The barber of Bengali Market, a cut above Figaro

“Aaj kitna mubarak din hai, Janab!” Aman, busy giving a haircut under the old neem tree, exclaimed as I passed by on my way to the chemist. “You look bright this morning,” I said, admiring his sparkling white kurta and beatific look. “But you look disturbed, Sir,” said Aman, “Is something bothering you? Come and sit under this tree; it is so pleasant out in Delhi. Phagun ko hum khattameetha mausam kehte hain (we call February-March the bittersweet season).”

With a head heavy with life’s persuasion, I admired my friend’s art of handling the daily wear and tear. His clothes are cleaned at the market, while the day’s menu is based on how much value we place on his advice on general matters during haircut, for which he charges his friends nothing.

As I walked away, I heard the barber humming Hazrat Amir

Khusrau’s Sufiana kalam “Jab paida hue Muhammad, subah sadiq vakt tha/Baro ghee ke diye na/ Bhaiyle Amina ke lalna/ Arsh pey ahakaar machi hai/

Dharti gaaye malhar”. Aman is to me what the royal barber was to Mughal emperor Humayun — confidant, adviser, and well-wisher. In testimony to the high esteem in which the emperor held him stands Nai Ka Gumbad (barber’s dome), an impressive cenotaph with delicate, blue-tiled pavilions, built in 1590 on a raised platform next to Humayun’s tomb in Delhi.

In Indian palaces, courts and durbars, barbers were a general factotum, since plotting and planning came naturally to them and they had their master’s ear as well as tactile proximity. Touring in the central provinces some decades ago, I came across a gentlemanly barber at Jabalpur, dressed in a coat and a tie, who told me the barber caste, according to Manu (who laid down the Hindu code), descended from a Brahmin father and a Shudra mother; and in the days of the British rule, district magistrates and commissioners didn’t trust police or CID reports as much as they trusted the local barber who came in everyday with news from the jurisdiction.

The barber’s report was a routinely updated gazetteer of the area, so the lower court and police officials treated him with extreme deference, for many of them could faced adverse circumstances if he exposed their misdeeds. I recall the barbers who’d come in each morning with the fresh breeze during my postings as divisional commissioner at Ferozepur, Faridkot, and Patiala.

Generally, they were accomplished musicians. Purshottam Bhatti, the barber at Ferozepur, had his own orchestra. On the evening of my departure from that station in 1999, he came to the commissioner’s residence at sunset with his band, dressed to the gills, complete with ruffle shirt and bowtie, and gave me a rousing farewell heavy with emotional songs from Punjabi folklore. My transfer was sudden, so but for the barber with moist eyes, there would be no one at the residence to see me off.

More than the fine manoeuvres of Figaro ( the central character in ‘ The Barber of Seville’ French play by Pierre Beaumarchais), I recall the enriching contributions of the barber of Janpath, the barber of Sunhehri Baug, and now the barber of Bengali Market to my life. Also worth recounting is the curious story of Nazir Ahmad, Lord Mountbatten’s barber in Delhi, whose grandson, Jawed Habib, was educated in London by the Viceroy and has since woven many fables of eternal beauty.

Returning home at dusk, I saw Aman shutting his shop for the day and readying himself for Isha Ki Namaz ( Muslim night- time prayer). My burden lightened with his melody: “Baro ghee ke diye na/ Aaj Muhammad paida hoiley”.

IN INDIAN PALACES, COURTS AND DURBARS, BARBERS WERE A GENERAL FACTOTUM, SINCE PLOTTING AND PLANNING CAME NATURALLY TO THEM