After he has shaved a client the barber pinches and rubs his arms,
presses his fingers together and cracks the joints of each finger,
this last action being perhaps meant to avert evil spirits. He also
does massage, a very favourite method of treatment in India, and also
inexpensive as compared with Europe. For one rupee a month in towns
the barber will come and rub a man's legs five or ten minutes every
day. Cultivators have their legs rubbed in the sowing season, when the
labour is intensely hard owing to the necessity of sowing all the land
in a short period. If a man is well-to-do he may have his whole head
and body rubbed with scented oil. Landowners have often a barber as a
family servant, the office descending from father to son. Such a man
will light his master's _chilam_ (pipe-bowl) or huqqa (water-pipe),
clean and light lamps, prepare his bed, tell his master stories to send
him to sleep, act as escort for the women of the family when they go
on a journey and arrange matches for the children. The barber's wife
attends on women in child-birth after the days of pollution are over,
and rubs oil on the bodies of her clients, pares their nails and paints
their feet with red dye at marriages and on other festival occasions.