“Life isn’t perfect but your haircut can be”

Barbers on wheel !  Yes, indeed. If only this could have happened when I was younger, I wouldn’t have had the awful experience.  Back then we had barbers with long moustache with their sharp scissors, long thin worn out combs and their dirty “gumsa”, hanging on their shoulders ready to wipe our face after every haircut. Their stinky gumsas and messy floor, littered with chopped hair locks were our routine weekly visit without the luxury of filing a complaint either on the hygiene part or on their tools nor their unruly place. We just had to close our eyes; even stop breathing at times, just to get over with our haircuts.

The early 70’s and 80’s, were such a delight. Each locality had their sets of gifted hands rendering their service free-of-cost on every Sunday, cutting hairs and trimming for the kids as well as for grown-ups of the locality. Gradually, migrant barbers from Bihar, UP and West Bengal appeared in their hordes who opened those stinky, unhygienic barber shops. 

18^th June 2001 was the turning point. The state was going through a looming fear of the migrant population outnumbering the locals. As a measure to encourage the local working class to grow, local barbers were encouraged to grow and dominate the market. The migrant barbers had no choice but to pack their bags and look for greener pastures. 

Although this phase was only transitional, the period gave birth to local barbers to grow. Now Manipur has many hair salons offering state-of-art hair care solutions besides haircuts with styling options. Maybe ‘barbers on wheel’ is a natural offshoot in their innovation to find a market. The innovative enterprise will soon be visible on the streets of  Imphal with six hairstylists ready to weave their magic and probably make one a trendsetter.   

KRC Times met up with Paonam Sunder, the brain behind the ‘Barbers on Wheel’ and peeped into his mind.  An excerpt.

Tell us something about yourself and your family background?

I am Paonam Sunder Singh, 44 years old. We are three siblings. Our eldest sister is a fashion designer, my twin brother is a hotel manager in a reputed hotel, and myself the youngest. Since 2000 during my college days, our family had started a Food Van which became like a family business. I am blessed with three kids. 

What was your motive behind opening the ‘Barbers on the wheel’?

 My “Barbers on wheels” was solely to reach out to those differently abled people who faces challenge to commute. Secondly, the idea was also to reach out to people who have busy schedules and to those who due to some security constraints are not been able to go outside their respective houses. 

Any message you have for the unemployed youths in Manipur?

I would like to say one should stop waiting for time. They should not become picky or choosy in doing small jobs. Never feel underestimated or low in doing any kind of work. Living a life, earning with dignity counts more than depending on others for pity things in life. Nowadays, youths spend more time on mobile or video games. They wait for their parents pension. Some parents who are daily wage earners keep on supporting their children’s needs. Such a thing should be avoided. Before the youth get married they should be able to stand on their own feet rather than relying on their old aged parents. I may be a bit direct but this is the hard fact of this life. Gone were the days where our generation used to help parents in fields, farms and still performed well in studies.

Any incident which you would want to share as a turning point in your life?

Yes. If I could recall then it will be my mother’s sudden demise way back in 2007. None of my siblings were in Manipur at the time. I was with my old father. It was really terrible. To forget that painful moment, I stepped into the role of a social worker, people started trusting me and my work. I  took part in the Panchayat Election in 2007. I became the Pradhan. After six years again became UP-Adhyakhs in Zila Parisad, Khurai constituency assembly in 2012. During those days while serving the people, I felt an emptiness within myself for not being able to serve my local youths who were wasting their valuable time and energy. This rejuvenated my long lost dream which I had during my school days.

Why you specifically chose this venture of “Barbers on wheel?”

During childhood days I was the lone soul who got engaged with hair cutting for my relatives, localities and even for my grandfather. As far as I recall we never had any barber from outside Manipur. Secondly, most of the barber’s shop is very dirty, the clothes, scissors, tools all were not hygienic enough. This new venture would provide a clean and hygienic environment for all our customers.
How many months it took you to create this model and would you share your future plans?

I spent around 1.5 lakhs building up this barber on wheel alone. I have made this with my own hands. It took almost 3-4 months. If we could have hired three to four local youths then I am sure we could have finished it within a span of 40 days just in remodeling one vehicle. In the coming days, my goal is to create at least 40 of these vehicles which would be used by the local youths. I also have plans to create a different model for differently-abled persons who could now ride on this without anyone’s help.  I am also planning to make e-rickshaw which would reduce pollution, become cost-effective and user-friendly for my differently-abled friends. This e-rickshaw style which with a single charge could run 40-50 km daily. I want to make differently able people more self-reliant. This would boost their motivation and make them earn for their living.

Would you wait for any big investors or the government to support your cause?

This Barbers on wheel has been successful at the idea stage in Start-up Manipur for which government had promised  Rs 3 lakhs. But this is yet to materialise. Once this project matures into the revenue stage we are hoping to get support from some good firms for expansion.  

What makes you think Barbers on Wheels will success?

No matter how rich or poor a family is, everyone has to go for a haircut every 20 days. At times just for small trim. A beauty salon would charge you anything up to Rs 180- 250/- . Contrary to which, the Barbers on Wheels offers much cheaper hair cut at the client’s doorstep or during his travel without wasting his time at affordable price. We are offering the best of services like sterilised scissors, combs and clean aprons and towels for the customers.