Bald is Beautiful!!!

Last weekend I went to a Cosmetic Surgeon to check what it needs to have a hair-transplant, how it is done, how much it costs etc. The doctor unequivocally refused to do my hair-transplant. The reason - The hair-density in my donor area was very poor. The donor area is the area of your body (normally the back of the head, where even baldies usually have some hair) from where the tissue is removed to be implanted on your hairless top. The doctor didn't seem interested in any other donor area. I also didn't bring it up, thinking that he knew better.

He then started telling me how I can cut my hair to look best. I suddenly realized that he was not just a hair-transplant surgeon, but was actually a cosmetic surgeon. His job was not just to grow hair at places where people lost it (usually the head), but also to make people look better. He also did face-lifting and certain other things, besides growing hair. I had gone there to find out the possibility of growing some hair on my head - long, short, noodles, tendrils, curls, whatever - just some damn hair, coz some of my near-and-dear ones have been suggesting getting it done, otherwise no good girl would happily accept getting married to me. It made sense to me too. I'll pass on my genes to my kids, and they'll also lose hair. So I'd be a poor choice for a hubby. Of course transplant does not alter my genes in any way and my kids would be equally vulnerable even if a hair-transplant gets me hair. However it does alter the way the girl would see me while taking a marriage-decision, even if I tell her that the hair on my head has been surgically implanted. It would improve my chances and might encourage the girl the take some risk, as nothing is readily apparent in this case.

If the purpose of our existence is to produce the best progeny, then I might lower down my kids' scores at being the best, unless they inherit my wife's hair. Everything else is pretty fine in me. I am quite immune to diseases, am working on my intelligence (which seems to be improving fast), am sensitive, caring, honest and trustworty, which means that I can take care of my wife and kids better and more reliably. I'm also good in bed and am enormously creative when it comes to sex. I am strongly and strictly against dowry. And as someone said, bald heads are the next stage of evolution coz all futuristic movies have bald characters. So if the current social perception of baldness - which makes a bald person psychologically weak in competing - changes, then chances are that people like me would be the most preferred daddies women would choose for their kids.

The social perceptions about baldness are not likely to change very soon in India. I have seen lots of clean-shaven heads in the US though. And since anything American is seen with awe in India, I have some reason to be optimistic.

However, if things don't change, and my kids have poor donor areas too, there are other good and even better options which will come up in future. The Stem-Cell research has been quite successful and gives a lot of hope. It will make it possible to generate tissues of required density from donor areas with scanty hair. It's an amazing technology and will certainly open up newer, far-reaching and revolutionary ways of making our lives better. There are a lot of social and religious impediments to its surge forward, but I am sure they'll all be overcome, given its immense potential.

Therefore, with so many options - hair-transplant, Stem Cells, etc. I think even the worst case scenario is not too bad. 20 years back, even girls with spects had a hard time getting a good husband. Now, spects isn't a matter at all. Just like contact lenses, and laser therapy - which can help you get rid of glasses forever, hair-transplant and related techniques are very much within reach of the common man. Hair-transplant costs Rs.40,000-50,000 ($1000-1250) in India, which is almost the cost of an average two-wheeler and is permanent and reliable too. I personally don't really think one must give so much importance to looks, but a lot is hard-wired inside us and we do tend to get affected and also affect others when we get opportunities. For those of us at the receiving end, some of us get used to it, some of us compromise, some of us learn to overcome all the pain it causes and learn to be happy with what we have got, and some of us don't get affected at all. The last category are real insensitive maniacs, and must be rare.

Having said that, I should nonetheless add that quite a few girls of my age and younger have told me that I look good with the fully shaven head - the great Indian Takla - I've sported since 23-July-07. That may or may not be a genuine compliment, but I surely feel more comfortable with a clean-shaven head. For one, I don't have to carry a comb all the time, and keep combing once every half hour. I also don't need to worry about my hair-style and about whether the patches of scanty hair are visible. I don't need to align my head this way or that to show or hide the good or bad parts of my head. I also feel more cool and confident. Who needs the dead matter on top anyway! It serves no purpose. I think that's a logical reason why it will be lost as the next step of our evolution. The new mantra for me - Bald is Beautiful!!!