Hairfare

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Anything to do with hair is fascinating because of mankind's attachment to it.

See e.g.

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2010/11/hairlooms.html

There is yet another routine episode in today's DC:

"Teacher suspended for shaving student"

The details are routine too. Teacher asks the student to cut his long hair short and he refused. And the Teacher became barberous in public and the rest follows as night follows dusk.

Both seem to be giving exaggerated importance to hair and its length.

Well, there are Guinness Book Records of all sorts for hair.

First of all, long hair is a nuisance because it is a handicap in close encounters of all kinds like Rugby.

There is a closeup photo in DC of the latest Royal Wedding in London: Princess Zara Phillips (a former equestrian eventing world champion) kissing England Rugby player Mike Tindall after their wedding.

Tindall is as hairless as a Balajee Devotee at Tirumala after his ceremonial tonsure.

In our youth there was a famous Hollywood Actor Yul Brynner (Ten Commandments) whose signature style was his tonsured head. It became a craze and several of his fans sported a hairless style; while any bald person would give half his wealth if only he gets his hair back (like Groucho Marx said when he was surrounded by a dozen of his half-naked female fans on his pre-viagra 80th Birthday: "I can give a million dollars for just one erection").

Draupadi is said to have the most beautiful tresses of all. And she was a devotee of Krishna whose two legal wives Rukmini and Satyabhama were envious of her lovely hair. And, as day follows dawn, they taunted Krishna that he was partial to Draupdi on account of her hair.

It is said that Krishna then asked them to go and comb her long tresses. When they did it, they found to their bewilderment that each hair of each of her tresses was singing Krishna's name...some special sound effects there.

And it was rather unwise of Dusshasan to drag Draupadi by her terrific hair into the Court. And she then vows that she would do her hair only after her husband Bhim douses it with the arterial blood of that goon...some hair-raising and blood-curdling vow that...why couldn't he drag her by her hand politely...

And there is this Sage Durvasa who was so cut up with Ambarish that he plucks a single hair from his tresses, transforms it into a demon, and commands it to chase Ambarish.

Just one strand of hair!

And I learned in my Physics Class that, of all hairs, horsehair is the roughest and toughest. Apparently in the olden days before the terrific advances in Materials Science horsehair was used in violin bows...it can catch the metal string and pull it in what is known as the 'stick-slip' mechanism of friction.

Also, the routine treatment for warts during our childhood was to tie them with a horsehair and keep pulling it tighter and tighter every day till the wart eventually falls off...never to recur.

Fur is after all hair, no?

I didn't believe when someone claimed that shawls made of Pashmina wool can be slipped through a finger ring all the way.

Till I actually saw the visual in that nostalgic Doordarshan Program called Surabhi of the 1980s:

http://www.indiasurabhi.com/surabhi.html

hosted by Sidhardh Kak and Renuka Shahane (she was in the news recently)

Any talk of good old Doordarshan brings up Bhaskar Ghose...you scratch any good thing of life and you will find a Bengali lurking...

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Best Compliments

Here is a comment from Professor K L Chopra, Physicist-Director, IIT KGP (1987-97 decade) on Pilgrim's Regress:

"GP: Thanks. Quite a rising Ruskin Bond for childrens stories! Keep up the good stuff and eventually publish in the form of a book."

It just happens that this is the second time Ruskin Bond has been evoked by this blog. Maybe there is indeed a dormant child in every reader of this blog, not excluding the formidable KLC who never revealed it during his Iron Rule.

Tailpiece

Yesterday Professor Hassleton rang me up and called me (among other things) a Saint.

I guess I should file a Defamation Suit.

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