Haircuts: The Most Unkindest Cut of All! (A Satirical Skit)

 Haircuts: The Most Unkindest Cut of All! (A Satirical Skit)

Posted on 13th January, 2025 (GMT 18:53 hrs)

ABSTRACT

The skit (an agitprop) satirically explores the absurdity of two different “haircuts”—a financial disaster and a physical one. Y’s father loses his savings due to a bad investment as he narrates the episode to X, while Y follows his guru’s advice to donate all his hair to Lord Venkateswara at Tirupati. The skit critiques crony capitalism, government corruption, and the societal fixation on rituals, blending satire with social commentary as observed through X’s statements. It ends with Y realizing the futility of both haircuts and the systemic failures of the Indian state.

“Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabb’d… This was the most unkindest cut of all.” (Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 2)

(A dimly lit stage. Two characters, X and Y, are seated on a park bench under a flickering streetlamp. Y looks visibly uncomfortable, rubbing his bald head nervously. X, with an exaggerated air of curiosity, peers at Y suspiciously.)

X: (leaning closer, squinting) Oh! It’s you! Looking… strange… different! Where are your hairs, whiskers, beard? Why did you shave them all off? Have you already joined RSS to shave India?

Y: (sighing heavily) I had to. My guru, Balanandaji, advised me to cut off all the hairs on my body after hearing about my dad losing 77% of his lifetime savings due to a “haircut” ordered by the apex court and the central Bank. ⤡⤡

X: Wait. Your dad—the man with the grey whiskers—invested in a Ponzi scheme? Chit Fund? Risky stocks?

Y: No, not at all! He invested his hard-earned savings in a triple-A-rated non-banking financial company’s fixed deposit!

X: What a tragedy! Unbelievable!

Y: From now on, there should be a statutory warning on FD papers: “Subject to crony risks in this sick society.”⤡

X: I’m sorry, but I can’t connect these two haircuts—bank and, uh, docile corporeal.

Y: According to Guru Baalaanandaji, my haircut would compensate for my dad’s bankruptcy. He told me, my spouse, and our progeny to visit Tirupati Temple and donate all our hairs to Lord Venkateswara, aka Baalaaji.

X: Sounds like your guru is a Tirupati Temple agent. Do you know that the hair donation business there is a multi-crore industry? The temple collects, cleans, and sells hair from devotees to make wigs and extensions. Tirupati earns nearly Rs 300 crore+ annually from auctioning human hair. Wigmakers are probably praying harder than your guru for your donation.

Y: What? Worshipping at a temple isn’t business! Lord Baalaaji has descended to save humanity from the sins of Kaliyuga.

X: Oh, I get it now. Have you not seen the movie PK? Leave that movie for the time being. Let me concentrate on the association between the two haircuts. And may be even more—the synonyms and homonyms of “baal.” You know, in Bangla, “baal” refers to pubic hair, being used as a pejorative and abusive term. Did you cut that too?

Y: Ye… ee… ees…

X: Haha! Baal, Baalaaji, Baalanaanda—the whole hairy saga! Starting from head hair to whiskers, beard, moustache, chest hair, armpit hair, and… pubic hair. Also “Baal” could simply refer to a “child” to designate “Childish” or “childlike” behaviour!

Now, after donating all these to Baalaaji, did your dad get his money back?

Y: (Crying) After we returned from Tirupati, my dad suffered a massive cardiac arrest from the shock of the haircut and breathed his last. My mother… she hanged herself soon after.

X: They indeed had a “cardiac” connection in the context of cannibalistic savage capitalism where “love” has been reduced to a commodity (pauses)… Have you ever noticed where your chest pocket sits? On the left side of your shirt, right above your throbbing heart. You have kept your money on that locus as kept–“common whore of mankind.” Your chest isn’t 56 inches wide, as some might boast; it’s just 26 inches, shrunken under the weight of the pigsty’s greed.

Now, you must go ahead and celebrate your parents’ funeral ceremony with Tirupati laddoos—the big zeroes, made from non-vegetarian ingredients⤡. Let’s follow the Sanatana (“most oldest”!) culture for consuming such items. By the way, in Rajasthan, mrityubhoj (funeral feast) is prohibited⤡. Hindus are so… diverse. My question: among all these Hindus, which one is “khatre mein hai” (in danger)⤡? A consumer like you? Is this self-proclaimed Hindu government the source of misery for the Hindus like you⤡⤡?

Who’s responsible for such a tragic situation? Vigilant agencies? Rating agencies? Brand ambassadors? The crony government? The central Bank? Regulatory authorities? Or the business tycoons?⤡ ⤡ Your parents got two forms of “capital” punishment without committing any crime⤡. Just look at the concentration of wealth in the crony Indian geo-politics. Two business tycoons and their family members keep getting richer while the ruling party exclusively fattens itself via PM CARES or shady electoral bonds⤡. Meanwhile, the poor get poorer, and the middle class has vanished into thin air. Planned polarization is now a reality.

Y: My dad’s bank was handed over to a ruling-party-favorite business magnate for Re. 1—a 45k crore property. Just like our Dada, Sourav Ganguly…there has been an allegation against the West Bengal State government that our Dada, the former Indian captain, was given 350 acres of land in Prayag Film City for a steel factory for one rupee. It is also to be noted that Prayag is a Chit Fund Company. They looted the money from the common people, but the West Bengal State Government has not taken any step to recover the money by selling their assets! 

⤡

X: What a narrative! I can only say this type of haircut is the most unkindest cut of all.

So, what’s next? What’s your strategy?

Y: Guru Baalaanandaji advised me to perform a make-take-over yajna to get our money back.

X: And what’s the charge for this yajna?

Y: Well…Rs 99,000.

X: Oh Gosh! Don’t you have any other alternative? Have you considered mass mobilization—physically, virtually, or both?

Y: No, I haven’t. The affluent victims have filed cases. The rest are waiting for verdicts without doing anything.

X: Then go to hell!

Y: I know that you are an atheist and do not believe in the concept of hell or heaven! Can’t you trust my guruji’s advice?

X: The man, a philanthropic paramavaiṣṇava⤡ ⤡, who took over your dad’s bank through adverse possession also has his own vaisnava guruji⤡ ⤡ ⤡ ⤡ He’s probably also praying to God for his super-rich client’s victory. Meanwhile, your guruji prays for you to nullify the systematic failures of the Indian state. So, there’s a conflict of interest. Mr. or Mrs. Almighty (since we don’t know their genital organs) might be confused about whom to favor. My guess? They’ll serve the super-rich. Jai Ho, Vishnu the Capitalist!

(X throws the newspaper that he was holding till now into a nearby trash can. It lands open, showing a headline about crony capitalist index and wealth inequality of India. Y looks at it, then at the laddoo box lying beside him. He stands slowly, tossing the box into the trash.)

Y: (to himself, with newfound resolve) Maybe you’re right. This is one haircut too many.

(Lights dim as X and Y walk off together. In the background, faint chants of “Jai Balaji” fade into the sound of protest slogans against the crony government. A spotlight lingers on the crumpled newspaper headline in the trash: “Crony Capitalism: India’s New Religion.” All these are to be projected on the backscreen of the proscenium)

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