“mein na lagaaoongee haath re…”

20Feb11

when you’re barely 5’6″ tall, looking at the world from up above becomes slightly technical and apart from this being the reason that i have a deep distrust of the validity of the philosophical observations of one bulleh shah, esq., it is also the reason why i have mastered astral projection and let my spirit soar over the earth looking at what you do and claim you don’t and don’t do and claim you do, all the while smiling benevolently at your little follies. this is the way that the great operate and as i am truly great, i truly operate thusly.

it is also this skill that enables me to observe the fact that in the limbo spot between the heavens and the earth, where everyone’s consciences reside, there are two, and only two, societal trends that are truly universal; viz. the deep and unwavering belief that lala is the greatest thing on earth and the equally deep and unwavering prejudice against the follically challenged.

i know, for instance, that in the mind maps of everyone who has ever lost a hair is painted in indelible ink an index of others’ baldness, also known as i-oob (not to be confused with i-boob, which is a demographically restricted app available only to single lebanese women over the age of thirty – for details please contact our beirut offices, this is a family friendly blog after all). the origins of this bias are not clear but most historians agree that they existed well before old testament times, before delilah chopped off samson’s hair after a lover’s tiff in order to make him look ridiculous – or, as she put it, “לעכערלעך” – indeed, if you believe in evolution, even before apes were considering a career switch from relaxed primate to harried homo sapiens, the balding among their species were ostracized from their clans and wandered the jungles and mountains and plains alone – and it is a commonly held belief that it is from one of these lone travellers that the toupee wearing sheikh rasheed ahmed is descended, though understandably, much of their ancient wisdom is lost on this so-called specimen of humanity.

speaking of toupees, don’t you, dear reader, think that the toupee is the most extreme of all solutions available to the bald and the balding? and this is where i want you to think very closely, for this post is about baldness and nothing but.

i have been described in one of my carefree moods, by a teacher much impressed by the stylistic expertise of ghalib as one with “nothing on his mind but his hair” (though ghalib would have said something like “maalik-e-zehn-e-bay bojh, bajuz gaysoo-e-sar” because he was a bit finicky that way) and though i have often suspected this was a plagiarized line from one of her classics – it is in fact wodehousean to the extreme – it is a description i have been increasingly holding on to as i transform from sultan rahi to yul brynner in the matter of carpeting of the upper storey. trust me, no amount of preparation or mental conditioning can help you come to terms with the hair blocking the drain in the bath tub. except maybe the hair blocking the drain in the washbasin. and unlike measles, chicken pox and golfing, the earlier you get it, the worse it is.

my blessed syrian barber, ammar, who is hi-tech enough to call his customers with reminders that their hair trims are due and who truly believes he is not a barber but a “hair designer” (which in my books is just an expensive barber) has forcibly changed my hair “style” of the past 27 years in an attempt to partially conceal the ever expanding bald spot that is threatening to engulf the once lush jungle that was my hair. this, he says, is plan a. plan b, i think, is to go from a jason statham-esque “yes i’m balding” to a vin diesel-esque “yes i’m bald” but for now, he says, concealment is the key. he also tells me that i should get married soon or his “job will become harder” as if i have managed to remain a chick magnet all these years on the strength of his hair work alone.

*sigh*

some people have too much confidence in the value of their work.

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in other news, i’m loving this remix of veena malik’s interview

she makes a few hundred valid points.

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guys, the world cup is on, lala is captain, rana naved isn’t in the team, and even ravi shastri’s commentary is more interesting than listening to javed chowdhry prattle on about raymond davis and firdaus ashiq awan. why in hell isn’t everyone jazba junooning?

Filed under: cricket, the father of dhabi, the sweet stench of life, veena malik   |  9 Comments