Rosalyn D'Mello: Spiritual awakening

The panic after a dream about losing hair was replaced by an epiphany on learning that Buddha had chopped off his locks in renunciation

A week ago, the night before I was to take the bus to Bagan, I dreamed that half my hair just came apart in my hands while I was combing it. It was not a neat partition, and what remained were jagged edges, an asymmetrical, tangled mess, clearly indicating that this was not a premeditated event. My hair had fallen off against my preordained will. I felt a supernal loss.

Sometime in 2012, after I returned from my trip to Paris, I had made a conscious decision to let my hair grow long and not yield to the vanity of slick haircuts. Since then my trips to the salon have been infrequent, only to have my hair trimmed by an inch. In my dream, I feared my father’s reaction to the now abrupt length. His eagerness for me to let it hang long is probably the sole superficial request he has ever made of me. I imagined my mother’s disappointment, too. In allowing my tresses to flourish I knew I was trying to embody a fraction of my mother’s enormous beauty, especially when she was the age I am now, when she was still unmarried.

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At the Ananda Phaya temple in Bagan, the ancient capital city of Myanmar. Pic/AFP

I consulted a dream dictionary. One website had a whole section dedicated to the motif of hair. “To dream that you are losing your hair denotes that you are concerned with the notion that you are getting older and losing your virility. You are preoccupied with aging and your appearance.” This didn’t at all reflect my state of mind, so, unsatisfied, I read further: “Losing your hair also signifies a lack of strength; you do not have the power to succeed in an undertaking. You may be feeling weak and vulnerable.” I was in fact feeling stronger and more resilient than ever. My writerly self-doubts, while always lingering, were currently at bay. As for vulnerability, it is a feeling I am very proud to carry with me as part of my constant state of being. It allows the world to seep into my skin and humbles me. “Alternatively, you may be reshaping your thinking or ambitions and eliminating unwanted thoughts/habits.” That seemed a more apt interpretation, more in sync with what has been churning inside me, meditatively.

Two days later, I was ambling through the inner chambers of the historic Ananda Phaya in Bagan. Built in 1105 AD, during the reign of King Kyanzittha of the Pagan dynasty, the temple is an architectural marvel housing four gold Buddhas, each a variation upon the other, but tall and majestic, and with niches along the expanse of the corridor’s high walls leading up to the ceiling containing stone images of the Buddha, and one entire sculptural sequence narrating at least 80 episodes from the story of his life, his journey from being Siddhartha to achieving enlightenment. I was transfixed by one panel. It had Siddhartha seated, his hands above his head, holding, mid-air, a sword that was about to swoop through his hair, chopping it off. The episode signified his official renunciation of palatial and familial life. It marked the beginning of his search for spiritual enlightenment.

It was a gesture of synchronicity, I believed; my stumbling upon this particular panel just two days after my dream. It seemed like proof that my dream was not premeditated so much as predetermined by the universe. The writer in me imagined what it would be like to write a retrospective forecast, given that I had already read Susan Miller’s prediction for Cancerians, and that it was my birthday month.

Tomorrow I will turn 31, and my hair will be the longest since I was five, when I had ringlets that ended near my back. I was relieved when I woke up that morning to find all of it in place, abundant grey strays notwithstanding. It felt as though some great episode in my own journey had transpired within the realm of my dream. Like I was on the cusp of my own final seeking.

Every morning in Old Bagan, Buddhist monks collect to beg for alms. I read somewhere that they are only allowed to accept a spoonful of rice at a time from a single donor, to ensure continuity in the act of asking and the human interaction and merit it facilitates. It is how I feel as a writer. It is not by choice that I can only extract so much metaphor from a moment. I am compelled to keep seeking more until I have amassed a small collection of words, not enough to leave me sated, but enough to douse my hunger, so that I will be compelled to relive the process again and again, so that I can never be self-contained but must depend on the charity of the universe.

Deliberating on the life and times of Everywoman, Rosalyn D’Mello is a reputed art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover. She tweets @RosaParx. Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com

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