A day in the life of a New Delhi roadside barber

Rajesh Kumar moved to Delhi from Bihar in 1999 at the age of 18 to help his father run a barber’s stall on the roadside in the Jasola area, a mixed neighbourhood in southeast Delhi. But after some months, he started working as an assistant to a doctor at the Apollo Hospital in Jasola, handing out prescription papers and organising patient records.

After his father's death from cancer a year later, Kumar took on the business himself, continuing the roadside tradition. “I wanted to continue his legacy,” he says, but he also hopes his children will pursue “better career choices”.

“I live in a one-room flat, but they should have big houses,” he says.

Roadside barber Rajesh Kumar inside his one-room apartment, which he has lit up with festive lights on the eve of Diwali [Meer Faisal/Al Jazeera]

Swami, 40, stopped his education while he was still in primary school because he was unhappy there but says he is determined to support his daughter’s dream of becoming an architect.

He first started cutting hair in his village in Uttar Pradesh. But 20 years ago, he moved to New Delhi and set up a roadside stall in the mixed, upper-middle-class Sarai Jullena neighbourhood, and it became his permanent address.