In trying to locate a particular photo,
I was wading through mountains of old
photos – two trunk loads to be precise! A collection of photographs taken when I was a three months
old baby in my birth day suit to photos taken until ten years ago when digital
photography replaced conventional
photography.
I was surprised to see a photo of mine taken
in a studio when I was four years old. I was wearing a pyjama & baby kurtha
sporting long hair pleated and tied with
a ribbon with flowers tucked in. Looking like a girl in a boy`s dress! It seems
,because of the delay in visiting Tirupathi for my first mandatory mundan(mottai),
my parents had allowed my hair to grow!
Soon enough I had before me a series of my
photos taken during various occasions or no particular occasion. What struck me
was the amount of hair I had on my pate as a student in school and
college. There I was sitting in a group photo taken of my class of
58 on the last day of my school. I had
wavy hair flowing from right to left, with a parting on the right. In some
photos the hair was flowing from left to
right with a left parting. I remembered
my attempts to have middle parting too.. but alas there were no photos available
of this.
As a youngster when I was beaming with
pride about my wavy / curly hair I was
exposed to a catchy advertisement for
Brylcream- a famous brand of hair cream popularized by sexy looking models. I thought the cream would make me also look
more sexy as the ads promised to give a bright sheen to my hair. By now I was
a teenager and I
had started imagining that any girl who was friendly with me was in love with me. It took me almost three years to realize that the cream had not helped in any way with the girls, but I was slowly and surely losing my hair as evidenced by the loose hair strands
that were stuck to my comb every morning when I combed my hair after a bath. Before I took the decision to discontinue the
cream, I was already on my way to joining the world of `baldies`, with a small,old rupee coin sized, barren patch on the back of my head. That made me worried.
The problem now was how to hide the small
barren space whose circumference was growing day by day. I found a solution- I started
growing long hair, like many musicians of yesteryears – the `Bagavathar` style
they called it! For many years I never went to a saloon and
managed to hide the bald patch with the long hair. As an Ad man in a creative
business I could get away with my long hair! During this period I also got
married. I wonder if my late wife would have agreed to marry me if she had
known that I was a potential baldie!
After marriage with growing
responsibilities and worries, a new problem arose. I began to lose hair above
the temples on either side of the front of my head. The receding portion in the front of my pate
was fast trying to catch up with the empty space at the rear of my head, creating
almost a barren patch in the middle.
Though my wife assured me that her loyalty
and love for me will not diminish because of my receding hair line I became panicky. As a person who believes in facing every problem squarely- taking the ‘bull by the horns’ as
they say, I found a solution to cover my bald pate in the middle. I once again started growing long hair but this time on one side of the head and
while combing my hair stretched the same
to the other side of my head trying to cover the baldness in the middle. While at that time I was happy with my looks ,
seeing the photographs taken during the period now, I feel I looked really funny. How perceptions change with
advancing age!
When I was in my late forties I was
introduced to an ayurvedic hair oil which promised not only to arrest the
falling of hair but also helped in growth of new(!) hair., I have got hooked to
this hair oil for over two decades now! When comparing the old photos with some recent ones I am sure that I have
some new hair in the middle portion of
my head now.
Whether others agree or not I am happy
that while some cousins of my age group have all become `mottais` with not a strand of hair
on top, I at least have some hair left on the top of my head. You may call it sadistic
pleasure. So be it!
Like all
baldies with some or no hair I always carry a comb with me to ensure
that whatever hair is left on my head is
kept in place and I look well groomed!
Feedback
welcome on rvrajan42@gmail.com or
9840392082.
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