A barber shop story: A true one

I was about 6 years old then. And it was no different than any of my earlier 'haircut days'. My father woke me up early and signalled using his two fingers by making them move around like a scissor that I needed to get my hair cut today. I washed up, held on to his finger and walked up to Shravan's barber shop near my apartment. Shravan slept in a little room behind the shop. My father knocked on the door a couple of times which woke him up and he smiledwhen he saw us.
I liked the shop. I had never gone to another one.
Black and white photographs of men with various out-of-fashion hairstyles hang above a picture rail at the end of the room, where two barber's chairs are bolted to the floor. Shravan places a wooden board covered with a piece of cloth across the arms of the chair, so that he doesn't have to stoop to cut the boy's hair. I scramble up onto the bench.
"The rate at which you're growing, you won't need this soon, you'll be sitting in the chair," the barber says.
"Wow," I say, squirming round to look at my dad, forgetting that I can see him through the mirror. "Anna, Shravan said I could be sitting in the chair soon, not just on the board!"
"Hmm" my father replies, not looking up from the paper. "I expect Shravan will start charging me more for your hair then."
"At least double the price," said Shravan, winking at me.
Finally my father looks up from his newspaper and glances into the mirror, seeing his son looking back at him. He smiles.
"Wasn't so long ago when I had to lift you onto that board because you couldn't climb up there yourself," he says.
"They don't stay young for long do they, kids," Shravan says. My dad nods in agreement.
Shravan starts running his scissors all over my hair and in no time he's done. I jump off the board to find the floor strewn with the black locks from my head. I wanted to gather them but my father pulled me away.
"Breakfast must be ready, amma must be waiting", he said. I was already hungry and got excited thinking of breakfast and grabbed hold of my dad's hand. His hands closed around mine and I was surprised to find, warming in my father's palm, a lock of my own hair.

I remembered this incident and told my mother about it and she cried. She said my father had told her about this incident that day. He had realized I wouldn't remain the little boy for long, who would grab hold of his hand and go out with him. I realized the reason behind the lock of hair in his hand.

Just wanted to say I'll always be his little boy.

Astrology: Do I look like an idiot?

The other day I was shopping for a new pair of sneakers for my father; the old sneakers had worn out to the point where they were little more than a glorified pair of socks. I was with my father in a shoe store chatting about how the price of shoes had seemed to have gone up. The salesperson asked us how we were doing and we gave her the shoes we wanted to try on. She came back and everything was fine and dandy.

The store wasn't crowded and she began to talk with us, and I started chatting too.We began talking about something, I don't really remember what the topic was. Anyway, in the middle of this conversation about something not too important, she asked what my sign was. I stuttered my sign not being something that I keep at the forefront of my mind. I looked like a Leo she said. No, um, no in fact I'm a Virgo, I said. That's funny, she said, you don't have any of the characteristics of Virgo. Then she walked behind the counter and fiddled with the register; I stood there puzzled.

I'm baffled by the insistence with which some people let the position of the stars, the planets, the sun, the moon, and the rest of outer space define who they are. Is it that they are so unable to create their own destinies that they need to rely on someone's interpretation on the position of Jupiter or Pluto to figure out what their month's going to be like? Now really, really think about it. Does that make sense? Really?

We've all looked at our horoscopes once or twice. Sometimes it's good fun, but how many times has it actually been right, or specific enough to actually be wrong? Let's take a look at my horoscope in the newspaper some days back. "Sometimes money spent on things of lasting value makes more sense than indulging in ephemeral treats. Buy a very good painting of a rose that lasts forever rather than a rose that fades overnight." Did my horoscope just tell me to invest wisely? Didn't Bertie Wooster already do that? Isn't a horoscope supposed to tell the future? If so, I'm failing to see the prediction here.

Part of the problem with astrology is that's it's so vague and filled with double-speak that a sentence could almost mean anything. If that's the case then hell, I could be an astrologer. In fact here's a forecast for everyone:

May: Things may or may not happen. If so, some will be good, some will not. You may or may not meet people. If so, some of them will like you, some will not.

Astrology throws free will out the window. In basing what happens in the future on where the planets are going, it insinuates that the future is this set thing that we have no control over. It doesn't matter what we do, whatever's going to happen is going to happen and none of it's our fault. Lost your job? We can blame that on Mercury, surely it had nothing to do with the fact that you sent a photocopy of your head to the CEO.

Man, it's a good thing personal responsibility has been replaced by outer space. I figure this way I can blame the pile up of my office work not on my own procrastination, but on Pluto. I sprained my back a few weeks ago. Of course it's not my own clumsiness to blame, it's Jupiter, an awfully big planet for an awful lot of incoordination. Let me tell you, this is all quite a load off my back. ;)