مسلمانوں کا نیوٹن ۔ ڈاکٹر عبدالسلام — Page 375
365 From Ravi magazine -1940 Hair and Hair Dressers Abdus Salam Hair dressing and shaving is one of the most atrocious ordeals that have yet been the gloomy lot of civilized humanity۔I have always held that Rousseau's savage was noble for the very plain and simple reason that he never handled a razor or a pair of scissors۔Anthropological research may have failed to lift the veil that countless centuries have drawn across his immortal name his, the pioneer of shaving and trimming۔But the march of time has not abated the exuberance of those fervent excretions that all accompany tears, with every rake of the razor۔These superlatives may surprise some virgin chins۔I may, therefore, adduce the account of Mark Twain's melancholy shave in Paris۔From earliest infancy, he says, it had been his cherished ambition to be shaved some day in a palatial barbershop in Paris۔"I wished to recline at full length in a cushioned invalid chair, with frescoed walls and gilded arches about me, and sumptuous furniture, with perfumes of Araby to intoxicate my senses, and the slumberous drone of distant noises to soothe me to sleep۔At the end of an hour I would wake regretfully and find my face as smooth and as soft as an infant's۔Departing, I would lift my hands above that barber's head and say, "Heaven bless you, my son۔" I entered the shop; I said I wanted to be shaved, there on the spot۔There was a wild consultation among the barbers, after which they took me into a mean little room, they got an ordinary sitting room chair and slopped me into it, with my coat on۔My old, old dream of bliss vanished into thin air۔I sat bolt upright, silent sad- solemn۔One of the villains lathered my face for ten terrible minutes and finished by plastering a mass of suds into my mouth۔I expelled the nasty stuff with a strong English expletive and said, Foreigner beware۔Then this outlaw strapped his razor on his boot; hovered over me ominously for some fearful seconds and then his razor loosened the very hide from my face and lifted me out of the chair۔I stormed and raved, tears of exquisite agony coursed down my cheeks۔Then the incipient assassin held a basin of water to my chin and slopped its contents over my face and into my bosom and down the back of my neck, with a mean pretense of washing away the soap and blood۔He dried my features with a towel and was going to comb my hair; but I asked to be excused۔I said with withering irony, that it was sufficient to be skinned – I declined to be scalped۔Fraternity of barbers This is how this fraternity has made a conspiracy to victimize the human race۔Worse still, barbers, as a class have always been a proud people۔In our village, where the fabric of caste system is till intact the barbers represent the frontier the upper and lower strata of society۔He is surgeon, matchmaker and scandal monger, all in one۔For ages he has handled the knife of circumcision, with hereditary precision and skill۔He must perforce be a high brow۔In fact his superciliousness may be traced, through the night of time, back to the glorious days of the great Caliph Haroon al-Rashid, the illustrious patron of the art۔One night all the nights, so say the Arabian Nights the excise sub-inspector,