INDIA’S ONLY FEMALE BARBER STILL IN TRIM AT 70
An illiterate old woman in Maharashtra state has done more for women’s empowerment in India than many high-profile government figures and campaigners for equality, though she would tell you that all she’s ever tried to do is to provide for her family.
Shantabai Yadav, 70, broke the glass ceiling 33 years ago and even today she is believed to be the only female barber in a country where the sight of a woman cutting a man’s hair would be greeted with shock in many communities.
Shantabai was a child bride when she moved with her husband Shripati Yadav to Hasursargiri, a village in Gadhinglaj sub-division of Kolhapur district 430 kilometres southwest of Mumbai. Her husband, a marginal farmer, took up his hereditary profession of barber to earn a better livelihood.
For the first decade and a half it was smooth sailing for the couple with Shripati earning a decent income from cutting hair. Shantabai became the mother of four daughters: Changuna, Kondubai, Pushpa and Sangita.
But in July 1984, Shripati had a massive heart attack and died, leaving Shantabai and her daughters with no source of income. Her eldest girl, Changuna, was then six years old and baby Sangita barely a few months old.
Shantabai doesn’t remember the exact date when the tragedy struck. “It was raining and Pola (a local festival when farmers worship their bulls) had just finished,” she recalls.
For few months, Shantabai toiled on others’ farms to feed her daughters. But the 50 rupees (27 baht) she earned at the end of the day was hardly enough to feed a family of five. The darkest thoughts intruded.
“I had lost all hope and wanted to commit suicide with my daughters,” she told Asia Focus.
Haribhau Kadukar, a village elder and head of the local council in Gadhinglaj sub-division, advised her to be brave. He told her she should take up the profession of her late husband.
But this was unthinkable. No woman in India had ever taken up barbering in a village. For men, getting a haircut or a shave from a woman was nothing short of sacrilege.
Nonetheless, Shantabai picked up the razor, hair clippers, scissor, comb, blade sharpener and bowl left behind by her husband after Kadukar offered to be her first customer.
He was cut in the process but promised not to tell anybody.
Kadukar also succeeded in convincing other men in the village that they needed to be considerate toward the poor woman who was bringing up four small children.
However, the brothers of Shantabai’s husband — Shankar, Sadashiv, Ganu Yadav and Pandu, who still live in his native village of Ardal nearby — never accepted this. They still are not on speaking terms with their sister-in-law.
Within a month, Shantabai became an expert barber, charging 2 rupees for a haircut and 50 paisa for a shave. In addition to serving customers in Hasursargiri, she started walking to the nearby villages of Kadal, Hidudugi and Narewadi where there were no barbers. Before starting for work, she would leave her daughters in the care of her neighbours.
In 1985, the state government built a oneroom house for her under a programme promoted by then-prime minister Indira Gandhi. Around the same time, it acquired her husband’s small plot of land in Ardal and paid her compensation of 15,000 rupees. With the amount, she paid off her debts.
Over the next few years, her practice flourished. Besides giving haircuts to old and young men, she started visiting schools to cut boys’ mops, and farmers would also ask her to clip their buffaloes. For a buffalo, she would charge 5 rupees. This added to her income substantially. Soon she had enough savings to marry off her daughters.
Today Changuna and Pushpa are settled in Gadhinglaj with their families, while Kodubai and Sangita live in Mumbai.
Shantabai’s story is now familiar to people throughout Maharashtra. She has received about five dozen awards for being an inspiration to her community and to women. Last month, she travelled to Aurangabad, 335km northwest of Mumbai, to receive another award from a barbers’ community.
But age is catching up with Shantabai, and instead of walking she has to take public transport whenever someone from a nearby village requests a haircut. She cannot handle electric clippers and still relies on old manual machine and traditional razor.
In Hasursargiri and other villages, modern salons have opened. Young boys visit these to get their hair styled or cropped.
“Now I have less business,” says Shantabai. “I only have old men, children and buffaloes with me.”
These days she charges 30 rupees for a haircut, 20 rupees for a shave and 100 rupees for clean-shaving a buffalo.
Kadukar, the village leader who encouraged her to take up barbering, breathed his last in 2008 at age 99. But his great-grandson Baban Patil still visits Shantabai occasionally to inquire about her well-being.
Shantabai is sure about one thing: She is never going to leave the profession that helped her raise and marry off her daughters, even though she is also receiving a monthly public pension of 600 rupees.