Why I Will Never Go Back to My Indian Barber

As of today, I will never go back to my Indian barber. I once loved going to his barber shop, and I would always suggest him to my friends, but I have moved on from a place he insists on taking me back to every time I sit in his chair.

Raju was the type of barber who cut your hair into a style without you having to use tons of product to get it to sit a certain way. Naturally, I was a regular; I sat in his chair fortnightly; he would insist on personally cutting my hair even if any of his employees were free to see me. I always came up with new hairstyle ideas, and he was always up for the challenge. I really appreciated his attention to detail and that I could call him after hours if I needed a quick trim.

“…our hair isn’t nice.”

Then came the era of the man bun. While I stopped getting my hair cut on account of my topknot, I continued going to him for shaves. During this period, my six-year-old nephew said something really negative about our hair texture; something to the effect of “…our hair isn’t nice, only spikes are nice”, and I made the decision then and there that I would only ever wear my hair in its natural texture because I did not want my nieces and nephews to feel like they didn’t have beautiful hair.

I donned an afro for a few years; it kind of became my signature look; I was ‘that guy that looked like Joey Rasdien’. It was amazing to me how much better I looked in my natural hair, how much it reflected my own personality and how it just interrupted the sort of ideas society had about of what a young professional looked like. Some of my friends and family didn’t like it, my grandmother once said it looked “wild”, but I didn’t care, and my hair in itself was the implicit middle finger that I never had to show to any of its critics. I have since experimented with other styles.

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I was spoilt over that year I was living in the United States where I would peruse the internet for hair trends for my hair texture, take it to any barbershop and leave an hour later looking like he photocopied it to my scalp. Sure, the average price of a haircut abroad is literally four times the price you’d pay in South Africa; however, I don’t believe that my barber back home got it wrong today based on the price.

Perhaps my wavy hair poses a bit of a challenge

Being an Indian barber with a largely Indian cliental, perhaps my wavy hair poses a bit of a challenge to Raju, having very little experience with Coloured people’s varied hair textures.
Remember, when he cut my hair before in hairstyles for straight hair, he always nailed it. Fair. I would have probably understood this if he at least attempted to style my hair according to the picture supplied, but, the fade was too high, sides too short and my Mohawk combed in the polar opposite direction to the picture; let’s not even talk about texture yet.

It’s not that I didn’t say anything; I told him he was going to high with the fade, he acknowledged what I said, shook his head and proceeded anyways. I literally had to shout out before he chopped of my short locks which took two months to grow, but by the end of the haircut, he made sure to chop-chop in in the back as if I wouldn’t notice. At that point, however, I was just like: how much more damage could it have done?

My barber actually has a disposition to my curls

I have noticed this before during a cut and/or shave; always having to remind him to stop cutting. But, I have always dismissed his tendency to cut off more than I would have liked as him trying to earn his money’s worth, spending so much time trimming the edges of my beard that I almost have nothing left by the time he’s done. However, it struck me today that my barber actually has a disposition to my curls. It’s like, to him, my hair is just not styled until he cuts off my curls or combs them out with styling gel. He doesn’t seem to want to shave bold all the other Indians who come to him with long hair that stays left when he brushes it left.

His bias toward straight hair could stem from the fact that he is surrounded by it, or because his understanding of neat hair is part of his conditioning growing up in India, or perhaps he feels my hair type is just too stubborn for him; however, I am especially offended by it this time because I specifically asked for my hair to be styled differently. I came with a picture, even. How he didn’t see that he was completely off track is beyond me.

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My hair will grow back. It will take a little time. Soon enough, I can continue on my crusade on Western, and evidently, Eastern, ideas of what neat hair looks like. I will find a new barber shop with a barber who understands my hair type, who keeps up-to-date with hair trends that suit our people. But, most importantly, I will never ever go back to my Indian barber.