The way we look does provide us an identity. Usually,
reasonably good looks give one confidence & so-called ‘bad looks’ give one
very little or no confidence to face world. Very few are successfully able to detach
sense of self-worth & confidence from their looks & this enlightenment
hardly ever comes during the most vulnerable teen or tween years. It only comes
past middle age for most or as a result of trying to survive an ordeal (like acid-attack survivors who teach us new lessons every day).
While this is part of the issue, I think the main issue is
with the complete distortion of information fed into everyone’s brains about
good/bad looks. They dictate to us that women need to be bone-thin with long lustrous
hair while men need to be tall & muscular. These are the basics … &
there are of course other specific requirements for each & every body part.
Its so ingrained in society & people that it’s quite amazing what media has
managed to accomplish. My Ms. Diva refused to cut her hair saying she did not
want ‘boy hair’ - whatever that meant! Social conditioning starts from the time
they are born!!
Since most discussions on this topic revolve around women’s
fat or the lack of it, today I thought it’d be interesting if I wrote about
hair on men’s heads – or the lack of it!
With respect to this, I have seen two types of guys around
me: one set that was endowed with thick hair on their head who took care of it
like it was their baby. They have special routines for it, use extra hold gel
to make crazy studdy hairstyles & won’t allow anyone to touch it!! (The 2
fads I totally cannot stand is 1 – guys letting their hair grow beyond shoulder
length & 2. Men with black hair dyed in light colors. Both I find totally gross!
- :P out of context but it just came with the flow!) This is pretty much like
Uncle Jesse in Full House! “Have Mercy” if anyone got close to his hair.
Then there’s this other section of guys who have started
balding really young & go around wearing caps! I hated that they did
that but as I get older, I understand that we all have different levels of
pride about different things – sometimes without realizing, and it takes time
to let go of it. So I cannot & will not be judgmental any more. Today I
know that although these guys wore their caps to cover their balding heads,
they were the fastest ones to let go of that false sense of pride about hair/looks & be less attached to the world of pretense. The
extra-hold-gel guys don’t get it until they start to gray or their hair falls
off due to sickness or age. Their balding counterparts are wiser much sooner.
I remember walking outside with my really cool uncle when I
was really small when he suddenly said, we’ve got to run now. I asked him why?
He said, - you know, one of the advantages of being bald is that you’re the
first to know when it starts to rain! 😊 It was a moment of enlightenment for me –
which is why I remember it even now… more than 30 years later!
O yes! That’s just one of the advantages. There are a lot of
them actually, come to think of it. They don’t have to worry too much about
hair upkeep & shampoos or about hair styles; they also don’t have to worry
about greys & regular appointments to dye it in order to keep one’s ‘hair-image’….
And yet there is a huge market for hair transplants &
what not, with so many testimonials in the paper. All sorts of celebrities
either directly or indirectly advertising for it. Matt McConaughey, Bono, Elton
John, Jude Law, Shane Warne, Jacques Kallis, & closer home Sourav Ganguly,
Virendar Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Harsha Bhogle & a whole lot of Indian actors.
While the Indian actors usually refrain from advertising about it & like to
behave as if they never lost any hair, the cricketers at least are not as
deceitful. These ads are like the fair & lovely ads for women (& men
also, now!). “Every girl I met refused to marry me. But now that I have hair
transplanted & regrown on my head I’m a stud & every girl wants me”.
But who’s going to teach the impressionable generation that if girls who didn’t
like you because you were bald suddenly like you because you’re not, its vain.
Is that the kind of romance we want people to aspire for???
Which is why I have this thing for Fahadh! There is this
undercurrent in Mallu land that Fahadh let go of his hair & thus let go
of his bad luck.
FF is the reason for hope for so many youngsters who now see
the cool side of being bald. We need more people like him to break this world of
pretense. There are others in Mollywood warming up to this idea & slowly
removing the wigs they’ve worn for so many decades.
Because I watch movies so much, a lot of my references are
to scenes/dialogues from movies I’ve watched. I remember this friendly banter
between a nurse & doctor in a Malayalam movie ‘diamond necklace’. It’s a nice
movie and in one such scene, a senior nurse scolds this junior nurse for
missing the phone ring as she had headphones on while eating chocolate during
duty hours. She tries explaining she was just catching lunch on a busy day but
to no avail. At this point, the doctor-hero interferes & tells the senior
nurse to let it go & this causes the senior nurse to leave in a huff. The
usual friendly banter then ensues between the junior nurse & the doctor:
Nurse: That senior nurse’s name is Shantamma but she should
have actually been named Kopamma!
Doc: Leave it. Its just a little ego she has.
Nurse: Do you know, that in one way there is a connection
between ego & hair?
Doc: Pling… really? What connection?
Nurse: Tirupathi, Palani - & such temples, why do you
think people offer their hair?
Doc: Just their faith!
Nurse: Hair gives you a false identity. Ego is also like
that. You remove any of them & you will lessen the weight you carry on your
head.
Doc: pling pling – wow! How did you get this philosophy?
Nurse: My uncle told me. Another thing! Did you notice that
your ego is just like the hair on your head? Both are less!
Doc: 😊 Madam! You’re not Lakshmi. You’re actually
Saraswathi!
The doc hero here is none other than FF v2.0 😊
And while this topic is nowhere near finished, I will stop
here with one last image that shows why Sourav Ganguly was better off with his natural
reserve of head-hair & why our bald friends are immune to bad hair days.
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