The hair and the blade

I see the way my son, who is all of 9 months old, watch mesmerized when I shave and it takes me back down memory lane. My earliest memory of seeing anybody shave was probably class 4. But it wasn't until class 9 that I decided to put the blade to the skin (so to speak). No, it wasn't to my non-existent beard-- It was to my eyebrows. 

You see, I have always hated that my eyebrows join in the middle. It just took me a very long time to realize that, thats also hair that can be shaved. So I snuck into my parents bathroom, took my dads razor blade (about 2.5 inches wide). Centered it with extreme concentration and gave it a nice pull along the center of my eyebrows. Voila!! it was off.... except it took 2.5 inches of eyebrows with it. Which made me, for lack of a better way to put it, look like Captain Spock, from Star Trek that used to Air in DoorDarshan in 1986.

This was during my 9th exams (mock public exams as they used to call it). So my mom had to paint my incomplete eyebrows with whatever black believable eyebrow colored stuff she had and sometimes that meant cosmetics :). Yes, I said it. I used cosmetics. So there!!!

My fascination with the razor (btw, razor, unlike what I used to think is not the blade- but its holder) and its blade never stopped. I was fascinated by the barber shaving his clients next to me, while all I got was a measly haircut. I would see the men sitting next to me, with their eyes closed and their face like birthday cakes-- piled up with cream. In my early childhood,  the barbers used to use straight edged razors (without disposable blades). So between each shave, I  would see him artfully strop his blade on a leather strop. Ah!! the sound that made was magic.. mingling with the singular song on his radio. Singular, because I haven't heard that machine spew out any other song... it was one tune on an infinite loop. I can still hear the melody.

When my first facial hair sprouted, I declared at home that I needed a haircut. Which raised one to many eyebrows- afterall I hated haircuts and such promptness was to be looked at with suspicion. I walked proudly to the neighborhood barber, waited my turn, and plonked myself rather proudly on the seat and declared I needed a 'Shave' and a 'Haircut'. 

The particular barber in question, an arrogant son of a gun, who has probably seen my since I was an inch high, declared with a lot of amusement that a Haircut was easy, but to 'Shave', I needed facial hair. A slap in the face, nonetheless, without missing a beat, I said I had changed my mind and I needed only a haircut.

A year went by, before I stole my Dad's razor and a new twin blade and shaved for the first time. When I came out, I think I really felt like Clint Eastwood swaggering out of a saloon after a Pint of beer. Nevertheless, I felt I had finally joined the Men's club. With at most casualness in my voice, I warned him- the blade in the right side of the cabinet is mine and the one on the left was his. My dad, one not to be easily perturbed, didn't look up from his newspaper.. as he acknowledged. I'm sure he was tickled pink.

Many a years later, I saw my friend shave with a double edge razor (A' La topaz blade). By now I was using Gillette's triple blade system or something and was kind of getting disillusioned with the whole thing. Shaving had become a drag.. something one really drags against their skin. 

I tried the old shaving methods of brush, cream and regular blades. It was refreshing. I went a step further and bought myself a regular shaving knife, saved for the weekends. As I strop it on a sunday morning, with steaming hot water running down the wash basin and the smell of my shaving cream wafts from my brush. For a moment, I'm transported to that Barber shop in T.Nagar, who refused me my first shave. Aaaah nostalgia, I can still hear that singular tune blaring in his radio......