Short Story - Atmaa Nirbhar

So being an employee of you-know-who I have started going to work on alternate days. Being at work in these times is both irritating and hilarious. One of the funnier things is the long hair of all these guys. Poor them, I shouldn’t make fun of this but then there isn’t much else to make fun of. So here is a short story.

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Billu barber was a poor guy. Born in poverty, he grew up poor and was happily comfortable within his poverty. At 17, he realized the lost opportunity of completing his education that he had foolishly traded for playing gully cricket with his other truant friends.

The pressure of earning his own bread loomed heavily on him and so he decided to become the neighborhood barber’s apprentice. Between fetching water for his boss, cleaning the floor and listening to his constant complaints over the dirty hair of his customers, Billu picked up the skills of the trade. So much so that by the time he turned 21 he had his own barber shop – a chair and a mirror under a tree. Nevertheless, he did well enough to feed himself and have the occasional bottle. Content in his existence, he grew up to the ripe old age of 35 when tragedy struck in the form of a truck accident.

Death came suddenly and rapidly. He didn’t have time enough to come to terms with his death. So as per the policies of the Great Upstairs, his soul or the aatma was doomed to roam around on the Earth till he grew comfortable with his sad demise. And Billu did just that. But instead of coming to terms with his state, he grew bored of just roaming around but he didn’t know what to do. There are not many ways for a bhatakti aatma to be useful.

However, just around that time, he noticed a sudden surge in the number of inhabitants in his middle world. These souls were also shocked, surprised and largely angry with their sudden deaths from some coronavirus thing(what was that anyways??). But the thing that irked Billu most was the state of hair these guys had. Such long hair which looked like they haven’t seen the insides of a barber shop for months. When asked, the souls mumbled something about lockdown which Billu didn’t understand. But he did know that he had found his purpose. Armed with this knowledge, he promptly sought the necessary approvals from the Great Upstairs and opened up a barbershop for these unfortunate souls. He called the shop – aatmaa-nirbhar.