HOW TO .........Get a good haircut

I often meet fully grown adult men, mostly from middle class, who are more anxious about getting their hair cut than undergoing cardiac surgery. This phobia known medically as ‘tonsurephobia’ is well recognised, seen in all age groups, and has its roots in fear of barbers originating in one’s childhood. In extreme instances this phobia can cause so much dread that the afflicted people avoid haircuts for many years and often into often into their middle age. In their youth years, this surplus hair growth is quite becoming, and they spend some time as ‘fast bowlers’, or ‘air-guitarists, or ‘poets’ or even as ‘abstract expressionist painters’ (if they can afford to buy expensive linen panels, and throw costly paints on them for some frenzied smearing to follow).

One extreme case of ‘tonsurephobia’ became a much-respected bushy monk, and paradoxically spent a lifetime espousing detachment from physical attachments.

Of course, fear of barbers is a common problem in toddlers, as most children are frightened by the sharp shining instruments of a barber, and his professional necessity to flourish them close to the face and neck. Children not only get scared but often scarred by the experience. With mere suggestion of a haircut leading to reactions of abject terror in the child, the parents are forced to postpone the ordeal repeatedly. Often little tufts are snipped off the child's head when asleep at night, calling for bizarre explanations in the morning, about nocturnal visits by a ’hair-fairy’, a sister of tooth fairy but very thin and with black wings. The poor child goes around looking like a junior member of the Addams family.

I am actually writing about adult men with their own children and even a grandchild or two, getting frightened about a visit to a haircutting salon. This is actually getting delayed recognition from Mediatricians (specialising in middle age problems) as “Late Onset Tonsurephobia” (LOT). These patients argue that cardiac surgery is but a once-in-a-lifetime experience that also makes heroes of survivors, whereas a haircut is a recurring event, and even if immediate fatality is extremely rare, a crappy hairdo can lead to misery and erosion of self-confidence for several days to weeks.

These patients with LOT hail from two age groups. First, the early middle-agers, greatly admired for their flowing locks in their youth, suddenly realizing that they are losing hair, their forehead is expanding, and their occiput is reflecting sunlight. Every nip by a barber with a casual approach, cuts into their hearts and causes pain and palpitations. Second, are the late middle-agers, in advanced stages of balding, trying to fabricate some kind of a hairdo with their last-strands -standing, ones nurtured over several months. They panic that a careless barber might demolish their fragile edifice of keratinous filaments, with a few careless snips and turning their scalp into a skin-covered hubcap.

Among the non-fatal afflictions to which human males are prone, the leading cause of misery is baldness, a.k.a. 'alopecia', whether partial or total. And despite the fact that they do not suffer from any physical symptoms whatsoever! It is a sad fact that premature baldness, medically a totally innocuous condition, affects one's mental and social health grossly. Even in these days with lot of stress on 'political correctness' in describing people, baldness is always the first adjective resorted to. “You have met Mr. Ranvir, that bald chap with only one arm”, kind of talk. People would refrain from such description only in the setting of a monastery or chemotherapy wing of a cancer hospital. Some sensitive young 'baldies' thus offended have been known to pray for cancer of the heart - that would lead to their early death and a funeral loaded with tearful friends repenting for their earlier mocking comments!

Medical science is yet to come up with something to reverse baldness. Transplanting hairy strips by a trainee surgeon can give a furrowed farm-yard look, and finasteride can cause impotence. Oral anti androgens cause bosoms to blossom. A toupee is always detectable and detestable. A friend of mine with a voluminous toupee, looks like fanatical ornithologist who has allowed a bald eagle to roost on his head. Poor chap! A sentimental chap, before he braved wearing a toupee, he used to go and sit in his barber’s chair very late at night, just for nostalgia.

inspired by Dororthy Parker's poetic gem on 'Suicide', one tends to rhapsodize and turn poetic on the woes of the follicly challenged. (google for the delightful original)

Surgeons fleece you

Toupees slip,

Friends tend to tease you

And gels get to drip!

Transplants can do harm

Turning your head to farm

Hormones aren't lawful

Aren't bosoms awful?

Why get mauled?

Just stay bald!

Can anything be done at all for those getting progressively de-hirsutirised? May be not a great deal, but then one shouldn't condemn the 'good' for lack of the 'best', As a doctor who has treated many bald-and-broken men, who have my full empathy, I have sought some solutions. A chat with a near-bald para-coiffeur has thrown up some clues. Basically unrealistic expectations, poor communication with the hair-cutter and an unfriendly disposition all, lead to problems. Here they come-

* Go to a hair-stylist and not to the barber in your street corner. Hair-stylists decide on the approach basing on your age, number of strands still loitering, type of face and the tip you gave last time. Street corner barbers are best for tonsure, the last avenue open to the seriously bald .

* Be nice to the stylist and treat him with respect. As a policy, never irritate your tailor, neurosurgeon, mistress or hair-stylist; could lead to far reaching consequences.

* Never be the first client to arrive or last to leave the salon. A hair-stylist could be dangerous if sleepy after overnight revelry, and might turn into a serial sniper.