My sixty-fifth birthday is around the corner, and as I peer into the mirror the visage that stares back has its quota of lines, furrows and crow’s feet. But the most striking feature is that I’m looking at the bleak prospect of going bald!
The receding hairline and the thinning crown has left me with an expanded forehead, making the other facial features appear a bit crowded at the lower end, and the face seems to wear a vertically lopsided look. I seem to have more face than head! As I comb my thinning hair population, the effort is minimal, leaving behind parallel streaks of exposed pink scalp.
A battle
It is evident that the head is fighting a losing battle with the forehead, and losing ground, literally. The standing hairs at the receding line are few and far between, looking like forlorn, battle-weary soldiers whose commander has already shouted ‘retreat’. Many of their comrades have fallen and it is only a matter of time before their turn comes up. Having a lot less hair to manage results in a lot of savings in the hair cream department, but that is lost on the facewash quota!
There is one advantage, though. The single short dash of the vibhuthi can now be replaced generously with broad, thick, triple-layered streaks — as befitting the advanced age.
The beginning
It all starts innocuously enough when one is in the mid-fifties. A few strands are lost on a daily basis. The hairline initially deepens at the temples and resembles a broad ‘U’, which later flattens out. The top also begins to thin out. Getting themselves dishonourably discharged from their elevated perch, these hairs find their way on to your towels; your shirtfront, and sometimes your dinner plate (and that is a place where the once adored strand loses its status so dramatically that it is looked down upon with disgust and disdain).The process progresses as age advances and inexorably ends in baldness.
Most men try to hide it; some flaunt it boldly, adding a couple of tattoos on the pate and make a fashion statement; a few turn it into a career move. Persis Khambatta was perhaps the earliest female Hollywood screen persona to don the complete bald pate, in Star Trek .
Yul Brynner was another yesteryear actor who essayed powerful screen protagonists with a hairless crown. In more recent times Vin Diesel, Bruce Willis and Patrick Stewart elevated it to brand status.
Can anyone imagine a John McClane or a Charles Xavier with a head full of hair? Our own home-grown heroes, except a few notable artists, are loathe to be seen with a bald head on or off screen. Villains are, of course, almost always bald!
Baldness is a great leveller of mankind. It affects king and commoner and cuts across class, creed, culture and continents. And the sexes. Women are not spared from the process, although qualitative and quantitative differences are made out and patterns are described.
Women are spared
But the one remarkable fact is that women mostly do not attain the total or near total baldness as in men. Very rarely do we see a completely bald grandmother. Nature in its benevolence leaves them some tresses to comb and caress. After all, it is so much a part of their femininity.
Most men accept their bald fate…er… pate as part of their ageing process. But when it strikes the younger age group, it carries such a high emotional quotient and is considered a disaster. Countless man-hours and much money are spent to bring back the old glory of that lush black growth.
Pharmaceutical companies thrive by offering a variety of pills, potions and lotions. Most of them fail, and in comes the toupee and wig manufacturers to fill the gap, literally. But the wearer knows it is a fake, and some are not content. They want the real thing. For them the last resort is surgical hair transplantation — a tedious and expensive procedure, and dangerous when done under questionable expertise.
Men in general, resign themselves to nurture the remaining tufts at the rim of the head, left behind by nature as a consolation.
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