Friday, July 17, 2009

A break and a haircut



Those are pics from a campus where we spent a few days in Bangalore last week. Must be familiar to many.
Rather frayed by the stress and strain of daily work, hubby and i were glad to get a chance for a short break. We didn’t go to some exotic resort or tourist destination. We just headed for Bangalore, where our family of four lived together for two years after staying apart for many years. Perhaps because of this, i sort of consider the city as ‘home’ though we don’t own an inch of a place there.

Actually, the break came because we had a small work to be done. Then we thought we’d stretch it to a few days for rest and meeting friends. Both our bosses granted us leave, so we took the 24 hours train ride. It’s quite a treat for the eye and mind to look out the window and watch the scenery. For this purpose, i deliberately desisted from packing books except the Bibles and Daily Bread. Hubby did take a book and slept for hours with it on his chest!

Landing in B’lore was a bit of a desolate feeling as our children had left town and gone far away. We put up at a guesthouse to avoid disturbing relatives and friends, though some of them were quite open to accommodate us. They called us for meals all the same. The five day stay was a happy, refreshing time of catching up with dear ones, of relaxing, meditating, conversing and taking long walks.

One family member had reminded me to have a haircut in Bangalore. (Why in Bangalore, is a long story). So i went to the Chinese parlour. Just before my turn, a white haired lady of about 80 had her haircut, short and neat. I asked the hairdresser to cut mine too like hers. She couldn’t quite believe me.
“Are you serious? Do you really want it like that?” she asked.
“Of course,” I replied. “And please make it as short as you can, because it’ll be a long time before i come back for the next cut.”

When i went back to work after returning, my colleagues’ re-actions to my haircut were interesting. Pradeep said, “Your new hairstyle looks nice.” Sharmila remarked, “It’s a bit too short. It doesn’t look good.” And when Priya saw me, she exclaimed “Oh, my goodness!!”