The one thing I love about being a government servant are the dedicated two days of weekend ensured at the end of the 5 day grueling routine. Well being in the defence forces we are meant for a 24 x 7 alert phase for an immediate ‘launch’ however, more or less the “Saturdays’ and ‘Sundays’ are the days to look forward for. As aptly emphasized at the NDA , “we live from one weekend to another”. One of the major activities planned on either of these celebrated days is having a ‘haircut’. Growing up from having a weekly haircut which majorly meant shaving off the portion below your beret ( the oval cap worn by cadets in NDA) to getting a fortnightly “officer like haircut” ,the hair grooming ritual usually takes place on a Saturday for me as likely for 99% of the Faujis. Anyway coming on posting to a ‘Metro’ Mumbai , this activity took further importance due to the invariably better groomed ‘crowd’ around me and the fact of having better options than the standard Air Force Station barber who would come to my quarter and cut my hair apparently without a mirror.
Dedicating Saturday morning as a ‘grooming period’ I usually take off on my old bike to the one of the saloons designated for sipping off those unwanted elements off my head to make me supposingly more appealing to my counterparts and more importantly to myself. Though my better half detests the usual crew cut which she says is no ‘haircut’ but simply the barber s frustration taken out on my crown, I had designed a set pattern for myself to get my crown shaped in a fashion that won’t disappoint both the soldier and the husband in me. Moving confidently in ‘The Scissors’, the most ‘officer like’ salon according to me in the vicinity I was not surprised to find every chair occupied in the not so big a shop. Expecting the usual 15 mins waiting period I placed myself on the waiting seats placed behind the main ‘cutting line’. Gazing around to see the level of completion of other customers task and psyching myself for occupying the chair of the person who is about to get the last finishes of his clean shaven face being cooled off by the denim aftershave, I was surprised to see an unfamiliar face doing the needful hard work of grooming the clean face. “Seems like a new employee” I thought to myself only to find the young lad looking right into my eyes and giving me a broad smile. Its only then that I realize that the words have actually been uttered to make the new guy smile. What surprises me more is that he actually understood what I spoke!!! Taking for granted the general unfamiliarity of English language among the local barbers. “yes sir I am new to the place” ,came the quick reply in an typical Indian English accent. “you can come now sir” he said gesturing me to occupy the empty seat just being vacated by the clean shaven ,happy looking at himself individual. “ well!!! what is your name? I haven’t seen you here before.” I asked placing myself over the empty reclining barber chair. “ I am Aslam, just joined last week” he said in a cheerful tone. Explaining him my usual pattern of hair cut I continued my conversation with the new, English speaking barber of mine. “well im impressed with your English speaking skills Aslam. You studying or something?” I asked the busy preparing to snip of my earned glory off my crown. “well sir im a graduate from the Aligarh University” he said in an casual tone. “its just destiny that I come down here in Mumbai and standing here cutting your hair sir” he continued snipping my hair with utmost precision. “ I have done BA in English literature and passed out with distinction sir”. he continued to surprise me. “hmm…well then a a a sorry to ask you but what makes you work here” I said in an embarrassed soft tone ,as if I was the one cutting hair. “ well sir as I said destiny” he replied back. “hmm you cant blame it on destiny … real men make their own destiny” I replied with a pride in my voice. “well” he continued and stopped momentarily his continuous snapping scissor “not when they are poor and specially poor like US!!!” he said continued cutting. “yaar Aslam I understand the lack of opportunities and job crunch that is there around but you can always do better than cutting hair of people, don’t blame the environment around you for your destiny ”. I said dejecting his statement. To my surprise the salon had become vacant except for an old guy with a tuff of grey hair sitting right next to me on the left. The other barbers were busy chit chatting outside the shop taking their usual “chai” break.
“well sir” he began “ I better not discuss anything with you, you possibly wont identify with my story” he said in somewhat angry tone. “well atleast give it a try. I still have to color my hair and do a head massage as well”I said relaxing him. “well to begin with, im the younger of the two sons in my family”. He began “ my father was a trader and shop keeper in Aligarh UP. He had a prosperous business and our economic condition was good , riyaz my elder brother both having ambitions to become a doctor and me a famous writer one day. But the 1992 riots in Ayodhya happened.i was in the 4 th standard and my brother in the 8 th. Lesser known to people around, the babri masjid fall had a backlash in Aligarh too. Though the city was muslim dominated, a group of hindu miscreants went on an rampage one evening, burning our shop and our house down. A total of 15 houses were burnt to ashes, they still were not satisfied, my father a helpless unarmed human was pulled out on the streets and murdered in cold blood. We were protected by our aami who hid us in the near by nullah and went rushing to help my father only to be brutally raped and tortured by the monsters.” I could see the moist eyes as Aslam had stopped cutting and narrated me his story. Recollecting himself he regained his composure and continuing to cut he started again “ well that episode left me and my brother a dead father and a raped mother .My paternal uncle took us refuge, the entire episode had left a deep scar in all of our hearts but a deeper I guess in my elder brothers. He refused to go to school any further and joined a group of muslim boys going to the madrassa everyday. He had changed completely from a talkative youngster he had turned into this silent observer. We hardly heard him speak anytime.” Aslam had finished cutting my hair and had surprisingly told someone else to do the rest of the job of washing and coloring my prematurely graying hair .
