Hair transplant fad turns deadly in India
The Hindu
More prematurely balding men are opting for hair transplants as disposable incomes rise.
All that balding Indian television executive Athar Rasheed wanted was to look handsome and get married. But the 30-year-old's seemingly harmless hair transplant went fatally wrong.
Women have been judged on their appearance for millennia, but in an increasingly materialistic Indian society, men are also feeling pressure to look young and presentable for fear of losing their social standing.
More and more prematurely balding men are opting for hair transplants as disposable incomes rise and an emphasis on personal appearance becomes stronger.
But in a weakly regulated sector, the procedure -- sometimes performed by amateurs self-trained on YouTube -- can have deadly results.
Rasheed was the sole breadwinner for his family and aspired to a better life -- owning a house and getting his two sisters married.
But he developed sepsis after undergoing a hair transplant at a clinic in Delhi last year, his distraught mother Asiya Begum, 62, told AFP.
The swelling spread from his head and he suffered terrible agonies.