Cut above the rest: Style, passion and survival in one package

Our Reporter
Dimapur, Jan. 4 (EMN): Uncovering something that you are passionate about and pursuing that vision, is not just about money or a career, but finding a passion that will make a positive impact in life and give it meaning.

Discovering that purpose early on, 19-year-old Hinovi Chishi is a self-taught barber and has been self-employed in his village at Kiyeto village in Dimapur district.

When he was younger, he said, he would cut his friend’s hair; but he never imagined that those mere ‘try-outs’ would be a transforming moment for him.
“I never imagined a mere haircut on friends for a trial, as a kid, would today empower me into opening a small shop today,” Chishi said as he picks his comb from the drawer.

At 19, he is currently running his own ‘little place of life’ saloon, as he calls it, and is earning around INR 5000-INR 6000 per month.

“It’s more of a passion than work for me,” Chishi stated adding that it was his secret to ‘happily running the saloon’.

Having failed to qualify for his class ten selection exam, he said that he gave up studies to rediscover and master his ‘childhood passion’.

He shared that he was happy and contented with the progress he has made over the years, from the first day of the opening of his saloon to the present day.

Chishi recalled how, with financial help from his father, opened his saloon and earned INR 200 on the first day. He shared: “It was the day I knew exactly what I wanted to be in future, a hairstylist”.

He admitted that failing the exam drastically affected his mind but he held on, knowing that he could not give up on life, as he had to support himself growing up.

Describing his work as a passion-oriented decision, he said that he has never regretted choosing the path of a hairdresser but instead revealed that he wants to ‘make it bigger’ one day as a hairstylist.

He also shared that five years from now, he sees himself as a successful hairdresser and that people would know him for his work, and not as a boy who dropped out of school.