Finance Minister P Chidambaram has had a drastic haircut. A curious reporter asked him why. “Well, I can’t cut expenditure”, he grinned, “so I cut the only thing I had control over — my hair”. That was a joke. But the fact is, several ministers have begun grumbling privately about the budgetary cuts their departments are being subjected to ahead of Budget 2013-14. “He (Chidambaram) is running through the corridors of Shastri Bhavan and Udyog Bhavan with a machete,” groused one minister.