The Haircut chronicles

I just spent 120 bucks on a haircut and it's not the first time I have done that. After all I belong to a middle class family and although I enjoy the luxury of GATE scholarships as my other friends and love spending the money which I think is much- much more than what anybody deserves for clearing an easy exam and spending negligible time per week on TAship, however spending 120 bucks on somebody giving 20 minutes with scissors on my hair is definitely not worth it, especially when anyway, anyhow I get a haircut from anywhere, I will find my friends laughing at me on my face the next day.

The reason why I am forced to get a 120 haircut is not because I dont have a choice. I do have a choice, but the choice is between a Rs 20 ber sarai nukkar nai and the 120 hair cut shop. Now the problem with Rs 20 haircut is that the guy knows just one hair cut style and he will make your head appear as if you are wearing a helmet; and the day I would like to appear as if I am wearing a helmet, I will get a real helmet. There must be other shops too, but I am too lazy to find one. But still, 120 is too much yaar, even though I get a air conditioned room, a nice chair to sit and some occasional chicks to watch. You can get a meal in Mc Donald's for less than that, added to which you do get a air conditioned room to eat there, you get a good chair to sit and you do get to see more chicks and you know what else, when you are done eating, nobody would come to you and ask you to pay and get lost (the guy at the hair cut shop won't allow me to stay a minute longer)

Just think of the logic behind haircut. A particular species one fine day found out that it had dense black thread like material growing at the top of its head. Now that species was intelligent enough to observe that although it had the same thread like material growing all over its body at various places, however at most of the places it could either be covered with robes or grew at a slower rate except the head where it just went on and on and hence it decided to take care of this thing. Although I am sure that this consciousness came a bit late in the species as you don't see early man pictures with haircuts.

What makes me wonder is that whether it was looks or inconvenience that made men start getting a haircut. Socrates used to get one, if you see his pictures, although he kept his beard. Alexander, Ceaser all got haircuts. Also if you see pictures of people in civilized Europe in that era, they were all keeping their hair short, hence maybe at that time short haircut became a symbol of masculinity. There was a clear demarcation; long hair: women, short hair: men. Whereas in India, men in ancient times were still comfortable with long hair. Pictures of Buddha, Shiva, Chandragupta Maurya and even chola kings show that they all kept relatively long hair that perhaps did not require any professional hair cutting. Perhaps the first hair style revolution in India might have been brought by the British which all seemed to have the same 'left parted' hair style. This era also marked the 'minima' of average hair length of Indian youth as after that we were overtaken by the hippie culture and the hair lengths suddenly started growing again. After that we were taken over completely by bollywood with Amitabh Bachchan of Zaanzeer, Sanjay Dutt of Rocky or Amir Khan of Ghajini deciding our hairstyle.

Maybe a hair cut is more than trimming of an unrequired body material growing out of our skull. It serves the purpose of posing ones identity. You can represent that you are neat, shabby, gay (kidding!), geeky, stylish, inspired, don't care, artistic with your hair style. How much you spend on your hair also represents your lifestyle and lifechoices (which btw is quite the opposite in my case, where it is a function of my laziness and narrow pool of database). Hairstyles have a glorious history where celebrities and world leaders have given people courage to try something different. And supposedly it is these hair styles that have promoted the nukkad naees to the post of har stylist and made them rob people of money.

I in particular find these hairstyles vary confusing and I am proud to confront that I am one of those that preferring playing safe. Getting a hair style changed is a risky affair. You dont know how you are going to look after the cut and its not like if you are not satisfied, the 'hair stylist' can paste your hair back. So for the next fortnight or more you are stuck with the dumb look. Hence I generally prefer getting a haircut at home when not in Delhi. My naee knows me for last eight years and he knows what hairstyle suits me and hence the whole procedure is a 'no questions' asked affair. I come, I sit & I go and its done, with nobody asking me whether I would like short or long hair, whether I would like parted or blunt etc.

So you see, history, celebrities and cultures might have influenced hair cuts but in my case it is sheer laziness, unbotheration and freedom of not being asked to take decisions. Maybe I would give this world a new reason for deciding hair cuts and barber shops. Maybe this blog would prove a milestone in the history of hair cuts. Maybe.

The 'J' word

It's nice to be back to blogging and its nicer (if that's a word) to be back to blogging after being employed. What surprises me most is that the reason why I stayed away from blogging was because I was too busy preparing for job season and as this being my 50th post, I wanted it to be special. And now finally after getting a job, I seriously don't think the whole job thing needed any preparation. For instance, the company that recruited me did not have a look at my resume and made my technical interview look like Latin. And although I fully respect the decision of company recruiters, I think the reason they might have preferred me was that I had lived in different parts of India ( and hence had very less location constraints) and because I had done shopfloor work during my intern.

Now here comes the fun part. Let's do a cost benefit analysis of the placement season. Now most of the things people do in IIT is for the reason of getting a good job. (And what is meant by a good job here is either Mc Kinsey or BCG because nobody is thinking below it right from the day they hear their name for the first time in their life till the day the shortlists of these companies arrive in the final year during placement season). The best way to make a junior work here is pave a path for him and show how doing that work would eventually help him getting a good job and he would be running to get the job done. So be it academics, plays, debates, sports, projects, college festivals, everybody has the 'J' word attached to it at the end. If you attach a 'why' to any activity done here, you will eventually end up to a job. Why are you studying; so that I get a good GPA, so that I get a good job. Why are participating in debates; so that it adds to my communication skills, so that I get a good job and it goes on.

Hence the benefit out of IIT placement season can be safely considered as 'a good job'. Now we arrive at the cost part. I must have spent some 3 weeks making the my resume which they ( the company that finally recruited me) did not look at. Two months went into Rendezvous Coordinatorship that they did not ask me about. Three months of project work which they failed to understand and two months of internship which I think finally got me the job. Hence out of the seven month three week of rigorous work which I tried to sell them, saying ' look, I am different from others!' got me 32K per month including perks. Compare this to the one week study I put in preparing for GATE exam that presently fetches me 8K a month and you will know why I writing this blog out of frustration.

So finally leaving the one thing I liked (its blogging btw) for job preparation was not such a good idea at all. You know these guys who give resume fundas to everybody, who tear apart every line of your resume and torment you into believing that your resume was good for nothing and that if you want a good job (see again we arrive on the 'J' word) you should put more time on your resume; such guys should be screwed and they should be screwed badly. This is because firstly these people torture you, and you think its fine to hear all the scolding and critical comments so that it would eventually help in getting a good job, but there you are, by the end on December, sitting on a job you never imagined you would be doing and blaming global economy for you loss. And what hurts most is that after day one of job scene, people rarely look at your resume. So probably it is the right time to think, whether your so called 'resume guide' was really worth listening.

I dont know whether I have actually been underrated due to this global economy thing or I really deserved this job. But the best part about this whole meltdown is, and I thank all those bankers who are responsible for this crash, that it has brought so much hope in people. People have got a reason to blame their losses. The one with a bad job thinks it was all because of these banking bastards that I got such a bad job. The one without a job thinks, 'had this global meltdown not been there, I would have definitely been in.' And the guy who gets a good job thinks, ' Nothing on this planet can stop me, not even a global meltdown.'


PS: Nothing above is meant to be serious. So guys I understand it is a tough time... just hang on. Anybody could have been in your place.