“atleast tell me what happened next “ I said stopping aslam from going out of the shop. “sir I guess this much is enough for today, well I do not want any sympathy from you sir” he said with a smile. Totally taken aback with this strange behavior and tone I continued looking into the mirror totally baffled with his abrupt exit. I realized that the owner Atif had taken over whom I had known for a year now. “yaar atif this boy is strange na” I said looking at atif through the mirror. “arre sir iska bahut bura hua hai” atif started with colouring my hair. “it was me only who signaled him to stop speaking and leave the shop and take a break. Arre sir he ll get all emotional again. The elder brother he was talking about na, only grew up to join some bloody terrorist group. That suicide blast last year in Mumbai, it was his brother only riyaz khan” atif continued only give me more surprises. “ though this guy studied and grew up away from his brother , he is better known as riyaz khan’s brother. The police had taken him also in lock up many times and given him “kharcha paani” atif continued with a smirk on his face. “ Isiliye this chutiya doesn’t have any job or any source of livelihood. His mother and uncle used to feed him , but after the night he was picked up by the police and bought to Mumbai , he has never gone back ever since”. Atif continued to smirk. “sir ek baar terrorist ka daag lag jata hai na toh mushkil ho jata hai jeena, iski toh galti bhi nahi thi phir bhi police ne do teen din tak remand mein rakha tha” atif completed putting colour. As I waited for the artificial dye to dry itself in the salon I could see a glimpse of aslam outside the shop having a ‘chai’ himself and laughing and chatting with the other barbers. Drowned in my own thoughts, the old man next to me spoke up. “ aare son, these people are like that only, they are not be taken so seriously” the old man started his speech in a hush hush tone. “these people come from UP, bihar and simply spoil our culture here. They should not be allowed to come here only” I could sense the anger in his voice. “but sir he never wanted to come , he was picked up by the police only na” I said smiling. “whatever, don’t sympathize with these people, they have only created problems for us hindus since independence” he said emphasizing on the ‘Us’. “well sir , I don’t know, its not that all muslims are bad, it’s a group of people that make the entire community suffer” I said cautiously, keeping my voice as soft as possible. “ anyway s I don’t agree with you, you are too young to understand these people” he said leaving his chair and moving out of the shop.
Having my hair grooming done and satisfied with atif s work , I moved to the counter to pay atif “take care of that boy atif, if he is actually that qualified you should help him find a better job” I said in a friendly tone and left. I could see the cheerful aslam still chatting with the other barbers. Read only in books and seen in movies, how an ambitious young man becomes a victim of our society only to be branded as a terrorist was right in front of me having his ‘chai’ break. As I carried on spending rest of my precious ‘Saturday’ planning for the evening jaunt, somewhere in south Bombay (SoBo), I was only adviced not to venture out towards that part of the city by the news channels. A major riot had broken out somewhere in the southern part of the city. It was an outburst of an religious rally that had taken place and some fanatic youths of that community had taken their frustration out on a dozen of public buses and police vehicles, setting them on fire and even destroying most of the property in the vicinity. The police had to finally resort to firing which allegedly had killed 5 young men. The news in mind, the evening was spend well off at the ‘sarkari’ quarters (that’s what my wife likes to call our house).
Opening the Sunday Times, the next day I found myself carefully reading through the headlines regarding the riots of the previous day. Turning on to the next page, I was confronted by a couple of photographs of 5 young men who had been killed in the police firing. Though ,taking just a cursory glance at the pics, without having any intention of gazing at the faces of 5 MEN , supposedly dead now, I only found myself gazing at one picture of an fair youth, having sharp features and a familiar smile. Aslam khan had been killed in police firing, reports had said that the youth was destroying and burning a police van and had assaulted a woman constable. Though there was an statement of a eyewitness who claimed that aslam had been killed in an ‘encounter’ by the police who was present there. Not wanting to know any further as to what the truth was, I simply closed the newspaper and wondered how a youth well educated, ambitious enough was drawn into being so violent and finally killed in an ‘encounter’. Was he really a terrorist or a mobster or was it simply ‘DESTINY’.
