Again, it was all men who appeared in the open-air barbershop

As I walked through the streets of Mumbai, a curious sight stopped me in my tracks—a makeshift vanity mounted against a wall, and beside it, a slightly elevated chair. Under the open sky, right on the sidewalk, stood a barbershop without walls.

A man sat with ease in the chair, while the barber leaned in with a straight razor, his expression one of focused precision. Between the two, there was a quiet current of trust—unspoken, but clearly understood.

Scenes like this—open-air barbershops—aren’t unique to India. You see them across many Asian cities: simple, practical, and deeply woven into the rhythms of daily life. And yet, it’s always men. The barbers are men, the customers are men. Not a single woman in sight.

It made me wonder: where do the women go to tend to their hair? Somewhere beyond that cracked wall, perhaps, or hidden in the folds of this street’s ordinary bustle, there must be another world—another story I haven’t yet seen.

Mumbai on Google Map

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