I’LL GET ONE TOMORROW

I always wanted my hair long and this is the time I thought. Four months of stay in Pondicherry had helped me in this cause, but the premonition of going home was always there. I somehow avoided going home, but this time around I had to come home on a holiday, a holiday which was too difficult to refuse (freaking 5 days holiday, I could have easily made it to 7 if I had been voting).

First couple of days I could successfully dodge my parent’s attempts to send me to a barber shop. The resistance my side was stiff but I had to yield to their sayings. They had won this altercation on growing hair. Like a warrior taken captive after a loss in a war I walked to the barber shop. I could not help myself but remember this funny little poem that I had read in my 9^th standard. This poem by Ogden Nash is one of the few poems that I loved to read. (I feared that the syllabus would have changed, but it did not. I wondered why the guys don’t change the state syllabus…).I liked a few stanzas as it holds some relevance even today to us, but the entire poem is equally wonderful. The poem titled “I’LL GET ONE TOMORROW” goes like this…

Barber, barber, come and get me;

Hairy torrents irk and fret me.

Hair and hair again appears;

And climbs like ivy round my ears.

Hair across my collar gambols;

Down my neck it wayward ambles.

Ever down it trip it tickles;

Yes, where it trips it tickles.

Barber dear I wish I knew;

Why i do not visit you.

Why I grudge the minutes ten;

In your smiling den.

Why I choose to choke on hair;

Rather than to mount your chair.

Men no busier than I;

Weekly to your office hie.

Men no busier than myself;

Confront the armory on your shelf;

Men no wealthier than me;

Gladly meet your modest fee.

And for a fraction of a dollar;

Keep the jungle off their collar.

I alone am shy and flustered;

Solitary, cowardly custard.

Shaggy as a prize angore;

Overrun with the creeping flora.

Barber, barber, you’re in luck;

The bell has rung, the hour has struck.

Sloth strong, the hair is strong;

I cannot stand it any long.

Barber, barber here I come;

Shake up the odorous bay rum.

Bring on your shears your scythes, your snippers;

Bring on your crisp electric driers.

Employ a dozen extra sweepers;

Bring giant harvesters and reapers.

I warn you a bumper crop;

Waits to overwhelm your shop.

Baber, barber, be verbose;

Be anything but clip me close.

Leave me razored, leave me scissored

Leave me hairless, as a lizard;

Barber, barber, single and scald;

Barber can’t you make me bald?

I will be the happiest of men;

And never think of you again.

P.S: Google Ogden Nash for his poems and I bet you’ll not have found this before this post.