Aajkal Ho Rahi Hai 'Hajamat Sar-E-Bazaar…'!

Delhi, however much it may have changed over the years, still has space for the street side barber shops.

At some time or the other, we all have mocked them, those ubiquitous roadside barbers with their mirror hanging by a tree branch, their chair propped up by coir to go with their ready-to-reuse combs and scissors. 


At times, we have called them ‘Sun and Shade parlours’, at others, ‘ita-lian’; the former standing for the interplay of sun and shade as a person sat on a chair under a tree, often next to the wall of a public building, the latter a queer mix of Hindi and English, stemming from the Hindi word ‘eent’ or brick. 

The allusion here being to a couple of bricks on which a chair rested insecurely as the barber got down to his job. In fact, at times, the chair disappeared altogether as the man literally sat on a pair of bricks. In Urdu speaking parts of the city, people had an interesting expression for roadside hair cut or shave. They simply called it “Hajamat sar-e-bazaar”.

But honestly, these roadside barbers have always played a useful hand in a city where people are usually in a tearing hurry, and many cannot afford fancy parlours where a simple haircut can set you back by a few hundred rupees. 

Not just the security guards or the peon or the daily wage earners, at times students and retired middle-class men favour them too. There are reasons: they are pocket-friendly. Their service is prompt; the add-ons minimum. 

The atmosphere is, well, open air, hence no stinking feeling of used foams and trimmed hair. Then the usual Hindi or Urdu dailies are there too. Why? For the next customer to go through as he waits, sitting on the pavement or against the grill. In some cases, they get lucky. They get a wooden stool. And from a haircut to a shave, life goes on. Cleaner, better, easier.