My Hampi Hair Cut

February 2007

Different sign; same idea

It was in Hampi that I decided it was time to get my hair tamed, and so when we spied a barber shop sign that claimed “ladies hair cuts here,” we stopped.  The shop was situated within the old bazaar, alongside an old temple.  It was a proverbial “hole in the wall,” but the wall was hundreds of years old and, like the rest of the ruins in Hampi, made of plaster-covered bricks and mortar.  Like all shops, it was open-fronted, so easy to look into.  

 

Inside was an impossibly old barber chair facing a large rust and dirt-spotted mirror.  Under the mirror was a countertop covered with dust, and a sad assortment of old chipped and broken hairdressing paraphernalia.  We stood and watched, fascinated, as a young boy, maybe 12 or 13 years old, gave a flamboyant head massage to a youngish foreign tourist.  I was wondering if he was also the barber, and feeling rather more dubious about having my hair cut, although the massage looked great.  

 

A short while later an older man appeared – clearly the barber.  He insisted that he could cut my hair, and despite some misgivings, I decided that my hair grows fast enough to hide even the worst of cuts within a few weeks (which turned out to be a good thing!).  So I sat down, and tried to explain to the barber what I wanted – for him to cut about one inch off everywhere, following the original cut.  I think the only words he knew in English were “yes, yes madam” and “two hundred rupees.”  

 

Well, you can imagine what I got.  I sat there, my scalp crawling, as the barber repeatedly dragged the biggest, blackest, dirtiest comb I have ever seen, through my hair, cutting it with what looked like kitchen utility scissors.  I could feel how dull they were; they sort of tore and cut at the same time.  He kept cutting and tearing until a magazine seller from across the road, who I guess was watching the whole thing, came over and insisted that he stop.  “Madam looking like man!” he warned.  At that point my hair was about two inches long all over.  

But there was some evening up and trimming around the ears yet to do.  I let him trim a bit, but firmly declined having the hair over my ears cut like a man’s, so he was at a bit of a loss, and just left it as it was.  

 

By the time he was “finished,” the cut looked like a Mohawk.  The hair on the top of my head was spiking straight up like the bristles of a floor brush.  All I needed was some green and purple dye to complete the punk look.  Unfortunately he didn’t have any.  

 

When he asked if I would like a massage, I said I’d like one from the young boy, who smiled broadly at the compliment.  But of course the barber’s ego wouldn’t allow that, so he did it himself.  While it was certainly adequate, it wasn’t nearly as fun as the one I’d watched.  

One month later, my hair had grown another inch or more, so I was just beginning to look human again when the 'Holi' holiday happened and I was liberally doused in purple dye.