Mango Frooti saves the day

This is just going to hurt a little bit - Ogden Nash

One thing I like less than most things is sitting in a dentist chair with
my mouth wide open.
And that I will never have to do it again is a hope that I am against hope hopen.

Because some tortures are physical and some are mental,
But the one that is both is dental.
It is hard to be self-possessed
With your jaw digging into your chest.

So hard to retain your calm
When your fingernails are making serious alterations in your life line
or love line or some other important line in your palm;

So hard to give your usual effect of cheery benignity
When you know your position is one of the two or three in life
most lacking in dignity.

And your mouth is like a section of road that is being worked on.
And it is all cluttered up with stone crushers and concrete mixers and
drills and steam rollers and there isn't a nerve in your head that
you aren't being irked on.

Oh, some people are unfortunate enough to be strung up by thumbs.
And others have things done to their gums,
And your teeth are supposed to be being polished,
But you have reason to believe they are being demolished.
And the circumstance that adds most to your terror
Is that it's all done with a mirror,
Because the dentist may be a bear, or as the Romans used to say, only
they were referring to a feminine bear when they said it, an ursa,
But all the same how can you be sure when he takes his crowbar in one
hand and mirror in the other he won't get mixed up, the way you
do when you try to tie a bow tie with the aid of a mirror, and forget
that left is right and vice versa?

And then at last he says That will be all; but it isn't because he then
coats your mouth from cellar to roof
With something that I suspect is generally used to put a shine on a
horse's hoof.

And you totter to your feet and think. Well it's all over now and after
all it was only this once.
And he says come back in three monce.
And this, O Fate, is I think the most vicious circle that thou ever sentest,
That Man has to go continually to the dentist to keep his teeth in good
condition when the chief reason he wants his teeth in good condition
is so that he won't have to go to the dentist.

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Mr. Ogden Nash never penned another version of his beautiful poem to describe the horrors I face at the hands of even more barbarous human - The Barber.

I was 5 years old when my father took me to a barber. That was my earliest visit to a barbershop I can remember. The chair used to be a bit unprepared for 5 year old, so they put a plank for me. Pirates used to make their captives walk the plank, these men with hinged swords made me sit on it. Children cry and whimper on the barber's chair. I am grandson of a freedom fighter, so hold my chin high. I look the boy in front of me in the eye. Then the villain of the story pushes my head down and I look at black strands of hair falling on the white sheet. I am deeply worried as to what will happen to my head. I don't remember looking at myself in the mirror after the cut. I don't utter a word to my father. I just hold his hand and keep looking down on the floor. And I walk out on the street. My father knows that I have been through a tough time. So he stops by a shop and buys me a Frooti. In those days Frooti used to be big. Really big. I sipped all the way to my home. I had full concentration on the pack of Frooti and the straw. It never seemed to finish, or was it that I never wanted to finish. I was just a little kid , I couldn't let myself be recognized in public without proper headgear. I had no hair. My mother still teases me about that day when I walked in bald in my home sipping at the Frooti pack, eternally looking down and not speaking. I had a fundamental, sovereign, social, republican, whatever right or left to be shy. There was no hair on my head. My head was naked !

Till this day, I have trouble with getting a decent haircut. I have haircutophobia. Still, I go to those pirates more often than most people. Because I know the previous haircut was a mess. It always is a mess. Because these people did not go to Arts school. They never tried giving themselves a haircut. How can they feel the emotions of those they use for their sadistic experiments? The point is, they don't listen to you. I'll say the hair has to be cut to the medium length and they will use the lawn mower on my scalp and will prepare it for the next match between Barcelona and Real. The thing I most hate is their love for the physics of stress and strain. I think they purposely pull at your hair, so that they can pull out all the yards of hair that is inside the scalp and do away with as much as possible at one go. They just snip their scissors anywhere they want. They never use any scale or any instrument to ensure the height their scissors are snipping is the same everywhere. The most stupid feeling comes when they pass a resolution to divide the hair into two different countries. The Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic. This division makes me look a Nazi. It makes me look like someone who thinks that Hitler is the next best (hair)style guru after Beckham. No matter how much I spend Rs. 20 or Rs.200, the result is the same horrific journey. I realize that I have trouble communicating with them. My knees start to shake. I never have felt that nervous even when I talk to a beautiful girl. I just nod my head and mumble something senseless with showcase confidence to make the barber feel I am too sophisticated to listen to him. So he takes out all his frustration on my hair. To make me feel good, I still buy myself a Frooti.