The art of having a ‘good’ haircut.

Hair quote - You're only as good as your last haircut - Fran Lebowitz

One must be wondering if there is such a thing called ‘The art of having a good haircut’ as against to ‘giving’ a good a haircut. Giving a haircut is an art by itself, but those who have had and having haircuts have to agree that is it one of the most ‘pleasurable experiences’ one can have. Hence choosing a good saloon suiting your sensibilities is a necessity if not a luxury.

It is not every day that we give our ‘head’ to somebody else to work on it. Though we ourselves don’t have full control of what is going on inside, the outer part is taken full control for a good 30 to 40 minutes. This ‘time duration’ depends on how much there is to work on. That ‘ haircut time’ is fast decreasing for me in the recent years for obvious reasons.

Not everybody can give a good haircut. You can’t learn it seeing YouTube videos. I doubt if there is a ‘dummies’ book on this. The mustache trimming still remains one of the most skillful acts, as there is only ‘cut’ and no option for ‘paste’ later. Having a haircut to your children is tougher. Wife would always want a bit more hair at the ‘back of the head’ of your child after the haircut. With ‘too short’, the situation can get worse than you forgetting your anniversary.

Family problems apart, as said earlier, having a haircut can be a pleasurable experience given the various factors in a saloon. I have always enjoyed not only the ‘hair cuts’ but also the 'waiting period' before a haircut. One common thing you find even in the most ordinary of the saloons are the good spread of newspapers and magazines.

During my childhood & college days, I used to feast on the Bollywood magazines in the hair cut shop (that sounds closer to heart than a ‘saloon’ for me). The ‘Stardusts’, ‘Filmfares’ ‘Movie blitz’ used to be my favourites in the cutting shop. I was update with all the Bollywood gossips, love stories, breakups and what not during the whole of 90s. We knew everything in the lives of Madhuri, Raveena, Karishma, Shilpa Shetty, Sonali and of course my favourite Kajol. We had great respect for the male actors and hence did not get too much in to their personal lives. I would let the other customers go ahead & have their haircuts till I finished these magazines.

One more advantage of haircuts those days were that they were ‘knowledge centers’. You would let go lot of your hair, but gained lot of information listening to the conversations happening. Converting the information into knowledge was left to your talent. With no news channels, all the breaking news used to be ‘broken’ there. The person giving the haircut used to pass on the acquired information to the next who bowed for the haircut.That proved that knowledge can be acquired only if you bow down from your pride & ego.

Luckily, the shop I went during my high school & college days was owned by a friend who played games with us. Not the ‘mind games’ but games like Cricket, Basketball etc. He played basketball very well. He mastered the art of holding the basketball and releasing it better than any of us. I guess he practiced it with the heads during the haircuts daily. The entire youth of the area used to be his clients and hence the latest fashion prevailed.

As there were few real estate offices, these shops used to be the real estate centers too. Movie reviews, new songs, cricket match commentaries along with Akashavani & Vividhbharathi were all favorites in the shop. The entry of small TVs altered the traditional environment of these shops. The heads used to turn towards the TVs like sunflowers tilting towards sun. I have watched lot of Telugu movies during my haircuts. If you happen to have a hair cut during cricket matches, you can see Virat Kohli batting left handed or Ashwin bowl left arm spin in the mirror.

People longed for new messages, hence 'massages' were not popular those days. These days we are bombarded with messages, hence massage (head) has become a must with a haircut.

I have tried all the latest fancy Saloons and I feel these days only the scissors make the sound. The ‘art’ is very much there but the ‘heart’ behind those haircuts is missing. I still prefer the local shops.