CORONAVIRUS LOCKDOWN: MY UNCUT HAIR MADE ME LOOK LIKE A QAWWAL ( a South Asian classical singer)

5 min read.

From this week the government has partially eased the lockdown. But there has been no change for mobile barbers, barbers’ salons, and hairdressers. But, according to the 50-page document issued on 12^th May, depending on the impact of the measures implemented in June, the next stage of easing restrictions will take place incremental after July 4. It may then include hairdressers and barbers.

 I mentioned in my last post that when my haircut was due in February, I had cancelled the appointment with my barber. He comes to our house on a day and time which suit me, including the weekend. He is doing it for the last many years.

 Sometime last year he whispered to me:

“My wife with our child has left me. She has found another man. Doctor, I am looking for a South Asian wife. They cook delicious curry.”

He added:

“I’ve seen you and many South Asian couples who’re happily married for many years”.

I replied:

“Personally, I’ve no axe to grind whether you marry an Asian or someone of different ethnicity. If you fancy one from the sub-continent you may go ahead. I know there is quite a large Asian population in your town. But, according to an oriental adage, ‘the drumbeats from far away sound very pleasant’ and when they get closer you tend to plug your ears.

While delivering further advice to the barber, I do not remember exactly the words which I used, and I am adopting some of the vocabulary by the Prime Minister and later followed respectfully by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and the advisors during their speeches and at coronavirus daily briefings. I have italicised those words.

 I meant to say:

“You’re a fantastic person and a fantastic barber and you may be raring to marry an Asian woman. But I can prophesize that in a matter of weeks your wife will not see eye to eye with your parents and other relatives. She will not be at level with you. Your house would be overwhelmed by your in-laws. Of course, your parents will be able to see you at your house from outside observing the social distance of 2-metre. You may be able to speak to them virtually. With the passage of months and years, you would turn thiny and your wife fatty. From every sinew of your body, the curry smell would be seeping in your surroundings, and your white customers would shun you. You will not get Asian customers. They normally go to the barbers of their ilk, who are cheaper and narrate stories of the community to boot.

“Furthermore, in recent years, I’ve witnessed the cases where the father bought a house by his hard-earned money and due to love and affection registered it with the Land Registry in the name of his son. After the son was married, at the behest of his wife, the parents were evicted from the house, who moved to a rented accommodation. In another case, it was the widow, who left the town.”

The barber shook my hand and drawled:

“Thank you very much doctor, you opened my eyes”.

When next time he came to cut my hair, I was told that he was co-habiting with an English woman and they were quite happy except one trivial problem- her baby girl cried during night, which disturbed his sleep. He hoped that as she grows older the situation would change.

Coming back to the issue of my uncut hair, since my previous cut before the Xmass I have grown unruly shock of hair, and the situation as it stands, is that my barber cannot visit me, nor can I go to a hairdresser in the town centre. I might look like Sir Billy Connolly, a retired Scottish stand-up comedian, musician, presenter, actor, and artist. If I comb my long hair properly and grow some beard, I might resemble a Muslim preacher. But more appropriately, if you look at me in the morning before shower with tousled hair, I might be mistaken for a South Asian Qawwal ( classical singer).

I am in a fix and there does not appear any way out.

Some people in the government have been seen on the TV with nice haircuts.

A few weeks’ back, Mr Quinton Letts, the Times political sketch writer observed, and I noticed it too, that at the daily Covid-19 briefing the Government’s chief medical advisor was supporting a new haircut. Mr Letts quippingly queried how he could get hold of a barber without breaching the regulation of 2-metre distancing?

According to the same writer [20.04.2020]:

“Rachael Reeves, shadow cabinet minister appeared at the BBC’S Andrew Marr show when ‘her hair bearing the most lustrous, inky sheen and trimmed like Cleopatra’s fringe. How has she managed that when hairdressers (are) closed?”.

Thus far, there has been no response.

I wholeheartedly sympathise with Mr Letts who, as he mentioned this week in his sketch, suffers from dental ache, and the dentists are still in lockdown.  But he is an important person. Sometimes, his political sketch appears on the front page. He can pull some strings and ask the ministers to ease the restrictions on the dentists for at least one day a week. Beside alleviating his pain, it will help the dental practices as well. Many of them are at the brink of bankruptcies.

Interestingly, Mr Letts has since been regularly reporting in the flesh from the House of Commons gallery. I doubt it if his pain has gone. There is every probability that he pulled some strings.

Finally, according to my wife, I look fabulous and I should dispense with the need to have a cut. I think she must be joking. The fact of the matter is I do not feel comfortable. I envy the baldpates.  I should not have cancelled my appointment with the barber. At that time there was no lockdown. But to err is human.

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