India, March 1 -- It's a truism from my childhood and adolescence: Many schoolboys did not have a girlfriend because their parents decided their barber. The brief was simple, make the child look as unattractive to the opposite sex as possible, so that the only option left was to learn linear algebra, go to college, and eventually succumb to an arranged marriage.

Even when you are old enough to earn your bread and pay for your haircut, the childhood trauma ensures you don't really know how to brief the hairdresser. Like all of your choices in life, where you have played safe, tried to get the best of both worlds, be it your food or your haircut, when the barber asks "How should I cut it?" , you say, "Medium".

I am that guy. We are the va...