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Type 1

There’s an open-air hair salon on the banks of the Bagmati River in Gaushala. And there is a line of men waiting for their turn to get a haircut. Dipen Thakur, the 18-year-old barber, is engrossed in his work, oblivious to the crowd and the noise around him. He throws a quick glance at me and says, “I don’t have the money to rent a room. Here, I don’t need to pay ayone.”

Dipen is from Rajbiraj, a town in the south-eastern district of Saptari. He hasn’t been to school. In Gausha­la, he lives with his parents; it’s his responsibility to look after them. “I don’t have a choice. My dad is a drunkard and doesn’t work,” Dipen expresses his helplessness.

What adds to his problem is the regular police patrol. “Then I have to run. Or else they will arrest me. In fact I’ve been caught four times already,” Dipen says, smiling. It’s been around a year since he’s been working in Kathmandu as a barber, the one who constantly fears arrest.

Type 2

Close to the KMC hospital in Sinamangal is Ganga Hair Dresser, which has been run for 35 years by 50-year-old Ganga Thakur. Thakur is originally from Gadhimai in Bara, a district in the central plains. He raised his three daughters and one son working as a barber. He doesn’t face the kind of trouble Dipen does. Thakur pays a monthly rent of Rs 7,000 and has regular customers. “I just about get by,” he says.

Type 3

The third kind of hair salons are those that are operated in large apartment buildings. Mukesh Dev, also from Rajbiraj, runs one in Kirti­pur. He has named it Hair Studio and has decorated it splendidly.

Mukesh returned to Nepal after working in the UAE for five years. He has no plans to go abroad again. “Now I want to do something here,” he says. He already employs three people and wants to hire three more within a few months.

History

It is said that the word ‘hairdress­er’ was first coined in Europe in the 17th century. Initially, the service catered to men. Beauty parlors for women were established only in the 20th century.

Archeologists, on the basis of their discovery of the remains of shaving instruments in the Indus Valley, date haircutting to hypothesize that the practice of haircutting started around 3300–1300 BCE. Over time, the occupation became associated with the caste system. Kings and landlords started summoning bar­bers to their palaces. Ordinary cit­izens also sent for them on special occasions like weddings, funerals and bratabanda (a rite of passage for Hindu boys).

Gajendra Thakur, chairperson of Nepal Barber Trade Union, says barbers are still treated as untouch­ables in some places in the Madhes. It is the Thakurs who are primarily responsible for shaving heads when a family member passes away. They are still summoned for cutting hair and nails during weddings, although the practice is disappearing. “Like bonded farm laborers, Thakurs used to get only 10kg of rice annually for their service. Later we rejected the arrangement,” he says.

In Kathmandu Valley, a particular Newar community of barbers was given the title of Napit by Jayasthiti Malla, the 14th century king of Kath­mandu valley, during his codifica­tion of the law.

How’s the pay?

It’s on Saturdays and during festi­vals that barbers earn the most.

Dipen earns Rs 400 a day on aver­age. He charges Rs 60 for a hair­cut and Rs 40 for a shave. Ganga makes more; he charges Rs 80 for a haircut and Rs 60 for a shave. He earns about Rs 700 on weekdays. On Saturdays, his income can go up to Rs 2,000. Ganga says those who run open or high-end hair salons do not stick to the rate set by the Barbers Association, and have their own, arbitrary, rates. Mukesh charges Rs 120 for a haircut and Rs 80 for a shave.

All three of them are Nepali citi­zens. Barbers from India are reluc­tant to speak with the media. Gajen­dra says there are around 10,000 workers in approximately 4,000 hair salons in Kathmandu Valley alone. He estimates 80 percent of the workers are Indian nationals. The profession is dominated by Indi­ans while Nepalis are going abroad in droves to earn as little as Rs 20,000 a month. Meanwhile, are reportedly remitting billions from Nepal’s nooks and crannies. But official figures are unavailable. No state body has data on how many hair salons are there in the country or how much money Indian barbers send home.

“You don’t find Indian bar­bers in rural parts of Tarai. But in urban cen­ters, they are ubiquitous. And in the hills, it’s almost as if they have a monop­oly on the trade,” says Gajendra. He thinks the state should do a better job at regulating and taxing hair salons. Regulations are important also because of health issues. “There are uneducated barbers who carry out their job indiscriminately. They are not careful about the creams and colorings they apply,” he says.

When asked about the general complaint that barbers charge arbi­trary rates, he responds defensively, “We don’t do that. But there are cus­tomers who want a particular Jap­anese sports star’s hairstyle. Some ask for a Hollywood star’s coiffure. Meeting such demands requires extra time, which naturally com­mands a higher rate.”

The rules

To run a hair salon, one needs to be associated with the Barbers Asso­ciation and register with the munic­ipality office. That license costs Rs 6,000. The funds thus collected are meant for emergency purposes. Thakur says Indian barbers do not abide by the rules but ask the asso­ciation for help when they run into problems. The rules prohibit estab­lishment of two hair salons within a radius of 50 shutters. The asso­ciation finds an appropriate place and helps with the initial set-up. But it doesn’t seem the rules have been followed everywhere. “I’ve been here for 35 years. If somebody opens up a hair salon close to mine, I’ll be ruined,” says Ganga.

