The bold, bald & beautiful

This week Dr Saumya Balsari explores why a bandana works wonders for the bold and the bald.

"Take the scarf off your head," ordered Aunty. "You look ridiculous."
"That’s a bandana," retorted Mr S with an injured look. "It’s what Silvio Berlusconi wore to welcome Tony and Cherie Blair to Sardinia a few days ago. It’s a style statement."

"You men take everything at face value. Supriya Barot told me at the Beejeepeeceekaydee A1 Indian store when I was buying moong dal yesterday that Berlusconi is balding and hiding a receding hairline."

Mr S said he had nothing to hide and had, indeed, never hidden anything from Auntyji. If the Prime Minister of Italy could wear a bandana with his linen suit, surely Mr S could wear a bandana with his kurta pyjama. Berlusconi had even left the top three buttons of his linen suit open, so Mr S had heard.

Auntyji sniffed and said that was hardly unique. Millions of young men in India left nearly all their shirt buttons open. They had hair on their heads but not on their chests, she added.

"Mr Berlusconi looks so relaxed when he is with VIPs. Last year, he dispensed with footwear altogether in the company of Vladimir Putin on Sardinia," added Mr S. That could present problems, warned Auntyji. She always kept a special pair of worn and torn sandals for visiting a place of worship.

Mr S informed Auntyji that Berlusconi had apparently undergone surgery to remove heavy bags under his eyes. Unlike desis, Western men knew how to look after themselves, he said. Auntyji said that if Mr S were to remove the bags from under his eyes it wouldn’t make the slightest difference to his weight.

Berlusconi's bandana overshadowed media coverage of his discussion with Blair on Iraq and Sudan, informed Mr S, suddenly remembering his missing Dev Anand-style peaked cap with a pang. It would go well with the bandana. He undertook a search until Auntyji reminded him the cap was in the suitcase lost by the airline on their last trip to India.

Mr S was perturbed. He had just read a newspaper report on lost luggage. In the first five months of 2004, British Airways had lost 16 bags for every 1,000 passengers. The Association of European Airlines revealed that in May this year British Airways lost more bags than any of its other members.