"Chubby cheeks, Dimpled chin. Rosy lips, Teeth within. Curly hair, very fair."
Every time these lines move beyond my nursery rhyme book to describe Shahrukh Khan's face, I know there is only one place I had to be in:
'PRATAP HAIR SALON: For Mens only.’
The board outside this dingy salon has hand-painted portraits of SRK and Salman flaunting their over-polished pearlies and spiked hairstyles. Perhaps, to promise a 'glamorous' makeover for the Class 7 boys with dry facial hair spells, and neighbourhood uncles with a stormy hair deluge.
But for a seven-year-old like me, this salon has nothing more to offer than a stairway to doom. Classmates made fun of my new 'Baba cut' the following day in school. Every six months.
My visit to 'Pratap Hair Salon' was ushered in by an hour of tears and pleas that finally ended with Mummy threatening to write a remark in the school calendar.
What followed had always been beyond the control of my tears and I.
Without uttering a word, I stepped out of the door, fearing the known.
As we enter the salon, rows of uncles with frothy cheeks and jaws, watch Ajay Jadeja hit a six from a TV set lodged metres above ground. Their heads move in the direction of the cricket ball- from Jadeja’s bat to someone’s lap in the stands.
I am the only girl in the room. Not that people even care to notice my ribbons and plaits.
"Baby ko Baba cut," ascertains Daddy. Pratap Uncle neither raises his eyebrow nor fakes his sympathies.
I sit there patiently, hoping that the scissors would cease to cut, the earth would start to shake and Jadeja would get stumped the very next minute.
However, it takes just one chop to realise that my wishes didn’t even qualify to be ponies. Forget horses.
Within minutes, my head turns into a paddy field with fresh harvests. My eyes are swollen and my face has a larger diameter.
SRK didn't act only in movies, I murmur.
"Chunky cheeks, bloated chin. Parched lips, teeth within. Chopped hair, very unfair."
