The Haircut

I hail from a semi-orthodox, middle-class Brahmin family in Bengaluru. My parents settled in Bengaluru – Bangalore as it was called until recently – in their late 20s and thus, I am a first generation Banglorean – born and brought up solely in Bengaluru. While one may wonder what significance the above details have, let me assure you – there is a lot of difference in being a Brahmin in a city and in a rural setting. (For starters, a Brahmin in the village is, often, respected for simply being born a Brahmin, if not anything else. That is not the case in a city, at least not publicly.)

Being born into a Brahmin family means that you are bound to follow some customs and observe some rituals. This increases manifold if you have orthodox grandparents living with you. My grandmother was one such woman. She was very finicky about certain issues – you had to bathe before you entered the kitchen; you could not place the plates on your lap while you ate; if you held the plate in your left hand, you could not touch anything else until you washed your left hand; after meals, dishes could not be placed in the same sink where gods’ idols were washed; if you came from a hospital/clinic, you had to bathe and change before you touched anything in the household – the list goes on. Not that I hold anything against her – she died around fourteen years ago – but in hindsight, I find her being finicky amusing. The only thing that probably came out of all this is that my dad and his two brothers know nothing about day-to-day stuff in the kitchen as they were restricted from entering it. (It is a matter often discussed by my mother and aunts – how hopeless their husbands are in these matters!). They do not care much about cleanliness either (probably arising out of a sense of rebellion!).

Years have passed and the ‘rationalist’ in me tries to find reason in all those restrictions. Some of them have become so deeply ingrained that they almost seem second-nature to me. I do not find it amusing when I see my cousins eating with plates on their laps or eating with both hands! What my grandmother imposed were rooted in cleanliness (though she considered any violation of them sacrilege!).

One such rule – which is still practiced in almost all Brahmin households – is that once you return from a saloon, you do not touch any household object or any person until you are “purified” by a bath. If you touch, that object/person needs to be “purified” as well!

A visit to the saloon by a male member in a household, hence, is a carefully planned event. Any day of the week is suited for a haircut except for Tuesday (saloons usually remain closed that day), Thursday (it is holy in its own right), Friday (it is the day Goddess Lakshmi visits the house) and Saturday (you do not dare offend Shani!). Monday is ruled out, that being the first day of the week and hence, busy. Wednesday is mid-week – if you did not care for a haircut on Monday, why care now? So, that leaves just one day – Sunday.

If you go to the saloon early in the morning, a bucket is filled with hot water even before you leave, so that the geyser can heat another bucket of water by the time you return. If you go late, the first bucket is filled after you leave, as there is anyway enough time to heat a second. The younger ones in the family are allowed to sleep late on such days because if they wake up, chances are that they would occupy the bathroom when you return from the saloon, causing you to wait. The more you wait, more chances that you might accidentally touch something or somebody! By the time you return, a ‘green-corridor’ is created from the door to the bathroom. All doormats, foot rugs, carpets, furniture are moved out of your way. You empty your pockets and drop the contents onto the table or sofa from a height - without coming in contact with them. Once in the bathroom, you strip to your inners and your mother pours the first two or three mugs of water on you, “purifying” you! You touch the bucket only after that.

I once asked my mother about why such an elaborate ritual had to be followed – my friends (non-Brahmins, of course!) turned up in school or college directly from the saloon (with hair sticking onto their shirts, though). My mother, a ‘rationalist’ in her own right, explained: a bath is necessary on returning from the saloon, not because it belongs to a person of another caste but because hair sticks to your body and you need to clean it. (What if a person visits a high-class saloon – the ones which charge in hundreds for a simple haircut – where they take care not to let any bit of hair fall on to your shirt or stick to your body?!)

I now stay in a hostel and I obviously cannot expect anybody else to assist in my “purification” bath here. I have devised my own way of circumventing this issue. Before I visit the saloon, I make sure that I keep my clothes, shampoo and bucket separate from the rest of my belongings so that I can take them to the bathroom, without coming in contact with anything else – I do not like hair sticking to my chair, bed or cupboard! I, sometimes, do not even take my cell phone along (I cannot wash it). If Grandmother is watching all this from up there, she would, no doubt, be very happy!