Hairy Situations

My husband, RK, has a love-hate relationship with his hair. He first started growing it out long and wild as a form of silent rebellion against his boss when working in Grenada. His boss was the typical Indian busybody and micro-manager: he would want his underlings to do exactly as he told them, he would find out every single detail about their personal lives and comment disparagingly about them at every opportunity. Needless to say, he was a bit of a nightmare, and RK thoroughly disliked him. As he insisted on his subordinates being dressed a certain way, RK decided to to be subversive by growing his hair long and turning up for work in a ratty T shirt and jeans (he had an excuse for his clothes: Hurricane Ivan had just struck Grenada and had swept away all his possessions). When I first saw him, a few months after he had left his job on the island and come to the US, I had an instant crush- mostly because of his hair. The hair, combined with the fact that he had worked in the West Indies AND had lost his possessions in a devastating hurricane all combined to make him, in my eyes, the most mysterious and thrilling guy I had ever encountered.

RK basked in that admiration, preened when I praised his hair and soon, we were having conversations about hair care and the proper use of conditioner. Ahhh young love!
Soon though, he got sick of the hair. It crept into his ears and nose, it dragged his head back, our conversations about hair care were soon replaced by fights about who stole the last hair band and who emptied the shampoo bottle, and eventually, he started thinking it was time for him to present a more professional image to his colleagues at the university. So, off it all came. And suddenly he looked younger- actually, much younger than me, to my everlasting disgust. Older women cooed at his transformation, and told him that the cut brought out his eyes more and he loved the attention and preened some more, the peacock.

The problem with him is that he hates anything that is repetitive. Hair, to be short, needs to be cut every so often. He looked after his short hair diligently the first year. Then going to the barber became a bore. The hair grew. So he thought to himself, well, why not let it grow back again. Less work for me, plus, am I not a Global Health Fellow? People who are actively involved in global health and travel to distant parts of the world must have the right image. Short hair makes me look too goody-goody. I think long hair will fit the image that I have of myself.
So. Back came the hair. It grew and grew and grew. I complained bitterly. Firstly, it grew a lot faster and thicker than my own hair, so that when we stood side by side, my head of hair looked limp, lank and Severus Snape-ish whereas his gleamed and and swirled and performed magic tricks. Secondly, it was hard to hug or kiss him because his hair would get in the way. Thirdly, the sink in the shower would get clogged with all this hair and I would have to clean it up. We came to a compromise: he would wait for our baby to be born, take a picture with the baby and then instantly get that hair cut. This way, the baby, when older, would know that its father was once rather cool. And I would not have to put up with this hairy nonsense anymore.

Thankfully for me, I did not have to wait till April for that head to be shorn again. His hair grew long enough that when he slept, it would get caught behind his back and start pulling at his neck while he was sleeping. Then he ended up with some bad neck aches as he tried to change the posture in which he was sleeping. So, this morning, I saw my husband return from the barber's looking a hundred years younger and exclaiming at his increased neck mobility. And peace returned to our household.