Why I'll go bald again

Every year, it’s a tradition for my family to visit Tirumala. Every year, me and my dad fight about a cultural norm to shave your head and offer your hair as offerings to the God of Tirumala, the Lord of the Seven Hills, an Avatar of God Vishnu, Lord Venkateshswara Swamy.

I don’t like offering my hair, I look terrible without it and I lose all my confidence whenever I look at myself in the middle. It’s a tribulation that I undergo every year where I have to look at myself in the mirror and hate how I look and what I’ve done to myself. It’s a blow to my ego and to my confidence that only really comes back when I have enough hair again.

Every year, I wage a war against my dad for rights to my hair and appearance. This year, I don’t think I will. I’m waging a war against myself between logic and my marginal spirituality.

The state of affairs #

I’m a grad student at Hopkins. There’s riots taking place all over America due to Trump. At present, it’s because of ICE and in LA. The job market hasn’t treated me well and maybe it’s skill or maybe it’s luck. I don’t have an explicit internship but I am building MapApp with Ben, Pawel, Jorge and the team. I’m also in India since I don’t have a job and wished to meet up with my family after a year in America.

The world isn’t so great right now. My personal belief is that we’re delving further into the Kali Yuga, with the world growing more and more materialistic as it progress towards social singularity. The entire globe is under a crisis. America is a familiar variable in what it’s politics looks like, Asmongold is my news source that covers most of it and Apple News is the other half that delivers the left wing perspective on affairs.

China seems to be falling apart with it’s low birth rate, job crisis, housing crisis and military incompetence. I predict that it’s going to lead to some very problematic decisions. The Russia-Ukraine war has yet to conclude. Pakistan got demolished by India. Iran is getting razed to the ground by Israel.

Finally, the job market in India doesn’t look too great either, but my friends seem to be getting promoted and receiving higher paychecks for their work. I’m happy for them and do believe that some of them deserve it. Girls are still unfairly given an advantage during interview selections and hiring decisions. The software development world is collapsing due to the dilemma that companies are put through due to the rise (and demise) of the LLM and AI hype train.

I’ve gone from curiosity to existential dread to acceptance regarding the affairs of the world. The fact that I don’t have a job may marginally be due to my lack of initiative in pursuing all avenues but I couldn’t care enough to apply to 200 jobs in a day. It’s probably not worth the effort and I’m lazy.

The multifaceted world is changing in disruptive and evolutionary ways. I can no longer tell what’s stable and what isn’t anymore.

Coming back to me #

Over the course of my existential crises, I’ve thought about what I want to do with my life. Questions and answers change hands iteratively and I’ve come to realise that I want to do something that’s new and not just taking up a job and slogging through work day in and day out. I want to set up a new company that solves a real world problem while being profitable enough to sustain a family and incrementally allow me to hire and expand the company. My contribution and engagement with the MapApp team too is a step towards this vague goal of mine.

Yet another avenue I’ve explored is the hate towards Indians and our habits in America. It’s interesting to think about. India is pretty diverse and we’ve been subject to many famines and monarchies over the decades which has skewed our perception of civic sense due to poverty. I think it’s getting better. America never had that since most of the founders of America were educated, rich people that had all the opportunities provided to the new lands. I don’t think I can compare people of these two civilizations, we’re different. Not worse, not better, just people dealt very different hands in life.

Yet, I still struggle with my inferiority complex and my sense of dread of what’s to happen to me. I’ve spent a large part of my life studying engineering and I know it’s not going to go obsolete but I don’t want that to be all that’s left of me. I want to set up a company but neither do I have the requisite knowledge for it nor am I actively trying to learn and set up a company that solves a problem that I trust in myself to solve better than other people. It’s why I like MapApp, it’s new, it’s unique and it solves a real business problem. I feel like I’m slacking off there too but hopefully I get stuff done soon. I work better with people in an office since I don’t really like the latency of calls and meetings online but it is what it is.

Shaving my head #

I hate it. I don’t like shaving my head. But lines from the Bhagvad Gita and stories about the Arya Vysya community continue to ring in my head.

From the Bhagvad Gita, There’s three kinds of sacrifices that one can perform to devote oneself towards Lord Krishna, an avatar of Lord Vishnu, the Supreme Absolute. I don’t exactly remember them, but Lord Krishna does state that for one that worships him, he’ll keep in mind the wishes of their devotees and help them succeed in life.

From the Arya Vysya Community, My people are apparently known for not looking great yet being intellectual and resourceful. The not looking great part links back to a medieval curse by one of our gods which is a blessing in disguise.

The combination of these two traits weigh on me. It compels me to forgo looking good temporarily in order to have a divinity bless me with the courage to try out new avenues and opportunities to succeed. Looking back, every single time I chose to shave my head, the next following year been pretty good. But this data is biased and probably isn’t a good representative sample considering that I shaved my head nearly every year.

That’s a dumb reason #

I know. I know. It’s dumb because I’m not actually that devotional and neither do I really care much for the Gods.

Yet, if I can gather up the courage to sacrifice my looks and my hair and concentrate on making my life better, even if it’s only a signifier for myself rather than a call to the divine, I’m inclined to take it.

I sometimes hope that it’s enough to grant me a great life, but that’d be too easy and far less fulfilling than me actively placing in effort to build something worth something. I ~hope~ pray that by next year, I’ll have understood what I want to build, made (more) better connections, have a problem that I want to tackle. And most importantly, have the mindset to pull myself towards the righteous path in the middle of the battefield.

Afterword #

I did end up shaving my head and unlike the past years, I don’t hate myself when I look in the mirror anymore. Because this time, it’s a choice to sacrifice what I deemed to be unfruitful for me right now. The trade off seems like it’s worth it. I’m sometimes reminded of the divinity when I look at my bald head and that’s cool too since it follows the teachings of the Gita.