goodbye hair, hello habib

There are times when I feel that the hand of Destiny is acting a bit too forcefully upon my life. When my friends discovered that I was moving to Hyderabad (or Hellabad, as they affectionately term it), Shedletsky and Tammy became convinced that I would take up with a gentleman named Habib, and that I would never return to America for love of him. Unfortunately this has not yet come to pass; but, the name Habib was naturally emblazoned across my imagination, and so it was with some amusement that I discovered that the foremost chain of hairstylists in India is called Habib's. Had I not had several very amusing conversations about Habib in the States, I would not have given more than passing consideration to getting my hair cut at a place called Habib's--but thanks to Tammy and Shedletsky, I could not pass up the opportunity.

Habib himself was not in attendance (although a six-foot tall poster of his face did grace the entrance). From what I have read on the internet, he has opened salons (or saloons, as they are called here) and styling schools across India, and he has recently expanded to London and New York. Instead, there was a very capable woman named Neena (I think), who vigorously washed my hair before setting in with the scissors. I had a moment of slight panic as she started cutting; since I parted with five or six inches of hair, it was possible to hear each thick lock hit the floor, and that induced some vague feeling of remorse. I was also struck by the thought that if I begin growing my hair out tonight and do not cut it again, it will not reach its previous length until sometime just after my 25th birthday, which seems impossibly old.

Despite those fears, the haircut is better than I had hoped. The best thing about getting your hair cut in a country with a billion people who need jobs is that the ratio of workers-to-clients in the salon was absurdly high. After doing the initial cut, Neena dried my hair so that she could do the secondary texturing. She was standing on my right-hand side blowdrying my hair with acceptable speed and style--and so I was very surprised when another guy approached my left-hand side and started drying my hair simulataneously. It was a very strange experience to have two people dry my hair at the same time; the feeling of two dryers, and two hands massaging my scalp, was difficult to grasp with my eyes closed since it was completely outside my realm of experience. However, the guy only helped with the initial drying; once the stylist brought out the round brush, another woman came over and held the dryer for her while the stylist brushed my hair. The stylist had a complicated system for telling her when to dry and when to stop drying, which involved tapping the brush and shaking her head rather than speaking. Both women were essentially using one hand to complete her appointed task; at one point, the stylist was brushing with one hand and holding her cellphone to her ear with the other, while the other woman held the dryer and looked bored. Strange.

The results, however, were great, and I'm very happy to have cut my hair. I had denied the urge to cut my hair for several weeks, but it finally became too much for me to take. And best of all--the haircut cost a grand total of about $10. That's probably exorbitantly expensive here, but it would be ridiculously cheap in California, and I don't think that SuperCuts could make me happy with their attempt at this style. So thank you, Shedletsky and Tammy, for helping me to find my true love; I am forever in your debt.

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful; I came home, took a nap, read a book, and went out to dinner at Cinnabar Redd with some people. After coming home, I finished my book (another Georgette Heyer), and now it is probably time for sleep. Perhaps I will have more to share tomorrow.

One more thing, though. I implore all of you to start a blog, or, if you have a blog, to write in it more frequently. I feel that you probably have a fairly good idea of how I am doing in India, since I write volumes every day, but I feel that I've completely lost touch with the goings-on in the US. I am beginning to fear that I will step off the plane in October and be confronted by a group of strangers--it will be difficult enough to reaccustom myself to being around people who bathe every day, or meals that contain beef, or days that are temperate rather than broiling, but it will be even more difficult to pick up the strings of my old life if I no longer know any of my friends. Alternatively, if you do not wish to blog, I accept emails and letters, and I am not too ashamed to beg for them. Please write to me soon, or else I may be compelled to track down Habib, force him to leave his wife and children, and lead him into a life of sin (although it will be very hot for both of us, since he can cut my hair as often as he likes provided that each haircut is at least somewhat reminiscent of that scene in 'The Bourne Identity'). If there's anything you should hope, it's that I won't return to the States bald and married to a forty-year-old hairdresser, and so I implore you to dissuade me from my current course.