Drug Abuse and hair cuts

Nowadays I ve taken to reading a few new blogs regularly. I also visit the ones listed on the right hand side of this page... The thing about most of the blogs that are listed is that they were created at about the same time as I created this baby, and some of the authors have lost the "new and fresh blog" enthu that comes along with a new and fresh blog. Most of us have moved progressively further away from Engineering College lives... and I guess out here in the Real World there isnt as much time to while away. Not that I am one to judge - my posting record looks like Ajit Agarkar's economy rate or strike rate or batting average- dismal i.e.

heh ..some Agarkar bashing alwas turns up the sunshine a bit.

My well documented laziness comes in the way of pulling up the scary HTML code that I have to modify to make the new links appear on this blog...So I ll take the easy way out..

One of these new blogs is Scott Adams' blog. He posts with great regularity - being a millionaire who has to doodle a cartoon a day helps with the free time I suppose, and writes about the whackiest of things. India features fairly often too... our overall general whackiness provides Adams with enough fodder - and whacky Indian news is surprisingly well reported in the western press. Hm

I came across this post a few days back on his blog. The post is really about how konked off Adams is - but the part that grabbed my attention was the part about methamphetamines - a drug, not the crocin kind - the cocaine kind. I try to keep my blog fairly "modest" - but I encourage you to read through his post to find out more about the various pleasures and pitfalls of "Meth" abuse.

Then let me draw your attention toward the following pictures (Link from Adams) - they are "before" and "after" snaps of Meth abusers - you know like the mangy and then (OH my god!) hairy scalps youve seen on Dr Batra's adverts in newspapers.

http://www.drugfree.org/Portal/DrugIssue/MethResources/faces/photo_9.html
http://www.drugfree.org/Portal/DrugIssue/MethResources/faces/index.html
http://www.drugfree.org/Portal/DrugIssue/MethResources/faces/photo_8.html

Done? Go ahead..take a look..its just three clicks and back buttons away. If you are using Meth you should know where you are headed, and if you arent feel happy and shiny.
The pictures may horrify the more sensitive of you. They are clearly of unhappy people with loads of problems - and theres something about this kind of unhappiness that makes your eyes widen and throat gulp.

Hm.. so what was the first thought that went through my head when I was looking at these pictures? I ll tell ya...it was was "WHAT on Gods Green Earth is wrong with their Hair!!!". Did you notice..the three pictures I linked to each have perfect nice crew cuts and steps cuts and whatever... in the before snap - and in the after snap their hair..well looks like theyve just been treated to shock therapy. Maybe they had..who knows. Picture 8 even plumped for an "overgrown skunk caught in a dryer" hair cut - while she spent her time racked by all the serotonin or whatistshname. So is there something about drug abuse that relates to bad haircuts..a curious passerby might wander.

Now all this is not merely existential stuff...its goddamm personal (As Mike Corleone would say). The reason why my mind flew off at an enraged tangent at this gross misrepresentation of messed up hair - is that I have been a proud owner of some for most of my conscious life. Combs have always looked like instruments of torture to me, and since the time I had grown too tall for my mum to grab a handful of my hair and yank my head towards a comb (quite while back I may add) I have sworn never to get near one. And since I am experimenting with long hair, I could totally identify with the "after" snaps. I also vaguely recall noticing - though the early morning haze that surrounds me when I reach my lab around noonish - vague passersby looking at me with a certain melancholy and nodding sympathetically into their coffee. Couple of times I even recall sympathetic noises being made as I pass by. It all clicked into place in my head and of course I am devastated and bloody enraged!

Would it really have hurt the photographer to give the hair a once over - I m sure the head was within yanking distance. Or maybe take the photo after the hair had settled down after all the shock therapy.

And could it be possible that the sympathy was directed at the Graduate student who walks in groggily at noon and uses his lab key on the refrigerator door?

Hm...