The barber shop

Barber shop

I was staring at my reflection when the barber was busy in sniping my hair. I suddenly realized that barbers mirror has been reflecting me from the very childhood but I never noticed the infinitesimal change which was taking place in my appearance. The mirror reflected a boy becoming young man, then middle aged and now old. The hair started becoming sparse then grey hair started appearing and finally mostly grey which is now. This transformation was so gradual that I never noticed when my first grey hair appeared or when the bald patch at the back of my head started taking shape though every time after a cut the barber holds another mirror at the back of my head to know if anything more I want him to do.While thinking about grey hair and baldness I started smiling to myself as I remembered an anecdote ,the barber looked at me through the mirror and raised his eye brows questioningly, he thought I was smiling at his some folly,he stopped. I told him the joke.

An old man was married for the second time to a young woman though his first wife was still there. He had mix of black and grey hair. After sometimes his friends noticed he was losing hair fast. They inquired from him whether he has some health issue. The old man replied sadly that he was alright but the second marriage is causing all the problem related with hair.

‘How?” the friends asked.

“See it is like this, the night when I am spending with my young wife then she will pluck all my grey hair!”

“And your first wife? She was ok with your hair!”

“No dear that is the sad story. As her hair has become grey so the night I spend with her she will pluck all my black hair. Thus I am becoming bald!”He said with a sad face.

By the time I finished my joke I found that barber next to my chair laughed out loud as he too was keenly listening. I heard a snoring noise and found that his client was sleeping peacefully while he was sniping his hair. I looked at him and said,”the days I don’t get sleep I will come to you for hair cutting as you make people sleep!” I gestured at the sleeping customer with a wink.

So friends the barber’s chair gives us an opportunity to look at us dispassionately and observe those changes occurring which are inevitable and we have no control on ravages of time. No wonder many customers spent extra money at the saloon to get back that youthful look by putting all kind of hair darkening creams and getting the face uplifting massage done.

My barber is pretty clever guy, I have been going to this shop since more than 20 years so he knows my head better than me, the other day he commented that there is not much change in my hair. I winked at him and showed the expanding baldness of my forehead and the sparse front hair and asked,” What about these?” He knew he was caught but maybe he too did not notice the infinitesimal change occurring in me.
For me each visit to barber shop makes me a wee bit of wiser, that chair in the saloon is like seat in front of a great monk, at times i get self hypnotized by staring at me constantly.