Oh, the barber of our village !


 Oh, the barber of our village !

With balding scalp, haircut these days has become perfunctory.

It was a "strict" exercise with the barber at our village when I was in primary school. I had to sit like a statue and turn or tilt and then again "statue" as per barber's instruction. To make matters easy, he would tilt my head by holding my crown like changing gear in the car. He would land a knock with his knuckle if I moved. It was tough to stay still when the barber worked with manual machine shear on the sides and back.

Two items in the barber shop always interested me. The barber's knife being sharpened now and then by repeated vigorous swiping of it's cutting edge on a long piece of leather hanging from wall was interesting. The bottom end of the leather piece was pulled tight while the knife's edge was swiped.

I can still hear the swishing sound of knife edge being swiped on the piece of rubber.

The most interesting item - I would have loved to carry it home - was the large smooth surfaced block of alum used as antiseptic agent. The barber used to apply water around the areas where he would apply his knife and rub the alum in the wet skin.

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