Hair Today Gone Tomorrow

My imaginations are running wild which is why I can’t seem to get the desired inspiration to focus and complete writing on any particular topic. Most of the time, I start dabbing on my iPhone whatever comes to my mind and hope that an apple will somehow fall on my head and then lead me to the discovery of counter arguments against Newton’s theory of gravitational force! But then, it is a fine Saturday morning and I am lying on my bed typing with my two thumbs on the iPhone and there is no way an apple would fall on my head unless ofcourse, someone gets one and hit it on purpose! The weekend has arrived. Like an impish school boy longing for off-days, I should be happy now. But I am not!

Although work helps keep me busy during the weekdays, like all employees working for their masters, I too long for the weekend. But when it actually arrives, I always find that it feels more unbearable than the weekdays especially when I have nothing productive to do. All weekends for me starts with a foreboding feeling of emptiness which gradually becomes a hellish obstacle. I then plunge myself into a rushing current of never ceasing imagined damnation, blaming myself for not having anything constructive to do during the weekend. Well, what would you expect from a man who gets up from bed at lunchtime during all weekends?

 

In order to justify my conscience, I decide that I am having a hair-cut and blog about it this weekend. If not for anything, that would atleast be something productive! My original hair, which was so far concealed beneath the shiny black artificial colour are starting to reveal its true picture. They say that our identities are intricately linked to the face we show others. Personally for me, my hair had never talked behind my back! The long or short of it just went with situation and time. However, it is the true colour of my hair that I am embarrassed about!

 

I can vividly remember my school days in eastern Bhutan where the discipline imposed was that of a monastic world, thanks to one infamous BLT (Bhutanese Language Teacher), an ex village Gomchen (Lay Monk). Our chubby Indian Headmaster and other teachers were just shadows in the school because what this BLT Lopon said and decided was the supreme law of the school. This BLT Lopon decreed that students will not be allowed to wear shoes or slippers and shall be barefoot at all times in the classrooms and school campus. Although repulsive, it was however acceptable with a little bit of reasoning coupled with the terrifying personality of the Gomchen turned Lopon. But what crossed all limit of sanity was his other law which decreed that students shall not be allowed to see anything black on their heads and therefore, should have their heads cleanly shaven at all times. This law was implemented in earnest by overzealous school captains who either punished the law breakers themselves or handed them over to this tyrant BLT Lopon for more severe punishments, which was five times lashing on the soft buttocks with the green willow twigs that refused to break despite having landed on twenty or thrty buttocks! Therefore, I grew up with the notion that hairs on the head was a bad thing and that it was something that should be removed the moment it started to grow. I completed my eight standard from that school without knowing what the colour of my hair was because the reflection that I saw in my tiny pocket mirror was that of a bald and shiny head for ten years (2 years kindergarten + 8).

 

After completing my education in that school, I was sent to study in a high school in southern Bhutan. The first day in the new school, I went to report to the principal in the tradition that I was disciplined in my previous school - neatly dressed in a black gho, barefoot and ofcourse, with the most sparkling bald head in the school! For all purposes, I was considered a weird character and thus was the subject of much ridicule and silent giggles from my new schoolmates. I didn’t want to appear to be weird because I was not. I was just a product of circumstances and makings of my previous school. Therefore, in order to fit in the group, I started to be like my friends. I started wearing cotton half pants and white shirt like my friends in the new school. What more, for the first time in my life, I started to wear shoes and grow my hair!

 

It was then that I discovered the colour of my hair. I was a blond boy! In a world made up of jet black hairs, a blond boy is a donkey among horses. I couldn’t bear the shame and humiliation. Therefore, I combed the entire town and came to know that a remedy was available which involved colouring the hair black. With new hair came new responsibilities which ofcourse involved money that was hard to come by. However, the silent rebukes and wicked wry smiles of my schoolmates emboldened me to cough up the last Nu. 20/- that I had with me to colour my hair black with a dye that was made up of potent chemicals known as ‘TruTone’. I now fitted in the society and my confidence grew!

 

However, when my hair started to grow long after about two months, I discovered to my horror that the potent chemicals had destroyed my original hair and all the new hairs were a dirty and horrendous mixture of red, white, grey and even some blue colours! It was then that I realized that I was now hooked into dying my hair black everytime I decided to have a hair-cut for the rest of my life!

 

I still continue to pay the price for the mistake that I committed in trying to impress my unruly high school friends to this day! I shall go through the ordeal today also!

 

 

After all, someone said, “Have a bad hair day and you feel low, a good one and you can conquer the world!”