It was an ordeal of sorts for many of us —the compulsory monthly haircut at our boarding school in Tiruchy in the 1950s-. Few liked to have their painstakingly grown locks trimmed, let alone sheared off—and for a good reason. Elvis Presley was our much-loved idol then and most of us tried to emulate his puffed hairstyle— something the spoilsport warden frowned upon. He opined that a crew-cut suited us, and Tiruchy's sultry weather, better. So, fearing that we might be ‘scalped’, we drew upon all our reserves of charm to persuade Dasan, the surly school barber, to minimise his snipping and shearing so that we didn't look like skinheads! He grudgingly obliged us. We boys used to fervently hope that he wouldn't turn up to trim down our nicely burgeoning Elvis hairdos, but he always did, clad in a white shirt and dhoti carrying a rexine bag containing the tools of his trade...

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "It was an ordeal of sorts for many of us —the compulsory monthly haircut at our boarding school in Tiruchy in the 1950s-. Few liked to have their painstakingly grown locks trimmed, let alone sheared off—and for a good reason. Elvis Presley was our much-loved idol then and most of us tried to emulate his puffed hairstyle— something the spoilsport warden frowned upon. He opined that a crew-cut suited us, and Tiruchy's sultry weather, better. So, fearing that we might be ‘scalped’, we drew upon all our reserves of charm to persuade Dasan, the surly school barber, to minimise his snipping and shearing so that we didn't look like skinheads! He grudgingly obliged us. We boys used to fervently hope that he wouldn't turn up to trim down our nicely burgeoning Elvis hairdos, but he always did, clad in a white shirt and dhoti carrying a rexine bag containing the tools of his trade..." in the context of "George Netto, for the New Indian Express, in an article entitled "Rooting for Elvis Presley in school" and as published on 29th August 2018." to mean that wisdom is timeless.