At the first sight, he is an ordinary man. But perhaps what is not ordinary about him is his close encounter with the country’s who’s who, including President Ram Baran Yadav.

Raja Ram Thakur, 47, hailing from Mohattari, runs a barber shop close to the ministers’ quarters in Pulchowk. Thakur has this simple profession of making men look smart and relieve them of their body aches.

His honesty and simplicity are his trademarks and have made him well-admired among the customers that include top politicians, bureaucrats and cops. “What I simply do is do my best to satisfy my customers,” says a soft-spoken Thakur. “I do not cross my limits even if a customer makes a mockery of my profession.”

Thakur was the same person who gave the country’s first president a hair-cut three days before his election to the country’s top post. It was a historical moment for the barber and his happiness knew no bounds on seeing his regular client elevated to the envied post.

Yadav is his favorite customer, who would ask him about his native village and his children and often persuade him to provide his two sons and as many daughters with education, while getting his hair cut.

Uneducated he may be but he has his own way of judging those who visit his shop and the top ministers and cops who invite him to their residents for

hairdo and body massage. Among

them, Minister Sharat Singh Bhandari, senior politician Badri Mandal and

former minister Sher Bahadur Deuba

are his good clients who often pay

handsomely for the service. For him, those who listen to the joys and

sorrows of people like him are true

politicians. Deuba, Mandal and Bhandari have listened to his per-

sonal matters.

He has not received any complaint from his customers so far and his contentment lies in this very fact. But there are times when he worries whether the VIPs will pay him for the job. It may sound interesting that all the ministers that he has served were not fashionable about their hair but the conservative Thakur always wanted to learn new styles to compete with other barbers and make ends meet. Grown up in an oppressed barber family, Thakur had decided to step into his father shoes when he thought study was

not his cup of tea. Also fed up with the discrimination and “blatant abuse of his labour” in his native village, the Thakur arrived in the Capital some 32 years ago when there were only a few barbers in the Capital.

Of course, he faced abusing remarks in the Capital but not to the extent of changing his profession that supported him and his family.

“Having been in the profession for more than three decade, I do not hesitate to give the top officers hair cuts. One should have an eagle’s eye, clean hands and sharp scissors to be a good barber,” says Thakur, who describes his profession as an artistic work.

Despite being close to top political leaders, he feels like crying when

they undermine his work and do

nothing to rescue the country from

the present abyss. Ever since President Yadav ascended to the coveted

post, Thakur has not got a chance to serve him his particular way. He has

only one wish: “If I ever meet the

president again, I will request him to protect democracy in the country, gained through much bloodshed,” says Thakur.