Carry on balding

Carry on  balding
Published on
“You can find wisdom in grey hair”,  “A little grey hair is a small price to pay for this much wisdom”. These are the complements showered on men with grey hair. When I was in my mid-sixties, I had a rather healthy occupancy of around eighty percent of hair, half of which had turned grey.  I was happy that I had sneaked into the world of wise men. This also offered me the luxury of dual looks, appearing to look young with the hair dyed on some days and wise on the other days with grey hair. I was also eagerly looking forward to going totally grey, which in my opinion made men look intellectual and I can also be mistaken for one.  However fate had other ideas. Tragedy struck in the form of a skin problem, hitherto unknown to me, called “Alopecia”. This left me totally bald, but for a few strands of hair here and there. 
When I entered the world of bald men, I realized that the world is grossly unfair to us. While grey hair is associated with wisdom, baldness is regrettably associated only with jokes. “Karma” hit back hard on me, as I also used to enjoy jokes on them. I put up a bold front with the theory that hairlessness is an indication of super intelligence, for Aliens (as portrayed in the comics and movies ) are hairless creatures and they have  managed to descend on earth from other planets due to their superior brains and technological  developments. While I was delighted when some people compared my looks with Cho Ramasamy, the renowned Tamil play writer and political satirist, I secretly longed for my grey hair... 
I tried all sorts of treatments and medical tricks, to get my wisdom nay my grey hair back. This not only punctured my purse badly but sometimes my pate also due to application of creams. When I shared my predicament with a doctor friend of mine, he laughed and told me that some of the skin problems are not curable especially balding. He also shared a joke with me about his own tribe, which goes as follows - A cardiologist’s lazy son sought the advice of his father about specialization and he recommended him to go for dermatology which will suit his easy going ways, for there will be no emergency cases and he can sleep peacefully. He further told him that most of the skin diseases are not curable and he can make a happy living as the same patients will keep coming to him again and again for treatment. We had a good laugh at this joke, though I was praying for some medical miracle to restore my grey hair. 
While I was ruing over the loss of hair, my five year old granddaughter one day patting my bald head said “Thatha your muttu (bald) head looks smooth and bright and I like it”. This admiration from the little one suddenly raised my sagging spirits and all the pressures and pains of going bald vanished. I decided to put an end to all my medical (mis)adventures and carry on with balding happily. After all it is good to be wise, but better to be happy.
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