Under the Mango Tree

More about the title in a minute.

As I usually do, I procrastinated some key errands until the day of my departure from home. Packing done? With an hour to spare. Medications? Oops, stopped on the way to the airport for the prescription to keep me free from malaria. Laundry? Planned ahead and did that over the weekend. Haircut? Uh, last trip I managed to sneak it in on departure day. This time I ran out of time. So off I went, scraggly longish hair and all.

After checking into the hotel and being greeted with "Hello Mr. Sean, you need a haircut." I realized it was perhaps overdue. Then I went to my office and was greeted by the exact same comments, except I heard it from 15 people. "You look older" or "Did you gain weight?" or "Are you well?" Seriously, one of the many things I love about this country is the directness on some topics. Of course I'm also frustrated to no end when the same directness is not used in some aspects of our work. But that is for another time.

Ok, now about the title. As should be expected in India, barbershops come in many forms. The most common is literally the UMT - a guy with a chair, scissors and a mirror nailed to, you guessed it, a mango tree. So when I asked the guys at the office where to get a haircut, the first response was: "You want a UMT?" I said no, I'll take my chances with an enclosed, air conditioned shop.

The hotel recommended a "salon" which was just a decent looking barber shop. The barber spoke about three words of English: short, medium, and shave. I opted for the medium and it turned out as I should have expected: horrible! I guess he'd never cut curly hair and he managed to make one side burn thinner than the other.

Oh well, at least the hotel manager complimented me and said "You look much better, like the old Mr. Sean."