaves its effects on the feeble mind of an eighteen year old teenager. The entire work load, all the exams and all the pressure is enough to make a grown man cry. It keeps the poor soul awake at night, it affects his confidence and most of all, it doesn’t stop. Hours turn into days, days turn into weeks and weeks turn into months, and the ultimate result is a dirty, wild mop of hair, gradually falling to pieces like the leaves on the trees during autumn, accompanied by a foul temper and lots of stress thrown into it.

It is at this time the poor, innocent human being must seek salvation to free his mind of the humungous burden. But no, he doesn’t make the mistake of putting his trust into the wise hands of the Bengali Baba who along with his cozy little tent, set up at the edge of the busy highway, promise to cure all sorts of love problems, marriage problems and a bonus of sexual problems with just the magical yet powerful act of reading the lines of the palm, nor does he call up a late night show and talk to the radio jockey on air to feel better. Instead, our sad hero decides to get his hair cut and face the next week with a minutely better look.

After a long trek across the hot and dusty highways, the stinking sewers and the spooky allies, our protagonist reaches a joint where he feels he can get his job done at a reasonable rate.

The barber, with his long, smooth and silky hair neatly tucked behind his ear, paired with a neat chevron over his top lip, which is curved into a creepy smile accompanied by a sharp metallic scissors in his right hand give him an intimating look which freak our poor hero, but he dismisses his fear and decides to take a chance with his life by sitting on the Barber chair.

But when the barber sprays the cold and fresh water onto his hair and gently combs the hair to cut it properly, our hero realizes that he is in for a treat today. In the thirty minutes that follow, the hero experiences pure heaven under the slow rotating fan above his head and under the safe and sure hands of the barber as he combs, shaves, rubs, blows and dusts the debris which the scissors leave in its wake. The coolness of the scissors, the firm grip of the barber, the aroma of the shaving creams and the powders united as one, the tickle of the blade on the neck, the soft music playing through the speakers and the gentle touch of the comb is all that is required to convince this hero that suffering is useless and Hakunama Tata.

But all good things come to an end as his thirty minutes is up, and the barber adds finishing touches to his transformed customer by dusting a sweet swelling powder on his neck and brushing of the tiny bits of hair from his neck with a giant soft brush.

As our protagonist looks into the mirror, he notices that a mutation has taken place for the better. He feels fresher, clearer and smarter. He gives the barber a look of gratitude, fishes out his money and pays him well and as he steps out of the saloon into the blistering afternoon heat, he feels rejuvenated to face the next week with a renewed level of clarity and strength.

Adil  Ansari