गंगाराम यांचे राजेंद्र केशकर्तनालय आणि ओके हेअर ड्रेसिंग सलून...Our Encounters With Haircutting at Miraj

 सप्टेंबर २०२३, माझा मित्र सतीश कुलकर्णी याने मला मिरजेतील एक फोटो पाठवला. तो सोबत लावला आहे. 

मिरजेच्या एकेकाळच्या मध्यभागी असलेल्या किसान चौकातील एका स्टेज चे पाडणे त्यात सुरु आहे असे वाटते. त्या स्टेजवरून झालेली कित्येक भाषणे आम्ही ऐकली आहेत. मला असे वाटते की बहुदा इंदिरा गांधी सुद्धा तिथे काही काळासाठी आल्या होत्या. 

मोठे करून चित्र पहाल तर तुम्हाला तिथे "ओके हेअर ड्रेसिंग सलून" ही पाटी सुद्धा दिसेल... ते दुकान आमच्या डोळ्यादेखत १९७०च्या उत्तरभागात सुरु झाले आहे. 

त्याबद्दल आणखी थोडी माहिती सांगण्या आधी ह्या ब्लॉगवर पूर्वी दिलेली आमच्या केस कापण्याची कहाणी थोडक्यात पुनः सांगतो.

Until I turned nine or ten, Gangaram Gaikwad would visit our home to give us a crew cut. Later it was our turn to visit him once a month. Gangaram was a dapper looking young man who looked less of a barber and more of a photographer or a tailor. 

Gangaram’s shop, run jointly with his grim looking elder brother, used to be always crowded and, even if it wasn’t, elders always jumped the queue to push us back. I remember some times it used to take hours to get the job done.

But all along Gangaram never stopped smiling, Radio Ceylon hummed and local gossip sizzled. I remember the late Vasant Pawar’s (one of the most talented music director of Marathi film industry who died young) daughter often used to come to the place to chat up with Gaikwad brothers and even play cards occasionally.

For our monthly visit, we were incentivized with a rupee or two to buy peanuts for our return journey but I guess the real incentive was spending time at Gangaram’s shop, listening to adult gossip!

पण गंगाराम यांचे दुकान (राजेंद्र केशकर्तनालय) जुने होते, खूप लहान होते, खुर्च्या लाकडी, सरळ पाठीच्या होत्या... 

माझ्या धाकट्या भावाला  त्याचा कंटाळा आला आणि त्याने 'क्रांतीकारक' पाऊल उचलत, ओके मध्ये जायचे ठरवले. त्याला तिथे गंगाराम मारत होता तो जुना कट टाळून अमिताभ बच्चन करत होते तो कानावरून केस येणारा , 'डिप्लोमा' कट मारून घ्यायचा होता. 

ओके त्यावेळी नुकतेच सुरु झाले होते... प्रशस्त, पॉश , फ्लुरोसंट ट्यूब, मोठे आरसे आणि, अलीकडे सगळ्या सलून मध्ये असणाऱ्या, फोमच्या फिरत्या खुर्च्या तिथे होत्या... पैसे ही जास्त होते... त्याचे मालक अक्कडबाज मिशा असलेले गृहस्थ होते जे बहुतेक सांगत असत की ते मुंबईत व्यवसाय करून मिरजेत परत आले आहेत.... 

 मी तिथे काही महिने गेलो आणि पुन्हा गंगाराम कडे परतलो, माझा भाऊ ओके मध्येच जात राहिला... 

 ह्याच विषयावर  ओरहान पामुक यांच्या “Other Colours: Essays and a Story”, १९९९ ह्या पुस्तकातील एक उतारा वाचा : 

  “…When I was a boy waiting my turn at the barber shop, flicking through the pages of Vulture, stopping now and again to study locally drawn caricatures of citizens aghast at the prices of things, enjoying jokes about bosses and their secretaries, stories by the popular humorist Aziz Nesin, and cartoons lifted from western magazines, my ears were always alert to the conversations around me. Of course the topic discussed at the greatest length was football and the football pools. Some, like Toto, the head barber, would, as he moved among the three customers in the three chairs, offer up his thoughts on boxing or the horses, which he played from time to time. His barber shop, which bore the fanciful name Venus, was at the end of the passageway across the street from our house in Nisantasi. Toto was a tired and sulky man with white hair, and the other of the two older owners was irritable and bald, while the third owner was in his 40s and sported a thin Douglas Fairbanks moustache. I remember he was less interested in chatting with his customers about high prices, new shops in the neighbourhood, singers and stars of the day or domestic politics than he was in discussing international affairs and the state of the world…

… Once, after a customer had had his shave, taken off his apron, allowed the boy to comb his hair, given out his tips, and left the shop, the Fairbanks moustache-sporting owner, who had shown him such courtesy and deference only moments earlier, began to curse this man's mother and his wife: this was how I discovered that the adult world was populated by duplicitous types whose anger was deeper than anything I had known in my child's world. At the barber shops of my childhood, they used scissors, huge clippers they would angrily toss away when they didn't cut well, combs, cotton balls to keep hair out of the ears, cologne, powder and, for the grown-ups, cutthroat razors, shaving cream, shaving combs and white aprons. Today, apart from a handful of electric appliances - like the hair dryer - the tools have not changed much, and this must remind us that though Istanbul writers have never recorded their traditions, these barbers (who have been using these tools for centuries, gossiping as they work) must have been speaking in the same way for just as long…

Barbers also performed circumcisions and other small surgical procedures, some in their coffee houses and others in separate establishments: this gave them a central importance in Istanbul society..

That was when I understood that a barber who shaves you in silence, without drawing a word from your mouth or sharing any neighbourhood or political gossip, and cursing no one, is not a barber at all.“

 किसान चौक, मिरज , सप्टेंबर २०२३