D: Is mom home?
Me:Nope
D: where is she?
Me:Dunno
D: she has her cell?
Me: hmm
D:hmmm
*click* call ends.
This article is about my childhood barber.The Mindblowingly interesting phone conversation above is with my dad. What’s the connection?? None between me and my dad. Don’t get me wrong we are comfortable in our distant worlds and love each other…..from a distance, the curtness is not coldness but rather for efficiency. We may not look eye to eye because we ensure we are never in the same room together. He is a pretty successful senior lawyer and a rockstar in his own space, so why this difference? Because a car with Manual Transmission and another with automatic would always have different opinions on “How to drive smoothly”.However My dad is pretty important for what I am about to share with you. My father like every other father of my locality used to drag me along for a haircut to our local barber.
He loved to play with me, my dad not the barber, he would often throw me around when I was a child, I always suspected that he suspected that I would land on my feet, like a cat. Being a chimp,I disappointed him every single time when I used to fall with a thud, poor dad. Anyways he would plonk me on high red seat of my barber. I loved him back then, my barber not my dad, my barber would smile once a year,talk only in grunts and shrugs. He walked a bit bow legged and was fair and bespectacled like most South Indian’s are.However this taciturn, reticent man was a master Marketeer (is Marketeer a word? I am too lazy to google it right now)
His game was simple. Two Parle G toffees to any kid who visited him for a haircut. Every child knew that and so forced his father to visit “parle wala haircut”, toffees weren’t on the basic survival list and were a rare treat back then. Fathers who were also his target market used his shop as a hangout. He was smart enough to put a lengthy awning so they could talk about things beyond their control like candidate for home ministry and What should be an Ideal groom for madhuri dixit should be like? (This were old times. And no, Dr Nene doesn’t measure up.) People would pick numbers every sunday would wait for 3-4 hours but wouldn’t go to another barber, there was an emotional and social significance to that place. A ceremony which no one wished to defile by defecting towards the enemy, the enemy here are other barber’s.
We have covered shoestring and organic marketing already, parle toffees, emotional and social points, word of mouth. But what about Customer loyalty? A Kissme bar for any child who was his regular customer for more than 2 years. Every Balbharti reader desired to join that elite club. Business was brisk, the interior got upgraded, flashy mirrors and new mechanical high seats and a line of barber apprentices. Who later became his competition and downfall.
The barber was getting old, the apprentices were young and had a much better connect with the customers. They cultivated the rapport into friendships and took those customers with them when they went. The barber also failed to adapt. swanky looking new salons mushroomed, everyone wanted a HAIR STYLIST not a barber,what does he know about new styles? he didn’t. The children which were his assets became his nemesis. The children are like sponges absorbing information, trends and fads. This children in teenage years looked for a image makeover, somebody who would understand what they desire(which was girls)and would style them accordingly(for girls). These teenagers would then in a role reversal drag their fathers to salons and introduce them to glib,pampering stylists. The old barber with his weak eyesight and betrayed heart couldn’t match the competition and the shop was closed.
You witnessed the rise and fall of my favorite marketeer. Most probably you knew the points before hand but a revision never hurts. The barber is still struggling, very old & bent, opens a small shop at every location which he can afford. He walks slowly with his head held as high as possible but his erstwhile customers all grown with their old children somehow always manage to avert their eyes. Maybe they feel the pressing guilt like me, maybe they are scared to find accusation in his face if they look at him. I have decided the next time to stand my ground meet his gaze as long as he allows, That much I owe him,atleast. After all, an entrepreneur like a Lannister always pays his debts!
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