Hair Raising Tales

Looks like it's a bad hair day for the nation, or at least, for this state. If you are between the ages of 5 and 95 in Bangalore and possess a cell phone, chances are that you are currently receiving periodic messages asking if 'u r suffrng frm hair loss' and telling you who to contact. These daily reminders are clear and concise, however they don’t dwell upon the mysterious treatments promised or provided (or minor details like the cost). Short of getting a hair transplant (do they really work?) there’s actually very little one can do about these things. Much simpler to accept that it's all a part of life. Hair today and gone tomorrow.

Of course, now that I look around, I see that there is a large market waiting eagerly for these remedies. My hair stands on end as I see the range of advertisements and products for lustrous tresses. Is this just a gimmick or does something more sinister lurk beneath (as often happens in those Erle Stanley Gardener books - The Case of the Hairless Heirs?)

But these days, Bald is extremely cool, as those social butterflies (rather moths) who flit from party to party will tell you. However, that is when one is completely, absolutely bald (and preferably sporting a tiny diamond earring). Do you think these guys (yes, they are all men) would want to grow back their hair and begin looking like everyone else? I wonder what the Drones Club would think. Certainly Bertie Wooster would have more options these days, instead of merely restricting himself to those upper lip experiments.

For the younger, college going crowd, it's a very sorry state of affairs. There are only two hairdo's doing the rounds - short and straggly and slightly longer and straggly. Gone are the days of curls and fringes, large buns, clipped 'boy cuts' and the carefully combed and parted locks that heroes would die for - can one ever forget Rapunzel? (thereby hangs a grimm tale). That passion and intensity seem no longer to be found. I wonder why...
Parting, after all, is such sweet sorrow.