I found myself sitting outside in a seafoam green plastic lawn chair at the Burmese monastery in Bodh Gaya, India. I was about to get my head shaved for my ordination as a Theravada nun in the town that held the most important Buddhist pilgrimage site in the world; the Mahabodhi Temple. It was hot and humid, as it was an early Indian September. The monsoon season had barely ended. I was sweating through my cotton Kurta and Pajama. The humidity caused my clothes to never fully dry.
I was surrounded by all of my classmates. A few of them were sitting in plastic chairs beside me also getting their heads shaved. I had a smile congealed on my face as I waited for my barber to appear and start my head. I wanted to deceive my classmates into believing that I wasn’t nervous. My friends Peter and Julia stood on each side of me holding a square of bleached cotton under my chin to make sure not a strand of hair touched the concrete ground. I looked up at my friend Indigo standing in front of me, holding her ipod to take a video. People talked excitedly around me, and I could hear the nuns chanting Buddhist prayers a few feet away. I heard the shrill honks of rickshaws coming from the other side of the monastery fence.
I looked up at my two friends, standing like pillars on each side of me. They were joking around and laughing but I was so distracted at what was about to happen that I couldn’t really hear them. The person designated to shave my head silently crept up behind me. I didn’t have enough time to look to see who it was. He smoothly pushed my head forward and patted a handful of water from a nearby bucket onto the crown of my head. The water dribbled down the nape of my neck, down my collarbone and down into a puddle between my legs: the water stained my green pants and made it look like I soiled myself out of fear.
My mysterious barber gently placed his hand on my head and arranged my hair. He rested his safety razor on the center of my cowlick spiral, did short skims, and then swept the blade towards my forehead. With the first stroke my face fell. I was surprised at how quickly the blade cut through so much of my hair. One stroke easily shaved at least four inches of hair from my head. I sheepishly took a peek at the people around me and tried to look happy. My shearing had begun. I couldn’t go back. I felt serious, sober. I was neither afraid nor happy but I felt the need to prove to my friends that I was thrilled to have this experience.
The man continued to release the locks from the top of my head. My hair hovered over the white sheet in the dreads that I had made them into the day before. I locked my strands to celebrate their last decorative moments. The monk shaving my head seemed to be slightly disturbed by my knotted mane. He nudged the dreads and muttered something in Burmese to someone beside him. They both laughed. I felt a bit embarrassed. The person he spoke to brought a bucket of water and began pouring water onto the bunched hair to aid the monk’s shaving. The water trickled down my forehead, fell into my eyes then dripped off the tip of my nose. This time I looked like I was so afraid that I was crying. The way the water cascaded down my body kept forcing symbols of fear that I didn’t feel. I refused to look afraid of my impending baldness. The only thing I was afraid of was people assuming I was weak or narcissistic because of my loss of hair. I wanted to prove to those around me that I really understood the Buddhist teaching of non-attachment. Anything that exposed my fear made me feel like a failure.
My hair finally fell, clump by clump, into the cloth. It was so dark against the light fabric. It looked matted and alien. I felt a faint breeze on my partially naked head. It felt fresh despite the excessive heat. Since my bare head was now more visible, Julia and Peter were silent and the air felt thick. They weren’t in the mood to joke anymore. I was no longer smiling. My head was tilted downwards to accommodate the razor. I looked at my hands resting, deliberately relaxed, on the armrests of my chair. I now had to wait for the rest of my head to be peeled. As the Monk shaved the sides of my head, he moved his free hand like a spider to tighten my skin so the blade wouldn’t cut me. His fingers were surprisingly gentle but they never lacked competency.
By now more than half of my head was bored. I looked up at the person holding the camera and found that Indigo had bestowed video taking duty on my other friend, Kirby. Kirby was also recently shorn. It was the first time I saw him with his naked head. I was going to be like him soon. I could feel the monk’s hand on my naked scalp. It was strange to feel so much of the skin on my cranium being touched. A nun came up behind me and reached her arm over my shoulder and gestured a bottle of baby lotion towards Kirby to make sure his scalp didn’t get too dry or irritated. I felt the cotton of her robes brush against my ear and head. It felt cool and soft but my brain hadn’t fully caught up to the idea that my head was so exposed so the brush of the fabric was not welcome.
Since I was one of the last people to get their head shaved, everyone but those involved started bustling to organize and clean up the space. Someone was letting all the future monks and nuns know that we had to meet afterwards. The nuns were asking if everyone’s head was shaved. With all the commotion around me I felt like people had forgotten about me midway through my paring. I felt an urgency to be finished. I felt like I was an inconvenience and people were waiting on me.
There was only one patch of hair left on the left side of my head. I laughed to myself, once again realizing what was happening to me. The monk rested my head against his chest as he peered over my head to access the hard to reach spots above my ear. There were strands of wet hair stuck all over my face and neck. “You look Great!” my friend Larissa called out to me, “It suits you.” I laughed, finally out of the head shaving funk. Peter, still beside me, muttered “you look like Karen Gilligan from Guardians of the Galaxy.” I laughed again, “I don’t know who that is!”
I felt the pressure of the moment again and stopped smiling. The monk began to swipe the razor on the stray hairs that he first missed. I could hear the shick shick of the razor on the tiny bristles left on my skull. The slight tugging of my hairs by the blade irritated my head but somehow it also felt smooth as it slid. I began to look around again because I could finally lift my head up a bit. Indigo was in front of me again holding her ipod. “You look so worried Camille!” she cried. I didn’t respond. “Is somebody left?” I heard one of the sisters call. Before getting my head done, I had seen the others had been personally shaved by the nuns and sung over, so I thought that the nuns made a mistake and had forgotten to do the same for me. “I think me!” I called, but it turned out they were just asking if there were any students left who wanted their heads shaved.
The monk stepped back and moved away. I didn’t know if he was finished since he left so abruptly. I turned to look behind me and grabbed the fabric still held under my chin and dried my neck. “Is it done?” unable to discern who my barber was. “You’re done!” Indigo called. One of the sisters came up behind me and picked strands of hair off my collar. “You go and wash, okay?” I swept my hands on my face and rubbed my eyes. I then rested my hands on my surprisingly warm head. “Oh my god!” I squealed.
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