Andre Agassi, MS Dhoni do it with panache, why can’t I?

Alka Kashyap

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It was a big day for us. Our 18-year-old son, was finally going for a haircut, after months of dilly-dallying.

He had grown nice and tall over the years, and so had his frizzy curly hair. No amount of coaxing, scolding, or pleading, could persuade him to trim his tresses.

Starting from the centre of his head, they fell in all directions. Locks to the left of him and to the right. They could have passed off as a bird’s nest, anytime. Sometimes, our gardener would stare at him, while passing by him in the house. My husband would quip, “See beta, even Maali ji is waiting to cut the hedge.”

But my son, loved the look of his crown, which was anything but glorious. It sometimes goes well with his guitar lending a rockstar look and we would tell him, “But son, you won’t be holding the guitar at all times. What will happen when you have to wear a formal suit?”

My jumping jack was unfazed. His sister would tease him, “You would not need a parachute, when you are ski-diving. Your hair is good enough.”

He was the fastest runner in the school and had won many awards. His opponents almost believed that his hair lent pace to his sprint.

Many a time, he would be sent back from the school for the same reason. So the next day, we would see him, dab a generous amount of oil to keep the mane in place. His classmates would laugh at his ‘wet cat’ look, and he would, unabashedly laugh with them. Infact, he was able to get away with all that just because he had a brilliant head, underneath that hay stack.

I would sometimes hesitate to walk with him, lest the people question my ability to groom my child well. I tried the indirect method of convincing him by asking his close friends to get him going for a trimming session.

“But auntie, he looks so cool in them!” Was it a generation gap where his peers were quite comfortable with his hairdo? To me it was quite ‘undone’.

Once I joked with him, “What would the girls say?”“Oh I don’t care about what they think or say”, was the candid reply. True, the age of 18 was that carefree age with no bindings and bother of mundane social norms. He never looked for approval from others whether it was social media or otherwise. His self assured persona impressed me at times.

His grandfather had still not come to terms with his hairstyle. He grunted, “You should thank your stars that you are not living in North Korea. Kim Jong Un would have left you with no choice, except that quirky crew cut that he sports on his fat head.”

“But Grandpa, you should also look at Andre Agassi and our own MS Dhoni. Their hairstyle did not affect their performance and hardwork.”

There was a point and we had no answer to that. But now the incredible had happened. My son had announced that he would be going for a haircut today. I could not decide whether I was over-joyed or over-relieved at his decision.

That day we both checked on him several times to see whether he had finally gone to the barber or not.

What made him take this call was anybody’s guess. Although the suspense was killing us, we did not risk asking him the reason, lest he would change his mind. We held our breath and nodded in agreement. We were happy, despite, not knowing the reason, as long as the result was good.