“There are some customers who are very polite. That keeps my spirits up the entire day. But there are oth­ers who are insensitive. Sometimes, an 80-year-old guy calls my little son ‘Bhaiya’. That makes me sad,” he says.

Dipen has similar experiences. “There are some customers who use derogatory language. I’m extremely hurt when someone calls me ‘Dhoti’,” he rues.

By Raju Syangtan | Kathmandu

The date for the much-cov­eted musical event in Nepal—Kathmandu Blues N’ Roots—has been announced. The third edition of the musical jamboree, on Septem­ber 29, is going to be bigger and better, according to the organizers. The best of the blues musicians in Nepal will gather at one location, Tan­galwood Events, to woo the audience with their soulful blues music. Musicians Satish Sthapit and Roshan Kansakar, the men behind Kathmandu Blues N’ Roots, are teaming up with Tarang Entertainment to bring the best of Nepali musicians together in the event. “This is not a profit based event,” Sthapit, the co-organizer says. “We’re doing this for the love of music. Since many organizers and sponsors in Nepal do no indulge blues-based live bands, we’re doing our own event so that the music and musicians are kept alive in Nepal.”

To keep the legacy of the blues alive and encourage upcoming musicians, the organizers are also hosting a nation-wide band competi­tion, the winners of which will get to perform in the event as well as get a single recorded courtesy of Skathi records. Bands with blues as their core music are encouraged to take part in the competition by uploading their live video per­formance on the Kathmandu Blues N’ Roots Facebook page.

The videos generating most reactions on social media will then be judged by a panel of judges and win the opportu­nity to perform alongside the heavy lineup of Nepali musi­cians consisting of Mukti N’ Revival, Newaz, TMR Trio, Spirit X to name a few, and also the international act, The Well from the United States.

The competition is for bands of all genres with blues as their core and musicians outside Kathmandu are also encouraged to apply since the winners will get an all-expense paid trip to Kathmandu to per­form at the festival alongside the record real.

The submissions are open and the deadline ends on June 30. The winners will be announced in August.

Nepali actress Namra­ta Shrestha, who likes experimenting with her characters in movies, has once again adapted to a bold look for her upcoming movie, Xira. At a press meet for the promotion this week for Xira—the women-centric action movie based on mixed martial arts—revealed her never-before-seen look.Shrestha dons a mohawk for the movie and has lost weight to fit into the character she is playing. Speaking at the event, Shrestha said that although she was not comfortable trimming her hair, she had to do it to justify the character she was playing. She also shared the demand­ing months of physical training she had to under­go in preparing for the character and to shape her body accordingly. The movie aims to empower women and recognize their contri­bution and also to provide a diverse and meaningful por­trayal of the mixed martial arts community.

Directed by Ashutosh Shrestha, the movie is set for release at the end of 2018. The cast includes Anoop Bikram Shahi, Raymon Das Shrestha, Srijana Regmi, Pramoda Agrahari, Samrat Magar and Sujita Shrestha.

Celebrity chef and restau­rateur Vinit Bhatia is embarking on an unprec­edented journey. He wants to open a three-day ‘Pop up Restaurant’ at an Everest Base Camp that is above 17,000 feet-high, and for a good cause. The UK-based chef of Indian origin has been listed among the Top 1,000 Most Influential people in London by Evening Standard, while India Today lists him in the Top 100 Global Indians. The star chef, who owns and operates suc­cessful establishments around the world, is making the trip to the Everest Base Camp to raise funds for the Heart for India Foundation, for the earthquake victims of Nepal and in order to promote gastronomical tourism in Nepal.

Bhatia, and his team that also includes his son Varaul, and colleagues Irshad Qureshi and Tej Bahadur Thapa, are in town at the moment, studying street food and local cuisines of Kath­mandu and preparing for their journey to one of the highest points in the world. The team will leave for the Everest Base Camp on May 26 by flying to Lukla on the first leg of their journey. They will then trek to the Everest Base Camp, foraging for local ingredients to cook up the ‘restaurant’ on June 3, 4 and 5, at the same time document­ing the whole journey in a fea­ture-length film.

“The idea is to do something good and create awareness,” Bhatia says. “It’s really easy to fly to the Base Camp with all the ingredients and cook there. But we want to meet the people of Himalayas, witness their culture, learn their eating habits and incorporate that into our cooking.” He is, how­ever, aware of the challenges he might face in the low-oxy­gen environment—both for his cooking and his health—and believes his positive mental attitude will help him and his team tackle the hurdles.

The menu, Bhatia informs, will be a blend of Indian and Nepali dishes, which he believes overlap. Besides some vital ingredients that will be flown to the Base Camp, the team will forage for locally available resources to create a unique dining experience for the tourists at the Everest Base Camp. “Ad hoc, spontaneous and organic,” is what Bhatia and his team of chefs want the menu to be.

Asked why he chose Nepal and the Everest Base Camp as his route to charity, Bha­tia explains his closeness to Nepal and his awareness about the problems here after the 2015 earthquakes. “There are quite a few Nepalis who work with me and I’ve seen their problems firsthand,” Bhatia adds. “We have contributed before through our hotels and restaurants and this time we wanted to do something our­selves. The support for our cause from people all over the world has been overwhelming and I’m really glad Chef Tha­pa, who is a local Nepali, is accompanying us in the trip.”