Hairy tales!!

After well over two months, I finally got my hair cut last week. Having no time to get the hair cut, I let it grew, and grow it did like wild weed. Curly, unkempt hair is not a great advertisment for your company when you're visiting a client. And I was getting looks too. Afraid of being mistaken for a rock star, I decided to go to the saloon. The poor lady at the saloon had her clippers break trying them on me. I was a bit embarassed.My friend whom I went with, helpfully suggested her to go for a lawn mower. There's nothing like a lady to make one take snipe at even friends! :-( It took a whole 10 minutes for my Delilah to figure how to get at my hair. "You should have come earlier", she told me primly. I mumbled, "Didn't have time", my eyes bleary having pulled an all nighter just before. Then she doused me with water and then managed to do her work. The next day, I got appreciated for the hair cut, at office. Lotsa ladies and a few men too!
While I was there, I got reminded of my first hair cut at Indore. It was a hilarious (not to me, then) episode. I was new to the Hindi heartland and had a very small vocab. I sat on the swivel chair, and the barber went to work. He asked me something. I just nodded, proud to let him know that I didn't understand a single word of what he asked. After 10 minutes, I was shorn and was about to get up, he fired away another question. I made some undecipherable sound. He poured a cool oil on my head and started practising tabla. I realised, albeit a bit late, that I was asked about having a head massage. In my mind, I started counting the money I had, to give him for this extra. Then he again enquired something pointing at my face. I should have atleast got up then. Proud I am, I did some more affirmative sounds. I forgot whatever Hindi I had known till then. Not a single Hindi word came to my mind and said, "I'm here". To my horror, the barber took some cream applied on my face. He took a mallet sort of thing and went about hammering my face. I couldn't have been any stupider then, though my friends contest this. This went on for some time. Enjoyed at the opportunity to practise all his skills and apply all his concoctions, the barber started talking to me about something again. This time, I managed to croak out a "nahin" and got off. The good thing at the end was all of them, the massage, facial or whatever he did to my face, came at a very low cost. For that money, I would've got just a plain vanilla haircut in Chennai. Even after that, my repertoire of Hindi words didn't increase. But I started rehearsing what to say, before going for trimming my mop.