What should I do? Where should I start? Can I say it's all because of love? Or is it because I'm superstitious? Could there be a religious influence in it? May be a disconnection from the earthly happiness. Perhaps the search for a better me.
Whatever would that be. All I could say now is that, “Yes. I've done it”, because this is possibly the second only achievement in my life. More than everything I've done it without anyone's aid.
It all began when I was watching the TV show Neeya Naana, which was featuring people, who were different in one or other way versus the conventional people. There was a girl with A. R. Rahman tattoo on her hand, who had a weird hairstyle. She was confident. She wanted to leave a message saying, “My happy is weird because, I donated my hair to Cancer institute. Something is not bad just because it's different. I'm the living example for that”.
It kind of moved me. I had recently got a comment from my friends that I was a boy with long hair. My hair was the longest among the boys group, in which I belonged though it was just touching my shirt's collar behind my neck.
So, I got this weird idea to donate my hair then. When I checked online, an NGO from Hyderabad laid down promos stating that they were willing to take hair donations, if the hair was at least 8 inches long.
That day, I didn't have the patience to grow the extra three inches that were required for donation. So, I had just cut it short as summer was approaching.
Days passed, months passed, seasons passed. At one point of time I had friendship, love, care, attention etc and all of a sudden betrayals and failures had started to pile up. Suddenly the life was surrounded by demotivation and extreme idleness.
I started to feel an urge to prove myself to the world, though it looks completely unnecessary today. I wanted to show that I could do things. I wanted to prove that I was a better human, or at least a kind human. There had been many friends in my life, who were attracted by me intellect and innocence. Suddenly there were a few people, who had believed that I was a kind human. I wanted to prove their point too.
So, gradually the conviction to take up a serious task had acquired my mind. I needed a supernatural support to take up such a task. I had then visited Tiruchendur Temple to gain the Lord's support by donating all the hair that I had to him. I made a promise to myself, to not seek anything from the Lord in return for my offering. And so, began the journey of hair.
That was the first time I had shaved my hair. The whole family and friends were surprised in seeing me. Also, there was a trust in their eyes. They kind of believed that I was capable taking the right decisions. They had still not known that I wouldn't visit a day saloon for the next two years. They didn't discover my thought for a few months from then.
Clean shave was really a great feeling. No stress about hair fall, no need for combing, and no many other stressful and time consuming works. Also, I had my dream hairstyle, Professor X from the X-Men.
As soon as my hair started to grow, I got transferred to Pune. The hot and shining summer was challenging, but the extra long shifts at office gave me enough comfort to grow the hair. I had a new hairstyle every two weeks.
When the hair grew more than average men, I was a source of attraction at my workplace. People started to notice me. I was no more an incognito human. It was the first time in my life that I was getting unusual attention everywhere. It also gave a lot of people an opportunity for a small talk, and hence my friend circle widened for the first time.
For a reserved and invisible person, it was really giving a high that everyday at the office, or at the dining room, or on the road, some new person, would notice and compliment me. Most of the times, I enjoyed it though it affected my private space a lot.
Once the hair touched my chin, hair had started to mess up with my life. It needed a lot of maintenance. I had learn, understand and choose a combination in between shampoo, conditioner, serum, gel, and oil in order to keep my hair in the right shape.
At one side, I was the coolest person due to the long hair. At the other side, I was messing up with my life completely. Exercise, study, hobbies, sleep patterns, food habits, and many more activities were modified keep my head cool and peaceful. For a cool hair style, we need a cool sacrifice. So, I was motivated enough to carry the hair as it was just 10 months since I had started to grow hair.
The fun side was exciting that the pain of maintenance was not even a problem to me during that phase.
And then the challenge. I fell sick of jaundice. It took me a week to diagnose the disease and by then, I had lost my appetite and had a severe nausea. After consulting with the doctor, I transported myself to Chennai to further continue the treatment.
The poor thing took the complete blame. A complete year of hard work started shatter in a matter of days. Relatives, neighbors and well-wishers had advised me he cut off my hair. I was almost convinced that hair was the reason behind all my sufferings, but I was still hoping that I could continue to carry it. It had started to stress me a lot.
Demotivation, and a sense of failure had already acquired my mind. I knew that if I had given up then, I would never have the force to fulfill the dream ever in life. So, I had let the doctor to decide whether I could continue to have my hair.
The doctor took no time to respond, “Why not? But wash it with cold water everyday and apply oil regularly. If you leave it like this, your body would start to heat”.
I was jumping to the sky when I head that. During the one month of disease, I had wanted to give up on my hair more than a hundred times. There was only one motivation that was pushing me. I knew that if I could do it, in the future when there would be demotivation, I could say to myself, “You had taken up a promise. You had suffered a deadly disease, but you had carried the promise. You had survived and recovered to be truthful to the promise. You could do anything in the universe”.
When I had recovered from the disease, I was super excited once again. I was totally enjoying the hair lying on my cheeks, the long wavy smooth hair, it was lovely.
By the time returned to Bangalore, the city had gone hotter than ever before. Sweat and dust made the path to success more challenging. I had wanted to give up on the hair ASAP. I had contacted many NGOs and most of them required a hair with a minimum length of 15 inches. When I had measured my hair in the month of January, it was just 8 to 10 inches long.
With increased hairfall, the hair growth had become slow. I used the time to research on the NGOs that were ready to take hair of length around 12 inches. It was in April that I had found that the Cancer institute at Adyar would take up hair directly.
And to my excitement they just for a length of 10 inches. By April, my average hair length was 11 inches. But before cutting down the hair, I had wanted to confirm with the oncology department at Cancer institute the details and procedure.
I was shocked to hear that Cancer institute had kept the hair donation on hold for the next four months. I felt like plugging my hair one by one and throwing it in the dustbin. Maintenance of hair was stressing me so badly. Thankfully I was raining enough to hold my conviction for a few more months.
To add more pain, I suddenly became a symbol of kindness among my well-wishers. Everyone pitied on me as if I was sacrificing my life for a cause. Showers of sympathy made me run away from people to find refuge in solitude.
I was like a sacrificial Yogi to them, which irritated me even more. I was hiding from the anger of the people, who had wanted my hair to be cut and the sympathy of the people, who liked at me like Jesus.
I had to grow arrogance to escape from everyone and establish my promise. The children started to run away from me. Some had even cried due to fear on seeing me. In my own eyes, I looked like Jesus normally, like Lord Shiva when Vibhuthi was applied, and many other divine characters. I tried Winter Soldier and Loki styles. Nothing really took off the fear from the watcher's eyes. I was a walking ghost as commented by many.
Heat of the summer was killing me from outside. The guilt of consuming more water to take bath while people were suffering from water crisis was burning me from inside.
Finally, I called up the Cancer institute yet again during August and they had agreed to take up the donation in the first week of September.
I had traveled all the way to Cancer institute to deposit the neatly packed hair on an open table. I had written down the details about me for further help.
Peace.
Low water consumption, no hair cosmetics, no combing for at least a month, no hairfall, and what more do we need in life? A complete peace.
During the days of sufferings, I wanted to share about this to spread an awareness, but the sympathy shower seriously changed my mindset.
Finally, after two months there was a call from the Cancer institute. They thanked me for what I had done. That one call for two minutes was a proof that I had done something worthy out of the sufferings in the two years.
Now I can proudly say, “I HAD DONE IT”.
