Bald Capital
Tirupati, Andra Pradesh
South India is probably the head shaving capital of India. It's also common to see women with clean scalps. Sometimes sandalwood pulp is smeared on their heads to give a cooling relief from the heat of the day. What's with this cultural habit, anyway? Why hairlessness?
Many people cut off their head and facial growth of hair because they wish to present themselves in the most clean fashion, so it isn't reserved just for monks. They are presenting themselves before a reverential deity. In Tirupati the predominant deity is once again, Balaji, and a modest appearance is one way to come before the deity.
Hair is often perceived as a show of vanity. Sculptured hair for women, slick moustaches and perhaps goatees for men are a way to draw attention. In the south people believe in giving some portion of their day/ or life to spirituality. Shaving off hair is a demonstration of subduing that vanity.
Our guru, Srila Prabhupada, liked his male disciples to be clean-shaven including the head. It's often common for male members of the family to shed their full head of hair when there is a death in the family such as in a well-known photo of Prabhupada when his father had departed. It is an act of mourning.
I can't quite remember how it came up but at one point of my delivering a class out of an interactive approach, I centered on a young man with a Clark Gable type of moustache. It was not an attempt to embarrass him. Somehow or other he took it that it must go as well as all the hair on his head. Just before I left for a flight to Delhi the main brahmacari co-ordinator brought this young fellow to see me at the door.
How to describe him? Well, he was beaming- better still - he was glowing! Outside of eye-lashes and eyebrows there wasn't a hair left on the head. The guy looked like Chaitanya, the 16th century master of chanting and he appeared to have no regrets.
No comments:
Post a Comment