SALON

As a child dad used to take me and younger sister for hair cuts to a salon which he had been visiting since he migrated to Abu Dhabi. There these uncles used to treat us kids with utmost care and enthusiasm. They always enquire to me about school, how my piano lesson is progressing and the latest movie that I saw. My activity during these haircutting sessions is to listen to their conversations among themselves and the customer's. There is a TV in which malayalam channels especially news, munshi and mahabharata TV series is being played every time I visit there as if the TV is a person like them. My worldviews were formed at that age was listening to them. What always inspired me about them is how they treated others and how dad treated them with respect even though he is highly educated and financially in a better position. Sometimes during Ramadan they share their Iftar snacks with us kids and dad. I never felt there was a social, economic or religious segregation as majority of them were of Islamic faith who enjoyed watching Mahabharata and did active discussion about the episodes. During exams when I was not allowed to watch TV I catch up the Mahabharata episodes that I missed asking them. I saw the secular nature of Indian society there and the tolerance that I witnessed there, is absent in India as well as among the socially superior class that I was part of over there. Many speak about social and gender equality, but when an issue comes up what many of my dad's peers ie family friends used to talk turns out to be hollow words. In situations they are the most biased people that I know. The more highly educated and financially better,  people are the more skewed their worldview is and this is true even in India. Its as if education and financial independence which our family have been preaching us since childhood is actually degrading us as an individual rather than empowering us. Children are taught to be selfish rather than being selfless, prejudiced rather than being open-minded. We are taught to be competitive rather than being helping.