The invisible white devil in the rural parts of India

I never thought of the emergence of a new hateful thing on my body, until I got shaved off my hair.

I hate looking at the reflection of my own lizard face on the mirror. I terribly hate my thin jaw line and my vampire teeth which are often called the signs of fortune by my mother. Whenever my reflection is residing inside the four wooden frames of the old mirror which is hanged on the paint-withered wall of tiled roof house of my grand mother, the twenty-two years old I hate my short shoulders more than my sunken cheeks and all the other hateful things which I have left deliberately here to mention. I call dearly these things as the unwelcomed guests because they have come to my body without my approval and made me look thin and ugly.

One day, after the visit of that barber to my grand mother's house, I found a new thing to hate ( not actually new but it was emerged and i had no idea whether this new thing had not been taken care of or it suddenly appeared on my head. I started to hate this new thing more than all the other hateful things) on my body.

I went to my grandma's home during this lockdown, which is a remote village whose existence in the district had perceived only after 2 decades of its birth. My mother had been asking me trim my long hair for two weeks and I had been hesitating stubbornly to get my hair trimmed for those two weeks because I knew about my mama and her mind-set. A year ago, when I had returned from the saloon with one sided hair cut, she went all the way to the barber shop and shouted at him for the style he made. According to my mama, it was not a kind of hair cut a decent boy had. Then, I found that my hair had grown a bit longer enough to touch the tip of my bulbous nose during this period of lockdown. All the saloons were closed. So, there was no way to go to saloon and get my hair cut. 'Then how can I get my hair trimmed?' I asked my grandma. She said that there was a poor barber, living near, who used to run to all the houses in that remote area with his small shaving kit and a ramshackle bike. I guessed It would be tough to get my usual hair cut now. So, I decided to get my hair shaved rather getting it trimmed under the custody of my mom and Grandma. As I told mama about my decision on my hair, she mocked me by quoting a famous saying in Tamil: vechcha kudimi serachcha motta( which means "having a tuft, or else shaved).

After two days of calling the barber, he visited my grandma's home to let his blade travel through my dense hair. As he started to shave my hair, there was an unusual silence invaded between me and him. Once I thought of asking him that why did not he teach this art of cutting hair to others; why did the barbers keep this art with them. Then I found those were odd questions to ask a barber and I swallowed them. He cleared his throat often when he was in half way to finish the job. 'Have some water' I told barber and the very next moment I called my grandma to get some water for him. She pretended as she did not hear my voice. I had no idea where my mother was on that time. The barber said 'No thanks thambi'. I felt something unusual on my scalp. I saw the white flakes at the ends of the fallen hair on the cloth. Those flakes had not been found at the end of the hair which had fallen just before. I wondered how I got those flakes suddenly. He shaved my hair neatly. Still he was thirsty and had a sore throat, I thought. So, When he got to leave, I hurried to kitchen and got a big silver tumbler full of water and stretched it before him. He looked at my grandma and I looked at her too. She suddenly grabbed the tumbler from my hand and handed him over one hundred rupee note. 'Bhai amma, there are lot of patches on your grandson's head because of dandruff. Get him some ointment’ (bhai amma is a venerable name for calling a Muslim women in our region) he suggested. After he left the place, my grandma told me 'did you see his face? as I gave him a hundred, how happy he was!' I started to look my shaved head on the mirror.

‘Flake is a sin, Flake is a crime and Flake is inhumane’ I said to myself. ‘AND FLAKE IS A CURSE’ I added. I wondered why I had to say this as I was looking at the white flakes on my head.