The Globalization of Indian Hair Part One

The Globalization of Indian Hair

Bringing Two Worlds Together

In the past, the hair Indian women offered to the gods was used to make oil filters and fill mattresses, but all that has changed since extensions came into vogue.

The hair extension business is growing at the phenomenal rate of 40 percent annually, creating a network of dealers on all continents and air shipments around the globe. And the sole purpose of all this effort is to transfer hair from one head to another.

Many of the world's most glamorous women, including Angelina Jolie, Halle Berry, Christina Aguilera, Cameron Diaz, Gisele Bündchen and Victoria Beckham, routinely augment their own hair with extensions. Céline Dion spends $6,000 a month on extensions.

Hair for Lord Venkateshwara

Manibhen Yashwanthpur was up early this morning, and after waking her husband and their two boys, she packed an orange sari into a red plastic bag. Yashwanthpur is 30 years old, a thin, serious woman who looks 40. Her hair is long and dark brown. It is beautiful hair, and today is the day she plans to offer it to Lord Venkateshwara.

At some point in the marriage, her husband began drinking brandy, lots of it. He also beat her, for years, even in front of their sons. He routinely drank away the money the couple earned working at the local cement factory.

A year ago Manibhen prayed to Lord Venkateshwara, asking him to remove the scourge of her husband's alcoholism from her family once and for all. Her husband stopped drinking a month ago. "Now if that isn't a miracle," she says, smiling for the first time.

The temple barber wets Manibhen's hair, ties it together with rubber bands on both sides and applies his razor, exposing her scalp, bit by bit, making a scraping sound as he works. Manibhen sits in front of the barber, her legs crossed and her face unmoving. The procedure takes four minutes, and then Manibhen is bald.

It will take her years to grow back the hair she had only a few minutes ago. She wraps a scarf around her shaved head.

Shaving the head is an age-old Hindu ritual. Manibhen receives no compensation for her offering.

"This is a tradition, not a business," says the temple manager. She doesn't know what will happen to her hair, or that, after 29 days, a depigmentation process and a color bath, it will arrive in a salon in a Munich, Germany neighborhood. She has never heard of extensions.

After the ritual, she will wash herself, put on her fresh, orange sari and pray that her children will receive a good education.

What happens to the hair next will be explored in Part Two.

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