When you think of India, what comes to mind is Varanasi, the birthplace of curry, yoga, and Buddhism, and where Gandhi and Kian84 traveled and became a hot topic. India may seem like a familiar country, but the real India we know is really just the tip of the iceberg. India can be said to be a ‘country of diversity’ where all centuries and cultures coexist in one space, with a wide variety of differences depending on where you look.
India’s population recently exceeded 1.4 billion, surpassing China to become the most populous country, and last year’s GDP surpassed that of Britain, which had ruled the country, to rank 5th. It is emerging as a powerful country, launching the unmanned lunar probe Chandrayaan 3 in August this year. So from now on, I think this is one of the countries we need to know about. In ‘Reporter Yeonseung’s Life Exploring India’, we will take a more inquisitive approach to inform you about the India we didn’t know about and the India we only heard about in provocative news. Additionally, if you have any interesting stories about India, please report them anytime.
There are one or two things that will surprise you when you visit India, but the stories we will tell you this time are the hairstyles of Indian men and India’s ‘street hair salons’.
If you go to India, you may see many people wearing turbans, but only Sikhs wear turbans, and Sikhs are a minority in India. About 80% are Hindu and about 15% are Muslim.
An Indian who wears a turban and plays something like a flute is what we think of as a typical Indian.
However, when you walk around cities such as New Delhi or Mumbai, what stands out is the head. Most women have long, straight hair, but men, just looking at their hairstyles, show off their ‘power’ like K-pop idols and Hollywood actors. I don’t mean to be disparaging at all, and honestly, I thought I didn’t dress well, but I felt that way when I saw men wearing ‘unfamiliar, natural-colored clothes and accessories’, but I think their hairstyles really look like they just came out of a ‘Cheongdam-dong hair shop.’
I thought I didn’t have enough money to pay attention to my hairstyle, so I wondered how I could wear such a ‘hip’ hairstyle and carry luggage, sell goods, and walk around holding chickens by the necks, even in one of India’s representative slums. How can someone wear such a sophisticated and gorgeous hairstyle?
I was very surprised. Not only this, but Indian men often dress more flashily than women. The wife walking next to the man wearing the purple sparkly ‘jolty’ was once again ‘shocked’ when she saw the very plain scene.
Indians, regardless of gender, wear a lot of jewelry such as rings and necklaces. When I saw a man wearing a lot of jewelry, I thought, ‘Maybe he’s gay,’ but he wasn’t. They were simply a people who wore fancy accessories.
Let’s go back to the story of Indian men who are serious about ‘hair’. This is the secret to the hair styling of hip and sophisticated Indian men, so much so that you wonder how they got dressed up like that in the morning. I heard this secret from a local.
It is said that those who give strength to their hairstyles are usually men who do not have much to do. Of course, this may be the personal opinion of the person the reporter met, but considering that you can’t actually see men sporting flashy hairstyles when you go to government offices or other decent places, his opinion probably seems very credible.
Here, prices in India are low, but the prices for haircuts and beauty treatments are also very cheap, and they provide haircuts and shaves on the streets like street vendors. Therefore, it seems that you can style your hair stylishly even if you are not financially well-off. I also watched a haircut scene at a street barbershop, and it was both fascinating and interesting. If you come across a street barbershop while traveling in India, I recommend keeping an eye on it. After slowly and carefully getting a haircut and shave, you can see the moment when Indian men transform from K-pop idols to Hollywood actors.
Lastly, I would like to say once again that if you go to India, you might think that there would be every color that exists in the world, and while the clothes and accessories of such a variety of colors would catch your eye, it would also be interesting to see the ‘various men’s hairstyles’.
