Recession Worries of the Other Kind

(Published in Zeitgeist, The New Indian Express, dated 11 July, 2009)

It all began when Andre Agassi handed over the French Open trophy to Roger Federer. It was possibly because we had just been joking that the runners-up trophy (or should one call it ‘tray’?) was clearly feeling the brunt of global recession, but when I said, “remember how much hair Agassi had when he first came in?”, a pregnant silence prevailed at the other end of the phoneline.

“Yeah,” came the gloomy voice, finally, “people are losing hair faster – in spite of so many products being available to prevent just that.”

It’s true. The world is going bald. And men are even more worried about this breed of recession because the stalks don’t seem to rally, whatever product is released into the market.

I can’t say the preoccupation is unwarranted. I know of a woman who, having said yes to a fairytale proposal on the beach, began to have second thoughts when she caught the beginnings of two potential bald patches glinting in the sun as her fiancé walked down the stairs.

“It was like they were mocking me,” she said, with a shudder, to her friends, “like they were saying ‘we GOT you!’ ”

The marriage stands cancelled.

A gentleman of my acquaintance, having worked for thirty full years, thought he had earned his right to go bald, but his wife had an epiphany when a honeymooning couple they met during a vacation addressed him as “uncle.”

“You’re not going to go bald before our daughter’s wedding!” she said, firmly, and he found himself at a hair clinic. He has been persuading his daughter to get married soon, in the hope the smelly oils and herbs will find their way out of his toilette.

It doesn’t help that the cures range from ridiculously expensive and ridiculously outfitted wigs, to ridiculously expensive and ridiculously styled follicle implants.

“Is this…is this…?” my mother squinted at a popular sports presenter, having caught him on television after a gap of a few months.

“It is,” I said, “hair weaving.”

“Why has he done that to himself? He looks…strange,” she said, with a shudder.

So it’s one of those situations where you’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. Haruki Murakami doesn’t help matters by coining the politically correct phrase “gentlemen who are follically challenged”, making the victims of loss of hirsuteness feel like they’re in a “special” category.

But I think we should learn to draw inspiration from our Superheroes and see the world as it really is. Ever since Patrick Stewart decided to baldly go where no man has gone before, he has paved the way to distinction for a generation of chrome domes. I mean, look at the age of Superman. Lex Luthor, the bad guy, is bald. Superman has a head full of glossy black hair. Enter Batman with his widow’s peak. The Penguin and the Riddler wear hats that may be assumed to hide receding hairlines. The Joker shows early signs of his green hair pulling back from his forehead. Then there’s Flash Gordon with the fiery eyes, glinting sword and goldilocks. His mortal enemy, Ming the Merciless, has only a mean moustache, stingy beard and tattooed-on eyebrows by way of facial hair. Now, cut to the X-Men. Professor Xavier, the Good Guy, the Founder of the X-Men, the negotiator, the bald dude, versus Magneto, the Fanatic, the crazed fundamentalist, with wavy silver locks.

And the biggest Superhero of our time – Rajnikanth – made a switch from pushing back his forelock throughout his career to drumming his bald pate in Shivaji.

I believe the Universe is trying to tell us fortune favours the bald.