Column

Spectator

Two nights ago, I was invited to participate in a TV debate; you know the type where they invite a sundry list of peopleto comment on what programme editors decide is the burning topic of the day.

The first thing I thought about when I got the call from the TV news channel was my hair: how could I appear on national TV, in millions of drawing rooms, if I was having a bad hair day? So I rushed off to the parlour to get an emergency appointment.

“I’m appearing on a national news channel today,” I said to the lady doing my hair. “Please make my hair look good, after all millions of people will be looking at me.”

“I’ll do my best,” she said. “What are you speaking on?”

“I think it’s on the Presidential nominations. But it could just as well be the state of Mumbai’s roads — I’m not sure-no wait, here it is, I’ve scribbled it down, it’s on whether Indians are obsessed with fair skin. But forget all that — how are you going to do my hair?”

“I’ll do it the way I always do it,” said the hairdresser through clenched teeth. “Straight at the back, lots of bounce in the front and swept away at the sides, by the way, what channel did you say you were appearing on?”

“Channel XYZ,” I replied. “Never heard of it,” said my hairdresser, huffily. Anyways, after an hour of washing, blow drying, straightening and using a truck load of products on my hair, I rushed off to the studio.

Also in the waiting room, waiting to go on with me was Alyque Padamsee, who was his usual buoyant self, unfazed by the fact that his hair did not appear to be having too good a day. “Hair are you-er, how are you Alyque?” I said to him, greeting him warmly, “How nice that you are also on the show. What’s the topic again?”

He tried to tell me but, the channel people had already hooked me up to the monitor, put a mike through my collar, attached the headphones to my ears, and I was instructed to speak clearly into the camera.

“But will my hair be seen?” was the last thing I remember asking, before I was interviewed on air. While answering, I tried to show my hair at its best angle, though I don’t think that was necessary, as the interview lasted all of 5.3 seconds, and I was shot in front of a black backdrop, on which my hair had more or less disappeared.

Ever since then, I have waited for some one to tell me that they saw me on TV, but no such luck. With heavy heart, I have to report, that neither am I accosted in lifts, nor congratulated on street corners.

Even my mother, who reads five newspapers a day, and watches as many TV news channels, says she didn’t see me on the show. Hair today — gone tomorrow!

Email: s_malavika@dnaindia.net