Dr. Tapan Misra, Sr.Adviser at ISRO. Ahmedabad, 22nd. May 2020. After easing of two month long lock down in Ahmedabad, first priority of people seems to groom up their dishevelled look, with unkempt hair, grown unwieldy in self incarceration. Different levels of grooming up for different economic strata. So street side barbers are first to open up. The first customer in early morning, an auto rickshaw driver, is looking for fresh start. Indomitable spirit of life. After thought : In our childhood i. e., 50 year back, such saloons were common. Today’s type saloons used to be rare and used to be affordable by select cross section of the society. Only in our times, the customer’s chair used to be replaced with neatly laid half a dozen or so no of bricks. In Bengali, bricks are called as “Ita”. So from this word, such make-shift barber’s shops used to be called Italian saloon. Quite respectable nomenclature.
The cheapest hair style, reserved for us, was called “Ghati Chhant”, hair cut a la bowl. In Bengali, “Ghati” means bowl. The barber used to have aluminium bowls of different diameters. Barber used to select the best fitting bowl, put it on head. He will either shave off or crop off all hairs visible outside bowl’s periphery, where as all hairs covered by bowl used to be kept as they were, given some trim here and there. An assembly line of hair cut affordable for masses.
Be First to Comment