The long and the short of the short cut

When Mahendra Singh Dhoni, of the Indian Cricket team, square cuts a ball for a boundary, a few million people in India admire his cricketing skills in executing the square cut. But,there are also few million others who forget about where the ball has gone, because they are just admiring his “long cut” or rather the lack of a hair cut. Dhoni has not only become a sensation in the cricketing world, but also in the hairdressing world, with more and more people opting for the “dhoni” look.

But, is that look, with long locks of hair any good ? I don’t think so. Maybe, it makes sense to him as a cricketer to have long hair. Imagine a situation where a bouncer is bowled at him and the ball hits him on his helmet. By having long hair, he not only has the helmet to protect his skull, but also the many layers of hair and the hundreds of lice which would have taken residence within.

Things started changing from the first week of June with the start of the FIFA world cup. “Short cut” became the in thing. In fact, crazy hair cuts were the fashion. Hairdressers started using modified versions of “not-in-good-condition” lawn mowers to satisfy the ever-changing requirements of their customers. The trend was not to bend it like beckham, but to cut it like beckham.

I have always favoured the short cut, primarily because it allows the easy flow of Vitamin-D from sunlight into my brain, without being obstructed by lots of hair. Another reason is that i get to spend less time at the saloon and make his job easy too, since all it requires for my haircut is 3 or 4 smooth moves of the “machine” with the blade at position 4 and that’s it, my haircut’s done. My haircut (when done in India) costs around 40 bucks for the few hundred grams of hair which gets cut, whereas when Vidhya goes to the hairdresser to cut few microns from the ends of her hair, she gets charged 600 bucks. Its a pity that women are still exploited in this modern world!

But, off late, I have begun to hate the short cut, mainly because of hot flashes! No, this is not the “hot flashes” associated with women , but this is because of “hot” and “flash”. It gets really hot in summer nowadays and with the rapid depletion of the ozone layer, harmful UV radiation also easily enters my brain along with Vitamin-D. This could prove to be really bad for me in the long run.

Another issue is the growing popularity of mini/micro/maxi digital cameras amongst today’s generation.

Anyone who is someone has one and considers himself an expert at taking photos. Now all these cameras have good flashes and i didn’t realise that i could become the target of a bad photo. Look at the photo alongside, the flash has bounced off my “short cut” and it looks as though I am bald at some places, whereas I am not. This photo also appeared in the official album of my cousin’s wedding and my image took a serious dent with some people commenting “Raja, unnakku vayasu ayidithu, sotta vara aramchirutthu” (Raja, you have grown old, you have started becoming bald!)

So, don’t be surprised if you see an entry on my blog few weeks later, with a photo of just my head. This is to prove to the world, that I am not growing bald!