Having my haircut yesterday evening after work and my regular barber was murmuring on increasing his rate from RM 8 to RM 10 per hair cut. He had been saying such thing to me over the past few months but I always told him not to do so as he may lose customers. So the Indian barber, in his early thirties was in a dilemma now, to raise or not to raise. I jokingly told him off that if he raised his rate I would look for some other barber nearby. But our friend cheekily told me that I may not get someone as good as him. True enough, I simply could not find a better barber that could shave a neat crew cut on my fast growing straight hair and like it or not, I need to come to him twice a month to maintain a neat and tidy crew cut or otherwise, my entire head will be out of shape.
I called this young Indian barber “tamby” and I have known him long enough to have listened so much stories of how he had grown up in an rubber estate near Nilai, how as a school dropout he started learning doing haircuts from his master and later started up his present barber shop and started to train up a few protégés which had “come and go” in the process. And I have known him long enough that from a bachelor, his wife which is a school teacher had given birth to a boy which is already 2 years old.
Somehow, this young Indian is a hard working chap that although he didn’t get good education as a teenager but managed to learn a skill that allow him to earn a decent living. Everyone needs a haircut isn’t, so at least as a school dropout, he had picked a right path that despite of his lack of paper qualifications, still allow him to made a decent living that is not bad comparing to those struggling unemployed graduates or those school dropouts involved themselves in vice activities.
Coming back to his intention of raising his rate of haircut, I jokingly told him off that he shouldn’t take the opportunity of the recent hike in electric tariff to increase his rate. I then joked with him that I would report to the Consumers Association (CAP) if he insisted of increasing his rate. Then again I joked with him that he should take the consolation that the Prime Minister was giving so much of attention to the Indian community in this country so much so that the President of MIC was recently made a full minister despite of not being a member of parliament and MIC which only won two seats in the past general election had now two full minister, a whooping 100% achievement.
“Pui” was his reaction. He spat and angrily refuted that the appointment was only meant to pinch the votes but doing noting good to the Indian community as a whole. He then cursed that all these so called leaders, which were corrupted and not contributing to the community will lose everything come the next general election.
My haircut remained at RM 8 for the moment. But I guess this guy will be again talking about the price hike when I come to him 2 weeks from now.
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