Passage 2

Most Indians don't believe much in professional psychiatrists. You don't pay good money to someone just so he can listen to you talk about your problems for an hour. Business analysts never cease to remind us that India is a price-conscious market. You put anything in a five-rupee (seven cents) packet—ketchup (番痴酱)，digestive cookies or shampoo—and it will sell. For the average Indian, the friendly neighborhood barber also doubles as the psychiatrist, two-for-one deal.

The barbershop also acts as a community centre for unemployed youth. During the course of an average day, young men are constantly in and out of the shop—not to get a shave, but just to comb their hair. It's free of cost and the barber doesn't mind. They also drop in to watch cricket matches. On one such day, when a World Cup semi-final was on, I found an old man perched on a chair outside the barbershop, his car glued to a transistor (半导体收音机). He didn't care much for television. He said he came to the barbershop every day in the afternoon and sat there till about 5 pm, reading newspapers, listening to the radio and watching the world go by. There you are—the barbershop as an old people's home.

But barbershops have changed slightly over the years. Bollywood magazines like Fimlfare and Stardust are still there. Earlier, the hairstyles were copied from these magazines, but now saloons have posters of young men sporting alien European or American styles. In the 1980s, millions of Indians imitated Anil Kapoor, who played the quiz master in the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire. He's carried the same haircut into the American TV series 24, but the man on the street now imitates cricket stars more than film stars. The blue tube of V-John shaving cream, endorsed (代言）by Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan, is very much on the shelves. Popular brand Axe has replaced the respected Old Spice aftershave.

The transistor which was always tuned to Vividh Bharati, the state-owned station, playing popular Hindi film songs, has made way for the LED TV, slotted into a comer near the ceiling.

Barbers across northern India watch only two shows: Crime Patrol and Savdhaan (Alert) India, both of which dramatize real life stories of unfaithfulness, murder and crimes of passion. Often, while shaving, what will happen is that the barber will twist your face into an odd position, left ear squeezed into left shoulder, so he can reach the difficult corners.