Hair-rape.

He tightly twisted the long cloth around my neck. I couldn't breath. He took a shining blade in his hand, raised  it up with malice, and asked,

"Sir, unglakku short-a venuma, medium-a venuma?"

The reason I go to 'hair-styling salons' is my little ray of hope that the dudes there would understand a bit of English, and/or get atleast a vague idea of what I want my hair to be like; I do not have the same hair-texture as that of general South Indians. The above tamil quote just shattered my little ray of hope. I used my cracked, rusty Tamil and somehow got the guy to know that I wanted a 'change of style', or rather, 'change of shtyle'.

"Oh wokay sir. You want spikes aah?"

"No, I want it to be short in the front, long in the back....."(I doubt if he understood what I said)

" Sir It won't look nice on you."

Oh okay, so now I've to take advice from a Tamil macha whose idea of good hair-styling is 'funky-aah spikes'.

"Sir you know Simbu?"

Is that some sorta lion? Did he mean Simba? I hope he didn't want my hair to be a mane.

"Sir Simbu...you know, tamil movie hero?"

I silently prayed to god that he wouldn't style my hair like some random 30 year old tamil hero. No, I said.

"I will put spikes like that sir. It will be funky."

James Brown's "Papa's Got a New Bag" suddenly played in my head. I pictured myself in tight pants and an Afro.

"No! No funky hair. Put normal hair." I said, exasperated and scared.

He began. Removed my spectacles nonetheless. It was better that I couldn't see what he was about to do to my hair.

At the end of the 'procedure', I ended up looking like a Beetle with upright antennae on my head.

"Sir super-a irukudu sir!"

I was petrified. I wasn't able to say something comprehensible for a while. Regaining my composure, I tried some damage control. I asked the 'stylist' to trim my ridiculously upright fringe. He did so and I go his oh-so-intelligent comment yet again.

"Sir you are looking Japanese."

Apparently I suddenly had slating eyes and wore a kimono. Trying my best not to throw the comb lying on his head, I went to the billing area, where I received numorous goggles, nonetheless.

To think I paid a hundred bucks for this.