The offering of hair

There is the photograph of our cricket captain with his head shaved. The hair has been offered to the gods. So here is a youth icon admitting that it is not all about skill or talent or leadership; it is also about divine grace. And for that you have to be grateful.

In the past five years, one has observed MS Dhoni's hair change from long and streaked to neat and short to now fully shaved! And in many ways it reflects the growing up of a boy from a raging leonine individualist to a responsible team player to a sensitive leader.



Hair is a powerful metaphor in Hindu mythology. A lot has been said about hair. Krishna has curly hair. Balarama has straight silky hair. Shiva has thick matted hair. The Goddesses ufffd Lakshmi, Saraswati and Durga ufffd have loose unbound hair. Hair has long been used in India to convey a message.

Unbound unruly hair represents a wild nature. Well-oiled and combed hair represents culture. That is why wild Kali's hair is unbound while the domestic Gauri's hair is well bound, and in her temples devotees make offerings of gajra, a string of flowers to tie up the hair. In the Mahabharata, Draupadi's unbound hair represents her fury.
In the Ramayana, Sita's last jewel is the hairpin that she gives Hanuman to convey to Ram that her honour, and his reputation, stands in a precarious position. Shiva's dreadlocks represent the potent power of his mind that enables him to catch and bind the unruly and wild river-goddess, Ganga.

Shaving the head is associated with asceticism. Buddhist monks shaved their heads. Jain monks plucked their hair from the roots; to survive the pain is to convey that one is willing to suffer the challenges offered by monasticism. Brahmins shaved their head but left a tuft in the end, an indicator that they were not monks but very much part of worldly life. This Brahmin tuft is tied up to show control; Chanakya of legend famously untied this tuft to display his rage and tied it only when the Nanda dynasty of Magadha had been brought to its knees. The hair of widows was shaved to enforce monasticism on them. It was this or the pyre, in medieval India, for those unfortunate women. The head is shaved to display bereavement as well as devotion, as in the case of Dhoni.

It is the Roman army that introduced the crew cut into this world. Before that, men had long beautiful hair that the enemy could hold to pull them back and cut their throat in the battlefield. It is the Romans who associated the long hair of men with barbarians.

In orthodox Judaism, Chrisitianity and Islam, hair is associated with sensuality and so is covered, especially when praying. This applies to both men and women, which is why a cap is worn by orthodox Jewish and Muslim men at the time of prayer, a practice observed even by Sikhs, where women cover their head with veils. To display hair is to display vanity. And modern men and women are okay with it. And so men and women colour their hair and allow it to grow, to make individualistic statements ufffd until they want to be leaders and want to be taken seriously.

The author is Chief Belief Officer of the Future Group, and can be reached at devdutt@devdutt.com

The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.