Samson temporaris

The fairer gender glares regardless, so that has always been that as far as I am concerned. It was when unknown guys started staring at me like one would at a chimp with three horns that I realized that 'nuff was 'nuff (as if it could ever have been otherwise.) But I am getting ahead of myself ...

To recapitulate, then .... After Hrithik decided to flaunt his tresses once upon a Dhoom, so did I. Decide, of course. When it all began I thought it was all a matter of deciding and not going to the barber next street. God moves in mysterious ways.

All my youth, I wasted my days wandering around like a banished subaltern in libraries and similar dingy edifices, when I ought to have been out in the wopen, gathering in all the sunshine I could for the dark days ahead; dark dark DARK days of joining and junking jobs, of teeth grinding and hair raising in the bright afternoon suns when the hot air roasted them crisp, and slouching over computer terminals in dimly-lit labs for tuppence ... tuppaise, actually (All Hail Commas and Semi-colons, those inveterate angels that spell death to brevity, the substance of shit!.)

Still there? Okay.

So I basically wasted my youth doing all the things I ought not to have done, like reading Eliot and Shakespeare and stuff. And all that while, I kept my hair firmly in check, prefering the austere cut of a close crop to the flowing flagrant denial of self-discipline.

So one day I decided to not go to my barber and all, and see which way hair grows when you leave it to its own black (for the moment) will.

The first month had nothing substantial to offer in terms of change and such, apart from the fact that inexorably, I found fitting my head into my helmet more and more difficult. You see, while God has blessed yours truly with as negligible a quantity of grey matter as can safely be doled out without impacting his binomial nomenclature, He has ensured that no one notices by supplying a most intensely cuticulated scalp. With time and Nature's changing course untrimm'd, the combined bulk of head and hair growingly refused to fit into the helmet built for one. This led to a preference, where possible, to biking sans helmet, leading, in turn, to wildly disheveled hair and a grossly grisly beard. Yes, that one is there too!

The second month led to excruciating minutes spent before the mirror, trying to figure out which way to comb / press / fold the heady mop such that it did not look like a hoover sack after a rather comprehensive cleaning operation. And yet, some lock somewhere or the other would spring right up ... embarrassing to the extreme, I tell you! This led to more and more sessions of combing / pressing / folding per diem, something completely alien to me. Suddenly I grew more and more conscious of the stares from the public. I tried on a swagger for effect, but that made me look more like a roadside romeo hoping to get picked up by some nymphomaniac who cheats on -- or cheats under -- her milkman, among other people...

And then i tried out oil, and the effects were disastrous, and i terminated the experience, as they say, with extreme prejudice. Rivers of godaloneknowswhat drooled down ... yeugh!

Some of my more evil friends began suggesting alternative ways of keeping my hair in place. Try gel, said one; go for a nice hair band, said another ... after all, Abhishek B has one. A guy with a hairband ... like a ... ummm ... never mind. No ways.

My less evil friends, of course, took to sniggering, at times, accompanied by pointing and all. Jerks.

And then one day, the staring began. Like I said when I began, the fairer sex has always thought me weird (Don't blame them really.) But the more hirsute version of our species has been more on the tolerant side, passing me by without even a glance. Normal types. Imagine my consternation when, one morning, i found them staring at me as i passed. Once could be rotten choice; twice could be coincidence; thrice was fatal. I slunk about in the darker corners of my office till the evening that day. There was only one thing left to do.

The barber welcomed me with open arms, of course, like a mother welcoming her errant offspring to the hearth. Twenty minutes of sleep later, I emerged, trimmed and cut down to size. I had learnt my lesson.

So now I know what it takes to grow those tresses. But I still don't, really. The difference, of course, is that I no longer care. Just to ensure i did the right thing, i caught up with one of my more long-haired friends, and asked him what he did to grow the hair, and how he keeps it in shape. He took a deep breath and proceeded to deliver a lecture on hair upkeep that is too indecently long and indecently populated with adverbs and expletives of a wide variety to print. So I shall resist the temptation to share the verbal and emotional feast with you.

You can get your own flavor ... grow your own hair, and tell some one else what you think of it. Once you get there, you do not need to search for words and all, I am told. They suggest themselves; ripe, juicy, and apt! A feast for the ear and delight for the imagination!

If, by some weird quirk for fate, you happen to have long hair, and are still reading it, my barber lives close by, and offers a discount if you promise to let him take off all the stuff on your head. He will sell them to make dog brushes, he says.