Since I first left home after finishing high school in 1998, I have never really lived in my hometown. My studies and work took me further and further away from the small town where I was born and grew up. Over the last 18 years my visits home have been few, short, and often with long gaps in between. In these 18 years all I have had are glimpses of the ever changing town which I call home. In these times of constant trasnformation, much of what I knew as a child and a teenager has changed, including the home where I grew-up, the school I studied at, the streets I received numerous scratches in, and the friends I got into daily fights with. This time when I came home after being away for 2 years, I realized once again how it seems like a new town every time I visit. Having the luxury of a longer stay at home these past few months I fully indulged my nostalgia. In this desire to see what I remember of this town, I have come to appreciate the tiny things that have remained constant, the small routines, and otherwise insignificant mundane aspects of my life here, that have remained unchanged, that help me still relate…and it is through these that I now see my hometown.
My visits to Sanjay, my barber is once such thread that has run through my life in this town for as long as I can remember. He has been cutting my hair since the time I had a full head of hair and smooth cheeks, to now when the hair on my head is sparse and my beard flows lush. I am almost ritualistic in visiting Sanjay for a haircut and beard, because with minimal exchange of words he always knows how I like it, despite the variance in my hair “crop”. Having lived in some odd places, and struggled with a language barrier in most of those places I am always reminded of my visits to him whenever I visit a barber elsewhere and I am faced with the difficulty of conveying to them the smallest of desires concerning my hair. But Sanjay is more than just my barber. My visits to him provide the comfort of familiarity when all else in my hometown is fast becoming unfamiliar. His shop, the décor, the mirrors, the chairs, everything has remained unchanged in all these years. He represents a constant presence. And with this realization I chose to photograph him, to document one of the ways in which I can still see my hometown the way I have always remembered it.
