Andre Russell on current form may be the Knight who can do no wrong, but his Mohawk is forcing schools in town to alter their parameters for a permissible schoolboy hairline.

With students routinely turning up with hair only on the top of their head, mimicking the haircut that the West Indian all-rounder has been sporting, it is apparently no longer enough for schools to insist on just a "proper" or "decent" haircut.

At least one school has prohibited "eccentric haircuts" in writing and several more have cracked down on students who "shave off the sides of their heads", a la the KKR match-winner, although they have no written rule yet on what is acceptable.

The tonsorial transgressions in vogue across schools include national heart-throb Virat Kohli's "undercut", a scissor stroke that has gained in popularity with each rasping cover drive off his willow.

Fancy haircuts have, of course, been a headache for schools for a long time. La Martiniere for Boys had stipulated some years ago that "proper school uniform" included a decent haircut and clean-shaven faces. "Eccentric haircuts are not permitted and will invite possible suspension till such time as the hair grows to normal acceptable cuts," a circular said.

Teachers at South City International have verbally cautioned students against coming to school with a "mushroom cut etc".

Despite these written and verbal injunctions, schools across the city have had to haul up students coming to class with an undercut or a Mohawk. Some have gone a step further, sporting tints, going near bald or even flaunting a cross on one side of the head.

"Not too long ago, teachers would watch out for boys with unkempt long hair; now they have to look out for those with hardly any hair on some part of the head!" said a principal who didn't wish to be named.

At Frank Anthony Public School, two boys turned up recently with a mop on the front of the head and no hair on the sides. Both blamed the barber "for the mistake", only to be told by the principal to "go back and get a refund because the barber cut only half your hair".

Sunirmal Chakravarthi, the former principal of La Martiniere for Boys, had introduced the line "eccentric haircuts not allowed" in the school diary.

"Until a few years ago, at every inspection 20 to 30 children would be hauled up for having long hair curling up at the back and some with side locks. They would all be sent to the barber. Now they come with a Mohawk or even tinted hair," said Terence Ireland, principal of St. James' School.

The problem with a Mohawk is that there is no...er...shortcut back to normality. If someone is caught sporting Russell's signature, the only option for a school is to ask the boy to stay home until the sides of his hair grow back!

"We tell them that an unconventional hairstyle might be fashionable outside school, but it isn't part of the school uniform," said Ian Myers, principal of Frank Anthony.

Boys do find ways to avoid detection such as "stamping the hair down with water", but it doesn't always work. A Class XII student of Apeejay Park Street who had got an undercut during his Puja vacation was hauled up by his teacher when school reopened and taken to the principal.

"I had got the sides trimmed to 1mm and so it had become shorter than usual and prominent. Before returning to school, I visited the barber to trim the middle part so that the undercut became less obvious. But I still got caught," recounted the 17-year-old.

Class IX student Aryan Sethi of South City International School too had "tried out an undercut", but his teachers didn't quite agree that it looked "cool". The 14-year-old was asked to trim the middle portion to match the sides.

His classmate Anjani Lohia, who had a Mohawk done for the "cool dude look", was told by his class teacher that he looked like a "hedgehog".

"I was forced to trim my hair down the middle," the teenager said.

So, what is the yardstick for a hairstyle that meets the requirements of school discipline without making boys feel cut off?

"In the old days, we would emphasise on neatness in all aspects of the students' personality and one these was no hair falling over the back of the collar. On inspection days, points would be awarded to boys based on how they turned up," said John Mason, a former principal at St. James'.

The rules were unambiguous too: hair above the collar, side burns halfway down the ear and sides above the ear. For some principals, the yardstick was: "I should not be able to grab the hair from behind."

In the late 80s and 90s, the big trend was the Amitabh Bachchan style with middle-parted long hair neatly covering the ears. Elvis Presley's Pompadour had been one of the popular hairstyles to be seen in two decades before that. Long, curly hair like Michael Jackson's used to be copied too, but not flaunted.

Schools would cope with the occasional hair horror with a pull and a cut. "Some teachers would grab the hair from behind and lift it upwards, which is painful. And the school barber was a terror. The warden in the boarding, the PT master and the house master would always make sure hair was cut down to the acceptable length," recalled a former principal.

The in-house barber would invariably chop off hair far above the ear and from the back, which would be an embarrassment not just in class but outside as well.

When Mason was the principal of St. James' from 1978 to 1992, he had his own way of dealing with bad hair days on the campus.

A typical exchange between the principal and the errant student would go like this:

Mason: "What are you doing this Saturday?"

Student: "Nothing, sir,"

Mason: "Well, then you will have some time to go to the barber!"

St. James' has since done away with the campus barber because of complaints from parents, but hair continues to raise the hackles of the school authorities.