Fiction: A middle-aged Nepali man comes to terms with his sexuality in an orthodox social system

It was quite early in the morning, but Krishna’s first thoughts were about Iqbal, his barber. Though his wife was nagging him, he left the house and walked to the salon like there was no time to lose.

The barber was standing on the pavement, smoking tobacco leaf.

“Welcome hazur, welcome,” he smiled. He stubbed out the beedi between his fingers and led Krishna through the curtain into the clean, brightly lit salon – Good-Day Haircut. Big mirrors lined the walls; next to each mirror was a poster of a Bollywood star.

Iqbal was from the southern plains of Nepal, a migrant in the city of Kathmandu. He kept a carefully trimmed pencil moustache, put a faint touch of kohl around his eyes, and combed back his sleek hair. The checkered cloth that he draped around his waist, with the crisp white shirt that hung on his dark skin, gave him the look of a bygone actor from a Hindi film. While he cut Krishna’s hair, he was mostly silent, as if he secretly cried for chopping off hair that wasn’t his, but when he spoke, he delivered words like musical notes – high-pitched for emphasis and long inflections when he was particularly...

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