Billing for your beauty parlour in Lakshadweep
A haircut, a mehendi hand and a packet of hair pins, each on its own line of one bill.
A chair, a mehendi cone and a card of hair pins that cannot be had nearby
A parlour in a room of the house, with the family next door
Many parlours here are a room in a house, and the customers come because a neighbour told them. Prices are said aloud, and the same service is said at one price to one neighbour and another to the next, because nothing is written on the wall. A customer who comes back asks for the old price, and you cannot prove it was not the old price.
The hair pin that cannot be had nearby
A small thing like a hair pin, a clip, a bindi card or a bangle is not made on the island. It comes in the same cartons as everything else, in dozens, and when a card is finished you wait for the ship. The count of the little things is a guess from the look of the tray, and the cheapest goods are the ones that run out first, so a customer asks for the one thing you cannot give her, and goes to a neighbour who might have it.
A bride who has booked for the day her boat comes in
A family from another island books a bride for a day, because the boat that brings her comes on that day. You take a part payment and write the date in a notebook with a hundred other things. If the boat is late, the date moves, and the notebook has a line crossed out and another squeezed in beside it. The family arrives with relatives and the room is too small.
The service and the product on one bill, and the dozen counted
One rate for each service, written once for every neighbour
Make each service an item with its own rate, and each product an item with its own stock. A haircut, a jar of oil and a clip go on one bill, and the customer reads it on her phone. The price you said last month is the price on the screen, and the neighbour next door sees the same rate as she does.
The hair pin and the bindi card that come only on the ship, counted as it lands
A clip, a bindi card and a bangle are not made on the island, and they come on the ship with everything else. Put each into stock as the ship lands, by the piece or by the card, and let each sale take one off. When a visitor asks for a pin before the boat leaves, you read the count, and the next ship's order starts with what is thin.
The bride's page, and the date that moved with the boat
Open a page for the family and put the part payment on it with the day it was taken. The booking is the page's first line. If the boat is late and the date moves, you note it on the same page, and the page shows what was agreed first and what it became.
Coconut oil, and what it does for a parlour
The islands' coconut-based industries put oil and other coconut goods on a parlour's shelf.
- The Industries Department names coir production, coconut-based industries and handicrafts as the key sectors of Lakshadweep.
Tools for a parlour that restocks only by ship
Bills on your phone
A bill with a bride's pair of bangles, a hair pin for her sister and a haircut on separate lines, made before her boat leaves.
Low stock warnings
Hair pins, clips and bindi cards run out first: a short list of them in front of you before the visitors' season, when the cheap things sell fastest.
Daily reports
The services done and the products sold each on their own lines for the day, so a wedding week's work can be read next to an ordinary week's.
What island parlour owners ask
A neighbour says I charged her sister less for a haircut. What can I show her?
Each service is an item with one written rate, and every bill for the haircut takes it. Her bill and her sister's show the same rate, unless you changed the rate on one bill, and that bill shows the rate it was made at.
A bride's boat is late and the day moves. Where do I write the change?
On the family's page, beside the first booking and the part payment. The page then shows the first date, the new one and what was paid, so nothing is lost in the notebook.
The bride's relatives arrive off the boat and my room cannot hold them all. How do I note who comes in which turn?
Open one page for the family and list each person's service as a line, with the turn in the name: bride first, mother second, sisters third. The order is written once, so you read it from the page and not from who pushed in first.
What reaches the islands, and what is made there
Lakshadweep's agriculture secretary said in 2020 that for 15 years no chemical had been shipped into the territory except medicines and some cosmetics. A parlour's creams and colours are therefore among the few chemical goods that come across the sea, and a shop that holds them knows how few there are.
Lakshadweep's Port, Shipping and Aviation department says islanders depend fully on the mainland, and everything from a hair pin to construction materials has to be imported. A card of hair pins is as much a cargo item as a bag of cement, and the same ship brings it.