Remembering Kallu

We grew up in ONGC’s cosmopolitan colony in Ankleshwar- now home to the largest industrial hub in Asia but back then in the seventies, it was no bigger than a small village. Our flat was a modest two room house with a generous balcony and it comfortably accommodated our family of six. I can write a whole blog on our way of life in those days, but right now I want to write about a ritual that took place at our home on the last Sunday of every month. Sharp at nine in the morning of the prescribed Sunday, Kallu nai (Barber) would arrive at our door-step with a wide grin on his deep brown face, revealing a set of teeth horribly stained from years of smoking. As an eight year old, I remember being extremely fond of this cheerful, middle-aged man who always wore a not-so-clean white linen kurta-pyjama, and a pair of never-polished, worn-out heavy leather shoes that he dutifully removed at the door of our house. He carried his tools in a battered-out tin box which once had two pink roses painted in oil on its lid, now almost fully flaked-out from repeated use. He always stank of tobacco and for this reason our mother stayed miles away from him, and strange as it may sound, I used to stick around him for the same reason! For me, anything that was a mark of being ‘grown-up’ was appealing, and the bidi stink was one of those things. Except for his scissors, mom never let him use any of his things, and certainly not his dirty ‘barber’s cape’, the one that is used to protect customers from getting drenched with loose strands their own hair.  So, mom used to give him a clean sheet for the cape, a comb, a tin of talcum powder, and a small bowl with water in it. Kallu would set shop in the shaded corner of the balcony, and one by one, chronologically from youngest to eldest, we four brothers would sit on a low wooden stool and receive a thorough hair-cut, followed by a short, swift head massage- the champi- something that I loved so much. I also loved his cool water spray and often urged him to do some more till he shut me up with mock anger. Our father’s turn was always the last, and for a good reason. After the hair cut, and a generous dose of champi, he used to get his nails clipped, and his under-arms shaved leisurely. Seeing this, I often ran to the nearest mirror and lifted up my arms to scan my under-arms for the tiniest hair follicle- another of my marks of being a ‘grown-up’. While getting thus serviced, dad used to chit-chat with Kallu, talking about anything under the sun; the talk getting periodically interspersed with later’s loud and crackling smoker’s laughter. It was from them that I had heard the first mention of the words, ‘Emergency’ and Indira Gandhi. The session with Kallu folded up with mom serving dad and him brimming cups of hot tea, and us she massaged with warm mustard oil till it dripped from our sides. By the time we emerged from the bathroom, feeling crisp and smelling of the eternal ‘Hamam’ soap, Kallu nai would have been long gone, leaving behind his trademark tobacco scent which used to linger till late afternoon, reminding me of him every now and then. By evening we used to forget him, only to remember him exactly four weeks later. I don’t recall when Kallu nai stopped coming to our place, and instead we started visiting the ‘Lucky hair cutting saloon’ in the town. Slowly the tribe of such house-to-house barbers became extinct but I still remember with great fondness Kallu, his crackling laughter and his unmatched head massages. Recently I had treated myself to a session at Jawed Habib’s but the uniformed stylists’ text-bookish massages there were no match for Kallu nai’s dextrous champi.