"Hairy" Potter

"And what’s that Porcupine doing sitting on your head?" asked my roommate looking at my new haircut as others join him.
"Very funny. You are jealous because I look smart" as I say this even I can’t stop smiling and they break into a hysterical laughter.

Oh come on. What can I do if my hair looks like the lightening arrestors on the top of the buildings? Its been the same throughout my life and perhaps will be the same till I go ba(l)d. Infact it has been a part of my identity wherever I have been. Ask for Harish in the class and they will answer like "The one with the spikes on his head" or "Porcupine head" or "Dish Antenna" or "Brush mudi" and what all.

Ever realized that how young and vibrant we feel after a haircut? The immediate urge is to roam around and show everyone as "Look Dr. Jekyll is out and this is Mr.Hyde". I guess girls must be having a tough time in country like ours....atleast the ones I knew did. My cousin had a huge fight as she wanted to crop it short and my aunt was against it and it looked to me like WW3. Good heavens she didnt propose her original agenda to color it.

In my childhood days my mom insisted to get the summer haircut irrespective of the season around. It was more than getting your head shaved and less than grabbing the hair with your fingers. The best you look like is as if you are an inmate of some mental asylum. In recent years, once I was in a project where we worked continuously for 3 months and so I hardly noticed and before long I had horribly lengthy hair. My colleagues would start like "Hey Remo (from Anniyan)...which is the component you are using?". Poor Vikram would have died out of heart attack had he heard this. Worse was when I went home after 2 months my mom just looked as I rang the bell and said blindly "Oh these beggars. Now they have begun to enter the buildings as well. Po ppa..my son will arrive soon". I had to show my birthmark to make her believe that I was her dear son.

But the worse thing happened in my college. It was one day evening when we 4 friends got bored and were walking around. Suddenly out of nowhere a fight erupted between 2 of them and one of them challenged the other to get his head shaved bcoz this fellow had just done the same in his hometown. The next thing we realized was we were before a barber shop where 2 guys got their head shaved. 3 out of 4. And they were like "Dei Harish...you too join the party"

As if it was easy as joining the congress.It takes 3 bloody months to grow and you end up looking like a goon. But it fell on deaf ears. Finally we made a pact where the fate (?) would be decided with a spin of coin. Heads - Escape and Tails - gone. Needless to say that my luck with coin was worse than Harvey Dent. It was tails and off went the hair on my head.

Those from college would vouch for the fact that the Mechanical and EEE Dept staffs would always be branded Psycho dept because of their NICE staff. The next day we all 4 were in the same lab when our dear prof came and enquired "arisu (grrrrr)...ennapa...gang form pandreengala?". "No sir..Summer cut". He really got pissed off and went by. Aalavandaaan got released at that time and so all the 4 of us got some cooling glasses, and picked a knife which wouldn’t even cut butter and posed like KamalHaasan. Had Kamal seen those horrible pics he would have shelved Aalavandaan and quit filmdom forever.

As of now, I am happy with whatever is around. Because I have a bad feeling that in 3 to 4 years its gonna look as empty as the rocket launching grounds in Sriharikotta and I may have to resort to a Vin Diesel/Cho Ramaswamy cut to restore some dignity. Moral of the story: Be happy with whatever you have at the moment :-)