Stylist

Earlier the short regular waiter at Reaz here greeted from across the road. Seated outside the barbershop, man as if he was sunning himself. (Mooning more like, were there moons of substance on the equator.) Shortly after the fellow withdrew indoors, where he was later spied on tippy toes stretching for the top of a crown of a customer in a chair. Between times a chap had footed up the incline in an ugly NY City tee. (Prized in Pakistan no doubt, the same as on the Montenegrin coast.) Two minutes later out he comes with the waiter who had served the “uncle” a short while before, the man who bringing the naan after the vegetable and dahl had offered the encouragement, Makan, Eat. (Not the first time such short courtesy had been offered in these parts; known from other cultures too.) Difficult to find an example of a cooler, more commanding manner than possessed by this chap. Guys like this waiter had lured Western seekers to faraway Eastern ways from way, way back. Perfect ease, nonchalance, tightrope steadiness. There were no great voids or hollows in this man’s ambit; no such thing. Going down the incline in front of Reaz a few metres in company with the NY City, the latter had stroked his beard two times—three times—four. A bad itch you may have thought. The ten circuitous metres to the door opposite the pair wound over the broken pavement. (Roadworks had displaced Reaz from its original site, though the barbershop had remained on the bend.) In they proceeded at the door, Cool first as the other had pulled the wrong slider. It was understandable; none could give a better cut and trim. NY had gone to fetch the man especially. Why settle for second best? Cutthroat at the neck, turning the guy’s head left and right like a faucet. Masterful barbers had long been a fascination; the old masters, not the poncey new. (Though the waiter/barber was still only in his middle thirties, he had the old ways of eons past—deserts, oases, steep mountain scree traversed.) A short while after another was in the man’s chair, needing a buzz this one, the razor for straightening lines. Following there came a spray from a tall green bottle with the look of dishwashing detergent, then oil in cupped hands. A scalp massage often held little of interest. In the case of this young master old before his time, the pressing, kneading and fluttering of hands were captivating to behold. As always, variation was the key, the butterfly dalliance at the temples and frontal lobe a ballet of puppet form.

NB. When he first came down here from India old patriarch Mohammad Reaz, weighing in currently at something like 120kgs, had set up with plastic comb and scissors.