Hair, Blogs and Vlogs

It's always fun to be around someone who's just had the aha! One of the many I-don't-get-that type things that my wife does is to have her haircut at home (yes). Last I heard, my grandfather who worked with the bureaucratic British-Indian police force did that. She exactly knew what to do to keep me quiet - I also got some interesting haircut! And so that way I met Ehsaan, the hair stylist who ran away from his hometown Nagpur because his father would beat him up. While he didn't know how old he was ("may be 26, 27 or 28"), he distinctly remembered that it was 15 years since he had seen his mother and stayed in touch with only his brother. He came to Mumbai with nothing, figured he could give styling hair a try because his great grandfathers were hajaams, became really good at it and became a salonist. Now he works in the day at one of the premier salons in town and by evening visits his "special" customers at their homes to reach his monthly personal target of Rs.150,000 (~$3,000) or 120-150 clients.

In between applying white pasty chemicals on my wife's hair, he expressed his immense desire to get fluent in English, browse the Internet and get up to tech-speed for his elite clientele. The aha came when we talked about blogs and vlogs and what he could do with them (he's used to making portfolios using his camera phone) - he instantly got it and rambled with a dreamy daze - "I can view and read about the latest fashion trends in New York and Paris", "I can take appointments online", "I can also create a personal portfolio so my clients can pick the styles they want", "I can build relationships with stylists in Europe"....and so he went....