After years of noticing an ever-so-slowly increasing thinning of the hair and a developing bald spot, I decided that enough was enough. Time to relieve everyone around me of the topic and searching looks at the top of my head during conversations – I shaved my head and have resolved to maintain it like this.
It all started in my 20s, more than 15 years ago when I moved to a different city. My father was bald and so were both my grandfathers.The chances of me maintaining a healthy crop were always minimal. My to-be wife at the time was shocked to see that her beau may be bald one day. Her topmost worry was that our then unborn child would always be embarrassed that her Dad was a “ganju” or bald. I acceded, visited a hair fall expert who put me on medication for augmenting hair growth. This was the start of my decade long ritual of applying a solution to my scalp every day. The hair growth resumed,my to-be wife became my wife and we settled in, happily.
Over the years, everyone around me would notice that the hair was thinning. It was quite amusing – the reactions that everyone has on the hair. Any long lost relative or friend I would meet would comment either,“how have you maintained the hair” (this usually from my similar aged cousins who were balding sooner than I was) or “you are losing hair” (this from my sisters and Aunts). To add to this hairy situation, it started turning grey quite prematurely. Another topic for discussion was born. This time it was in the form of suggestions, “Why don’t you color your hair?” or “You should color your hair”.
Signs of my growing independence were in full sight – I resisted the urge to color. I was helped by the fact that my mother never colored her hair, nor did my father. Over time, the medicine to foster hair growth too started to lose effect. The thinning patch grew ever so thinner and the scalp was increasingly visible to all those that wanted to have a look.Then started the research into hair transplants. I read a lot about it and came to a stage where I had almost booked my slot for the procedure at a clinic,when I balked. I could not bring myself to visit the place and commit to spending all that amount on myself. I let the status quo with the medication continue.
On one of our travels, I noticed how people in a different country were comfortably bald or at least close to full baldness – with a close trim of the hair. I decided to stop the care about the looks of the locks and be liberated from the issue. Immediately, I noticed how much cooler it is.Literally, the air has direct access to the scalp and my head is much the cooler. Of course, there was heat generated from the wife and my Little One –“how handsome I used to look!?” “Why, oh why?! Did you have to do this?” The reactions all around have been fascinating. People have come up to me and asked,“I hope you are not going to like the Monk who sold his Ferrari”, to “What happened? I hope everything is OK”, to a simple question, “What happened?” My answers have varied from “All or nothing” to “I am not as naturally blessed as some others”, to a simple shrug of the shoulders. My wife has found peace with the new “cool” me, or so I like to believe anyway.
My father used to always say, “If there is hair, there is a problem. If there is no hair, what is the problem”? To all the problems with hair fall, graying of the hair, etc. my solution – no hair. “Na rehenge baal,na rehegi samasya!” (When there is no hair, there is no problem!)
Mithun's Musings 