Scissors, Songs and Heartstrings: The Unwritten Playlist of Indian Barber Shops

There is something magical about walking into an Indian barber shop. The clatter of scissors, the hum of clippers, the faint whiff of talcum powder in the air, people peering in to glance at the faded mirror, the same one that has seen countless faces come and go, is familiar and almost comforting. But beneath the buzz, if you listen closely, there’s always something more. It’s not the chatter of customers or the standard requests for a “short sides, keep the top” haircut. No, it’s the playlist — those songs that float by effortlessly in the background, transporting you to a time and place impossible to remember precisely but utterly impossible to forget.

There’s something timeless about Indian barber shops that, in its best manifestation, has nothing to do with a haircut. From the outside, they just look like any simple establishments — they have neon-lit boards flickering with names like “A-1 Hair Art” or “Royal Men’s Salon” and, of course, right next to those names you’ll always spot the obligatory Zayn Malik picture. It’s in every shop, as if there’s an unwritten rule. But step inside, and you’re welcomed into a world where conversations, music, and haircuts all collide in this strangely intimate space. But what’s fascinating is how barber shops have always been more than just places where you get your hair done. They’ve been cultural hubs, places of reflection, and, without most of us even realizing it, quiet curators of the soundtracks to our lives.

You are sitting in the chair, cape around your neck, staring at your reflection in the mirror, but you’re not really seeing yourself. Then, out of nowhere, some Kishore Kumar rendition of “Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas” starts playing and next thing you know you are taken aback. The music takes you somewhere—somewhere deep. If you’ve been to enough Indian barber shops, you’ll know the playlist I’m talking about. That indelible mix of old Bollywood songs, the emotional crooning of Kumar Sanu or Udit Narayan. It’s that sort of track that starts playing as the barber softly readjusts your head, pauses for a second to hum along and then you realize how these songs, mostly taken for granted mostly, hold together fragments of the past — songs our parents grew up with, maybe their parents too. It’s rather ironic how a haircut, simple as it is, invigorates you and takes you down memory lane. A barber shop is a miniature version of the outside world. It’s where stories and gossip and sometimes life advice find their way over the beat of a well-placed snip. But the music is the soul. It’s something like being the soundtrack for every story that has ever unfolded.

In the background, “Soche Ke Tumhe Pyaar Kare Ke Nahi” from Deewana starts playing — slowly, contemplatively. And there is the sound of broken hearts. How funny is that? Before people had Spotify with its Breakup Anthems and Crying in the Shower playlists to drown sorrows into, Indian barber shops were already curating our breakup soundtracks. And it’s as if these places knew better than the most prolific app ever to mend heartbreak. I would always be left wondering: who gets to select the soundtrack of these shops? Is it the barber himself, quietly slipping in his favorite songs when no one’s paying attention? Or is it just this old radio station they listen to, playing the same soulful Bollywood hits for decades?

Be it anything, they get it right every single time. It is like an invisible playlist curator just sits in the back of some record room and knows how to dish up Kumar Sanu or Mohammed Rafi that speaks directly to our fragile hearts. If you conducted a poll, the number of heartbreak songs would have had the better luck than the happy ones to be heard in barber shops over decades. Maybe the barbers purposefully pick these tearjerkers, maybe they experienced being in love or lost lovers, or maybe they just know that nothing can bring people closer than shared grief.

Before heartbreak playlists flooded every streaming platform, Indian barber shops were leagues ahead of that already. These barbershops always had this uncanny knack for knowing you needed that extra kick in the gut. From the croon of “Aayine Ke Sau Tukde” to the raw pain in “Accha Sila Diya,” these songs weren’t just songs; they were therapy, healing you one sad note at a time, and it was all happening in this humble, unassuming corner of the world. The barbers didn’t have to ask, “How’s life?” or “What’s bothering you?” They knew the songs would do the talking.

There is something timeless about the music heard at such shops. While streaming services are always updating their algorithms to give you the latest hits, barber shops do the opposite: they have the past waiting for you. You might be sitting there, getting your trim done, when out of nowhere an old gem like “Hawa Ke Saath Saath” from Seeta Aur Geeta shows up. It’s almost like these barber shops are custodians of musical history, giving you a slice of a bygone era where life moved a little slower and emotions were wore on sleeves. Irony, really. In an establishment designed for in-and-out transactions, come in get your hair cut and leave, you end up spending more time thinking about yourself than you probably spend for most other chunks of your day. The barbers might do all the work, but the music? That is working on your soul. This, too, is something the algorithm will never be able to come up with. Organic, accidental, and sometimes perfectly timed in ways that we cannot explain.

And we’re not just talking about Bollywood here. Regional songs can twist that knife just in the right way too. Step into a shop in Mumbai and you’ll catch an Ajay-Atul Marathi song about lost love that hits just as hard. In Punjab, it might be a melancholic Gurdas Maan song that reminds you of someone you let go. Or maybe it’s a Tamil love failure song that pours heartbreak out in the most poetic way possible. In the barber shop, such songs exist without explanation. You might be sitting in the corner of Delhi waiting to get your haircut when Bengali Rabindra Sangeet starts playing in the background, and you realize that your barber, who actually hails from Kolkata, had queued it up for his own slice of home. These barber shops do not discriminate among the types of emotional burden. They are local archives of musical culture, in a manner of speaking — a part of the real interpretation of the essence of their place. And in that respect, it is a reminder of how deeply music has been imprinted into the Indian social fabric.

But perhaps the most beautiful thing about these playlists is that they’re not curated in the way we usually understand playlists. There isn’t that algorithm determining tracks in a vein relationship with the ones listened to before. This is a playlist that’s built up over years, in stitches through tapes, CDs, MP3 players, and now YouTube autoplay. It’s unpredictable, chaotic, and never really perfect. But in that imperfection lies its charm — because it is an embrace of everyday life in India, where we take what we get, mix it up and somehow make it our own. Even today, when you can stream anything anywhere, there is something special about hearing a song in a barber shop you weren’t expecting. You can’t avoid it, you can’t play it; it just starts playing you’re just left there to your thoughts. It’s like a reminder that even with all of the playlists and all of our on-demand services, some of the most meaningful moments are those when we don’t get to choose the song.

With streaming platforms, however, the game has changed. More barbers are now playing well-curated playlists from apps and perhaps changing the mood to suit new, younger customers. Here’s the thing, though: no streaming app, however slick, can ever replace the organic flow of a barber shop playlist. For sitting in that chair, listening to whatever happens to be playing, there’s something so human, so raw. It’s a slice of life, unedited and real, and that is what makes it special.

So, the next time you walk into an Indian barber shop and take a moment to really listen to the music, do not consider it as some simple background detail in your day. That’s where you find nostalgia meets the present, regional meets Bollywood, and just life, in all its messiness, plays on repeat. The barber wouldn’t know, but he’s fixing much more than just your hair. That playlist playing in the background? It’s fixing little something deeper. Indian barbers curate without a word from year to year the emotional journey of people with the songs, and like that, you leave with much more than a fresh cut. You leave with a piece of the Indian playlist, softly still playing in your head.

If, after reading this, you have the urge to go back into the same vibe immediately, just search “Indian barber playlist” on your streaming platform of choice, and you might just be whisked back into the chair, cape around your neck, reliving the magic.