Fifty-six-year-old M. Napoleon quietly waited at the entrance of Sri Venkateswara Boys’ Higher Secondary School on Infantry Road in Vellore, where he has been working as a headmaster for over two decades now. He picked out students, who rushed through the gate to attend classes, making them form a separate queue on the campus.
They were neither late-comers nor were they not wearing masks. Instead, they were stopped for a strange reason — sporting long and stylish hair. After a long break from classroom learning due to the pandemic, some students were returning to schools with trendy hairstyles. Mr. Napoleon put an end to this on Monday. “Students were given adequate time to get a simple haircut before they attend classes. Many did. But some took it lightly, prompting me take the scissors before books,” the headmaster said.
Under a shady neem tree, two plastic chairs were kept ready to seat these students. Initially, the boys did not like it at all. Some even called their parents and complained.
But the parents firmly stood with the school authorities on the issue. Left with no option, the students took turns to have a haircut. Of a total of 520 students in Classes XI and XII, 90 had their hair sheared.
As the task was laborious, Mr. Napoleon roped in two professional hairstylists from the town to do the job for a nominal fee. In two sessions — forenoon and afternoon — they completed the task. During the lunch break, students of lower-level classes had fun watching their seniors learn life lessons under the tree.
With a strength of 2,300 students, the school attracts pupils from different parts of the town like Katpadi, Anaicut, Virugampattu and Kosapet, as well as from neighbouring Polur in Tiruvannamalai.
