by Praveena Shivram
Hair or no hair, he wonders aloud, his heart stopping
for a beat and skipping another, like blood across generations
and he thinks this is odd, because he knows, he knows
that two plus two always make up four and four plus five
nine. Now, how many numbers make you up, he asks
smirking on the inside and stoic on the outside, because
he knows, more than you or me, that appearances matter,
that the mark of the belt on a sagging belly is like the welt
of an angry whip, to be covered, to be covered,
and that itchy patch behind the curve of the knee, puffy and
undignified like paper-wrapped kachoris,
and the hair on the face and chest and back and the thighs,
like dry and withered patches of grass, to be covered, to be covered,
but what about the hairless wonder on the head or between the legs?
Hair or no hair, he wonders aloud, one hand on the shiny bulbous
sun above and one on the hairless moon below, and he thinks this is odd,
because he knows that the sun and moon belong to the same sky
one a fiery acknowledgment of despair and the other a distant void
of icy acceptance, and he tells himself, hesitantly, quietly, like the corn
that forgot to pop, that it’s okay, it’s okay. It’s okay to be
stuck in limbo, like the air that chokes when it rains too hard,
and it’s okay to be underground, soaking in the musty hardness of ego
and realising that needs and desires are just as hard and musty too,
and he knows, it’s okay to be a fraction, the lowest denominator, the one
with the pocketful of zeroes to be cut.
Arre, he tells himself that day, how long to think, think,
wonder, wonder, he must do something about
this hairy problem, this inside-outside equation is ulta pulta, he says,
in his mind, not aloud, because he knows voices can be captured
and tortured in dark dungeons and secret chambers and no one
will know (or care, he thinks) that his voice is gone, snuffed out
like a flame between deliberate fingertips, with no record except a
lingering trail of smoke to show that it existed. So he sets out, a
cigarette, unlit, held between his teeth, and a long bus ride later,
his shirt smelling of regurgitated traffic and his skin of
regurgitated dreams, he arrives at Wig-lo-maniac, and tries out their many
wigs – ‘hair extensions, sir’ – the salesman tells him.
Hai, hai, he thinks to himself. He tries on the sedate ones, first –
curly mop, crew cut, military cut, wavy hair – and then is pulled
like a magnet to the Sadhana cuts, the Sita plaits,
the Bipasha bangs, the Aishwarya tresses, and smiles, despite
the jumping frog in the salesman’s throat turning blue with bias.
Smile, bachchu, he tells himself, smile for the world to see the true
measure of happiness, but don’t laugh, because then they can see
the true measure of your despair.
With the hair on his head and a spring in his step and his hands
in his pocket, fiddling with the thing down there, he wonders how to
fill that patch too, that, like the triangular outline of India, was
barren, the squiggles and curls of dialect and script whitewashed into
uniformity. He wonders if he should cut some from the hair above
and glue into place below, but tauba, tauba, it was Friday and who cuts
hair on Friday, he asks himself. He walks to the nearest bus stand and
waits, men and women staring at him, desire flowing out of their bodies
like unbidden tears, and their eyes like creepy fingers around
his ankles, his calves, his thighs and then,
he walks away, buys himself a Pepsi and allows the
fizz and the sugar to settle inside his stomach
that then unfurls with the suddenness of a spring uncoiled
and leaps out of his mouth, like a fart in reverse, excuse me.
Now he is home, in the bathroom, legs apart in front of
the mirror with a razor in his hands. What to do, what not to do,
that is the eternal question, he feels. What is he saying, he thinks,
how to be, how not to be is more important, because wasn’t it
the milk that made the chai go round? Haan, that only, he says
and starts to shave. Hair off the chest, yes, yes; hair off the
legs, yes, yes; hair off the face, yes, yes; hair off the back, yes, yes,
but can’t reach no, so cover, cover, and then use water to drain
it all away, for once it reaches the sewage, then all same same,
he thinks to himself, contrasting the hairlessness of his body
with the hair on his head, a black dot on an empty canvas, the point
from where the line shall begin again and take him on another journey
through the exhilarating breadth and debilitating length of the canvas,
and he will forever remain within its boundaries, free,
and no more reluctant to escape.
For a moment, he wonders, if he should scramble
for the clumps of hair disappearing down the
drain, but he runs his fingers through the hair on his head instead
and laughs, like a melodramatic and high pitched 90s heroine,
and washes his hands, throws the razor into the
dustbin, wears his night pyjamas – with little Donald Ducks on it –
tucks himself into bed, removes his wig and places it on his bedside
table and puts one hand on his bald head and one down below and
says, aloud: to see or not to be seen, that is the eternal question.
Picture from https://www.flickr.com/photos/case__face/ under CC license
