Fascinated by a hero’s hairstyle

CV Sukumaran

IN the days when I was a teenager, there were no colleges in or around the village my family lived in. My elder cousins completed their university education in a distant city. Once, when one of them came home during a vacation, he brought with him a film magazine. Its glossy cover and pages had pictures of glamorous actors, mostly from Hindi cinema. I took an instant liking to one of them — Dev Anand. His hairstyle mesmerised me no end. I was then at an impressionable age. When I told my cousin about my fascination, he mentioned that some of his classmates were nuts about the actor’s hairdo and mannerisms.

One day, while going to the barbershop, I tore off two pictures of the film star from the magazine and took them with me. One of the images showed the front side of his head, the other displayed it in profile. I told the barber to cut my hair in such a way that I would be able to comb it like the man in the pictures did. He smiled and nodded.

As a master of his craft, he always did his job effortlessly. Since I was a regular customer, he styled my hair the way I wanted without demur. He kept my hair long in the front and cut it slightly short on the top and the sides.

My new hairstyle would definitely get my granny’s goat, I told myself as I was on my way back home. She had always insisted on having my hair cut short to save me another visit to the barber for a while.

My schoolmates, however, took a fancy to my new hairstyle. They asked me how I got the haircut. I told them exactly what I had told my hairdresser. So, one of my classmates made a beeline for the barbershop I frequented and told the man that he wanted his hair cut in such a way that he could comb it like Dev Anand did. ‘Dev Anand? I don’t know any Dev Anand,’ shouted the short-tempered man. His reaction was not surprising at all. How could a man who lived and worked in a village in the back of beyond know about a Hindi film star’s hairstyle? The boy sensed the barber’s ignorance and said, ‘Cut my hair the way you did for my classmate’ (he mentioned my name). The hairdresser understood in an instant what the boy was looking for and motioned him to the chair.

When my classmate stepped out of the shop, he seemed to be under a spell. It was a job well done.

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