Either they have too much of it, or are trying to regain some. In fact, a story goes that currently an ageing — rather aged — superstar is undergoing the excruciatingly painful process of a hair transplant. Each strand of hair is being embedded into his pate, slowly but surely, by experts of an international cosmetic company. They’ve been sworn to secrecy but then nothing remains a secret in Bollywood, not only about the film personalities’ covert bedroom trysts but also about their hush-hush makeovers.

I’m getting into this hair-raising aspect of the B-towner male actors simply because, like Samson’s mane, tangled locks, wild curls, neat middle partings, pageboy cuts and what-spike-you are distinct signs of every actor’s strength — and therefore, clout at the ticket windows.
Grey sideburns are avoided as fiercely as beer bellies. If an actor doesn’t dye-hard, he’s more than likely to lose a huge percentage of his fan following. So if Akshay Kumar’s stubble was snowflaked for a while, at public appearances and at photo sessions, the lapse was quickly remedied. It magically returned to coal black. Caw blimey!
Shah Rukh Khan possesses the best, silken thatch in the business. Yet at the age of 45, he’ll let the grey areas show, and even turned up at a high-profile award show, wearing hair extensions which weren’t exactly paparazzi-friendly. How come? Perhaps because he isn’t insecure about his acting capabilities. If it’s not the Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge SRK, no matter, he’ll be back, a genie with colour-from-the-bottle, the fan base enlarging instead of subtracting.
Nearly half-a-decade ago, Salman Khan was on the way to becoming bald as an egg. Transplants appeared to have gone awry with his scalping sprouting tufts, as if on a wasteland. Fortuitously for him (and for us), a Dubai clinic appears to have brought his headware to near perfection. Imagine the Dabangg dude with a receding hairline! Ewww.
As for Aamir Khan’s hair-styles, they vary in keeping with his characterisations, like the temporary-buzzed-and-sheared scalp for Ghajini. Tsk, but the jet-black moustache sported by him at this very moment for an underproduction film, seems as if a kid had scrawled it on him with a black crayon stick.
Over to Shahid Kapur: he has that photogenic silken crop of hair, which naturally fetched him a cushy sum for endorsing a shampoo brand. So, did John Abraham though the accent was more on Bipasha Basu’s photoshopped shoulder-length swirl.
Those who care a damn about their hair entice the same feeling among the audience. Case in point: Akshaye Khanna, an excellent actor, who isn’t visible at all on the scene today. The moment his hair thinned, he sported wigs which looked in the danger of falling off right in the middle of a comic scene. Unintentionally. Sunny Deol hasn’t ever looked as dynamic as he did in Ghayal ever since his hair turned a gaajar halwa shade of orange. Brother Bobby’s hair, once appealingly golliwog-curly and dishevelled, is now combed and corrected in the manner of someone punished to look neat.
Frequently, movieland’s leading hair designers accompany actors even to distant locations just in case there’s an ‘emergency’ (read bad hair day). Hakim Alim, coiffeur champ, usually cites Saif Ali Khan’s style as trendsetting. How exactly remains a mystery. Imraan Khan, the buzz goes, patterns his looks on Robert Pattinson from the Twilight vampireflicks... And Ranbir Kapoor, who once faced bad hair days — with a Sadhana-like fringe no less — has opted for the casual chic mood. Que sera sera, if his hair is isn’t propah, so be it.
All factors considered though, none of today’s actors can brag of a distinctive hair-style which is imitated nationally. Unless, you count Salman Khan’s bizarre curls from Tere Naam — shaped like mammoth commas at each end of the forehead. These seemed to be “inspired” by look of the former President Abdul Kalam Azad. Really. Anyway, smalltown kids still continue to imitate those Tere Naam commas. Shudder.
For sure, kitschy portraits of Amitabh Bachchan, Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan adorn streetside barber shops, particularly in Mumbai. Be that as it may, ask any stylist and he’ll agree that no one’s ever been quite as inventive as dear old Dev Anand; his puff was vastly imitated by the youth of the 1950s-’60s.
And quite a few salons still ask if you want your hair to flop on your ears a la Rajesh Khanna. Oh well, yesteryear’s superstar can still take a bow for that. As for the red tint which finds favour among all generations, it’s a straight throwback to Raaj Kumar’s hairpiece which perched as comfortably on the Jaani’s head as a pet kitten. Sigh. They just don’t make hair accessories like those any more, do they?