At the start of my visit, we decided that he would give me one of his signature “blends” – a taper fade, where one’s longer hair on the top tapers down to a shorter length along the sides and back of the head.
After about a half hour, the nerves he visibly had at the start of the interview-plus-haircut had faded and the conversational skills he picked up over months of speaking with strangers in his own home was on full display.
He had even picked up a hint of salesmanship, telling me of the new line of hair products that he intends to push out next year.
I asked if he ever saw himself becoming a barber, or anything else for that matter, in his early years as a child.
Unlike when he was thinking about why he was a hit with customers, he did not hesitate in giving an answer to this question.
There had never been a plan or passion, he said matter-of-factly.
Several of his childhood friends, who had been sitting by the side as supportive spectators all the while during the interview, concurred that they had not observed a single entrepreneurial bone in his body up until he started his home-based barbershop.
These days, what was once a hobby has evolved to much more than a side hustle and it has left him with less time to do much else.
Sujaish does not seem to mind this.
“A haircut is like men’s makeup,” he quipped. The low hum of the shaver he yielded next to my ear softened even more rather poetically at this point.
“I find it therapeutic while getting to know more about different people … It makes me feel happy and I’ve always wanted to do something that I enjoy as work.”
It was therefore not difficult at all to picture the fashionable young man with his own brick-and-mortar brand of barbershops in a couple of years.
As it turns out, his plan is to put a university education on the backburner to focus on opening a physical salon away from his home.
However, there was a slight twist in the tale that I didn’t quite expect: He also wants his salons to serve as tattoo parlours.
And yes, he wants to wield the tattoo machine, too.
“If I’m able to be a barber, I can definitely do tattoos,” Sujaish said with an assuredness that one might mistake for naivety.
“Anything that you put your mind to, you can achieve. If I tell myself that I can become a tattoo artist in the next two or three years, I think I’ll be able to achieve it.”
Whether or not he manages that feat remains to be seen, but what he has achieved, as evidenced by the mirror he held up by my sides, is a decent taper fade on my noggin.
I left his home that afternoon with a strange, uplifting belief that I could probably do whatever I wanted and be good at it with time.
Perhaps the trendy hairdo popular with those a decade younger than me had something to do with it, but the spritely way in which Sujaish spoke of his future plans reminded me of a youthful exuberance the rest of us would do well to wield more of once in while.
Put more succinctly in his own words: “You just have to believe in yourself.”
