I always said no when people asked to touch it, and yet they did, intrigued by the texture and feel of my Afro hair. After years of having people ignore my stern “no’s", I decided to seek a change of style. I was tired of spending hours getting the right pouf, stepping out of the house and then looking like a deflated balloon till I came upon the next mirror. I decided to let my long curls turn into dreadlocks (contrary to popular belief, dreadlocks aren’t the result of not washing, but, rather, of not combing one’s hair. Word of advice: run your fingers through your dreadlocks to define them). After nine years of wearing dreadlocks, they turned unruly and I began to understand the importance of the barbershop, a fixture in every African town and village. No one in Bengaluru was working with African hair, and, well, Khirki in Delhi was just too far to go for a hair appointment. Then, a few months ago, I received a photograph on WhatsApp. It was a drive-by, hazy shot of a billboard announcing the opening of an African hair salon in Kammanahalli, one of Bengaluru’s most multiculti neighbourhoods. Quick Googling gave me a number and a location. I tried to book an appointment but no one ever picked up the phone. This rumour of the existence of an African hair salon in Kammanahalli eventually led me to walk through every street of this neighbourhood, where single-storey houses belonging to the original residents of this once solidly bourgeois area rub shoulders with hastily built buildings housing hundreds of students and young professionals from every Indian state and a vast number of countries. Along with students from practically every African nation, there are Koreans, Russians, Iranians, Jordanians, East Europeans, even a few South Americans.