Many readers lost much hair over my previous week’s article, aggrieved that loony life did not carry one funny sentence in it. Their
collective angst has caused the downfall of my own hair at 500 strands for every e-mail received. It is not nice especially when Susamma (the dermatologist) has warned me to steer clear of negativity, bad news and harsh critics — the three new main causes of hairfall after poor nutrition, pathetic genes, and worse hygiene.
In Susamma’s waiting room, a variety of us sat in different degrees of baldness and grief. There was Rapunzel who after many times of letting down her hair was in turn let down by it, then Red Riding (with) hood on for obvious reasons, Hanzel who was leaving a trail of hair instead of bread, Snow White and seven scarves, Baba (the weeping beauty) and finally me, Baldilocks with three hairs. Once upon a time happy-haired, we were all now caught in a Roald Dahl retold fairy tale.
Emerging from his palpable sorrow, Hanzel opened a conversation. An NRI entrepreneur with a pretty fiancée, his life was rocking until his hair did a Naveen Patnaik and completely gravitated to the left side of his head. “Tch-tch. What now?” I asked.
“I think I will stretch the left hair (or the hair left) and comb it over to the right side to cover the hairless patches this side,” he said.
“There is a good possibility that you will look like Michelle Obama,” I said.
“What happened to you?” He asked.
“Would you believe if I said I had thick hair hanging till my waist, like peacock’s tail?” I grieved.
“Then?”
“They fell so fast that last year I decided to outdo them and tonsured my head before I had nothing left to shave,” I said.
“You did what?” he asked aghast.
“Yes! For Rs 35 at Vignesh’s men’s hair saloon, next to the fish market at Thiruvanmiyur. While one barber shaved, I bade the other take pictures of it on my mobile. I outran my eventual fate by felling all hair
myself,” I said.
“Wow! May I have your autograph?” he asked.
“What for? My hair is growing and falling again,” I said.
“You can take my autograph then because I am going to shave my head,” said Rapunzel and added, “better betray the betrayer before the betrayer betrays you,” to which Baba got up and rapidly retorted with “Betty got some bitter butter”. It took a while to sit him down.
“Will you believe if I said I have thick hair everywhere except up here?” Baba asked bitterly (maybe he had had Betty’s butter), pointing to his head.
“That is a little bit more information than I need,” I said.
“Like Tamil actor Sathyaraj, eh?” asked Snow White adjusting one of her seven scarves.
That did it. “I know my future. I am going to look like Sathyaraj,” Baba began to cry.
“Do you all remember Pankaj Mishra or Pankaj something, the English newsreader in DD long ago?”
“YYEEEAAAAH…..” everyone dragged.
“We cousins as children used to laugh
so much at his bald pate. We used to chant “more face to wash, more face to wash” each time he came on TV. As Susamma would
put it — all that negativity and criticism has now reverted on us as bad news. Three out of us four cousins have bad or no hair,”
I confessed.
“I laughed at Deve Gowda,” admitted Rapunzel.
“Karunanidhi,” said Snow White.
“Me at Sathyaraj,” cried Baba and broke down completely.
And Red Riding who was quiet all this while, burst out of her hood and cried in great horror, “I probably don’t even have a cure. I laughed at the Dalai Lama.”