"The barber's trade," Mr. Crooke states, [294] "is undoubtedly of
great antiquity. In the Veda we read, 'Sharpen us like the razor in the
hands of the barber'; and again, 'Driven by the wind, Agni shaves the
hair of the earth like the barber shaving a beard.'" In early times
they must have enjoyed considerable dignity; Upali the barber was
the first propounder of the law of the Buddhist church. The village
barber's leather bag contains a small mirror (_arsi_), a pair of
iron pincers (_chimta_), a leather strap, a comb (_kanghi_), a piece
of cloth about a yard square and some oil in a phial. He shaves the
faces, heads and armpits of his customers, and cuts the nails of both
their hands and feet. He uses cold water in summer and hot in winter,
but no soap, though this has now been introduced in towns. For the
poorer cultivators he does a rapid scrape, and this process is called
'_asudhal_' or a 'tearful shave,' because the person undergoing it is
often constrained to weep. The barber acquires the knowledge of his art
by practice on the more obliging of his customers, hence the proverb,
'The barber's son learns his trade on the heads of fools.' The village
barber is usually paid by a contribution of grain from the cultivators,
calculated in some cases according to the number of ploughs of land
possessed by each, in others according to the number of adult males in
the family. In Saugor he receives 20 lbs. of grain annually for each
adult male or 22 1/2 lbs. per plough of land, besides presents of a
basket of grain at seed-time and a sheaf at harvest. Cultivators are
usually shaved about once a fortnight. In towns the barber's fee may
vary from a pice to two annas for a shave, which is, as has been seen,
a much more protracted operation with a Hindu than with a European. It
is said that Berar is now so rich that even ordinary cultivators can
afford to pay the barber two annas (2d.) for a single shave, or the
same price as in the suburbs of London.