Shear Madness

Forgive the slow start to my “writing every day” on the blog. In thinking about it, I believe that I have ‘psyched myself out’ by thinking: “Now I’m in the processing phase, not just recording, so every conclusion has to be brilliant and lead towards this masterwork of scholarship.” Needless to say, this is incorrect but still potentially paralyzing. So I’ve freed myself by downgrading that to a minor concern and reassuring myself that whoever’s reading this already knows I’m a big dork and therefore is not expecting anything concise and brilliant. No offense to any of you, but that’s what I need to tell myself to keep from putting off this project.

So, back underway, I’ve remember the other problem, that there’s just too many darn things to write about (another possible source of paralysis, but making lists always helps with this one). Today I thought I’d start with the most far-fetched thing on my list, in hopes that it further frees up my creative juices. So, [drumroll] I give you: ‘Religion and Hair’.

Hair in religion might seem a ridiculous thing to fixate on, but there was a particular instance that drove home its importance in India. On February 27th, I traveled by bus from Amritsar to Dharamsala in the mountains. The place I left, of course, is the holy city of the Sikhs, who are under injunction by the 10th guru from cutting any of their hair…ever. Consequently, Punjabi Sikh men in their prime (at least the ones I saw without a head-tie on) have thick hair that goes down at least to their waist, as well as a full-grown beard in varying lengths and styles. Women generally have very long hair, but it is often either in a braid and underneath a covering that’s part of the traditional outfit. Some women had very noticeable facial hair, of course, and particularly noticeable are the braids that very young boys wear or the wound-up bun that teenage boys sport before they have started wearing a turban.

In addition, there are many levels and layers to the Sikh practice of growing one’s hair. For historical reference, by the way, this injunction is called “kes” in Punjabi, and is one of the five kakkars that mark a mature Sikh (men and women) as part of the Sikh Khalsa (martial and spiritual community). All of the kakkars start with K and are ‘visible’ signs of one’s Sikhism, though the hair is the most obvious.

Obviously, there exist Sikhs, even in Amritsar, who shave their beards and cut their hair. This does not mean that they are banned from any of the Sikh sanctuaries or activities, but there exists another level of distinction in addition to the word for baptized Sikhs (“amritdhari” meaning baptized with nectar) which is known as “kesdhari” (my translation: baptized by hair?) Thus, while there is not active discrimination against those who cut their hair, all of the musicians who were ragis or people that actively supported me in learning kirtan belonged to the kesdhari crowd.

There are many shades in between, too.; such as men that wear the turban but trim their beards. There is also a style where the beard is not trimmed, but instead tied-up in varying styles so it lies flush with the chin. Even of those who grow their beard long, there are many different lengths and therefore styles. A final ‘formal’ style available to older men is the piece of cloth that hangs from the turban like a chinstrap and makes the beard look more kempt. While one man tried to ascribe this to a ‘British’ formal style, another said that it actually represented ‘laziness.’ All of this debate and strong feelings about hair within a single religion! It gets more complex when you move between religions, which is almost impossible to avoid in India.

Upon arriving in the Dharamsala, the seat of Tibetan Buddhism’s most esteemed spiritual leader and home to the Tibetan government-in-exile, I immediately was overwhelmed by the sight of the many thousands of crimson-robe-wearing Tibetan monks (more than normal because of the teachings). Although I had seen groups of monks throughout my education, and even walking around Boston in groups, it was never so apparent to me that all their heads were shaved – men, women (and, I should add, non-Tibetans of both sexes). Certainly it was because I was coming from a place where hair was so prized for showing one’s orthodoxy and that’s why it struck me that the act of devotion here was in shaving.

Comically, the point was driven home to me even more when I encountered, in a hilltop restaurant, a girl who had graduated from college with me and lived in the same residential dorm. At first we didn’t recognize eachother, and then later commented with a laugh that it was because I had grown a beard (living among the Sikhs) and she had shaved her head (traveling in Tibet on a fellowship).

Though this contrast was perhaps the most extreme, many other examples exist. When I was in Ajmer I heard someone draw the distinction between a ‘khadim’ (caretaker of the shrine) and a ‘true sufi’. Interestingly, this informant referred to the man pictured in the previous post about Ajmer as a ‘true sufi’, because he grew his hair long but kept a trimmed beard. By contrast, most other middle-aged to older men in Ajmer kept the trimmed beard favored by the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in the hadith, but at least half of these had their grey or charcoal hair colored by orangish streaks from dye and henna. It’s even more confusing because, as I remember later, men are supposed to shave their heads when they are on the Hajj (pilgrimage) to Mecca, but here, at the most important shrine of South Asia, I didn’t see a single head-shaved among thousands of men.

Moreover, any time you are near a Hindu bathing place or temple – and, lets face it, when in India you are always near one of these – one of the most common sights along the street are the impromptu barber-shops. These include a chair (mandatory but of varying qualities), a mirror (usually propped up on a fence rail), and about four men sitting around watching. There are physical shops, of course, but my understanding of the purpose these fill is that 1)few men shave at home (either for lack of resources or time); 2)it is important to have one’s hair freshly trimmed, and beard shorn (most Hindu men wear a mustache) before appearing in front of the deity; 3)the cost is incredibly low and also provides a social interaction with the other men sitting around. Hence, the vast numbers of mustachioed Hindu men with a fresh shave.

So this is just a taste of the many interactions of hair and religion, lest people argue for the impracticality of religion. Though you may argue with how I’m defining practical here, the fact is that many people have to get up and think about their hair vis a vis their religion, and then interact, or at least see, other people all day who are following different prescriptions. For my part, I tried to maintain as neutral a look as I could – which amounted to short hair that I never cut (I had buzzed it before I left the US so I wouldn’t have worry about cutting) and beard that never looked neatly trimmed but also was never as grown in as my Sikh hosts.