They say a woman who has cut her hair is about to change her life. Every now and then, I have this urge to cut my hair really short. The first time it happened a few years back, I actually thought it was about the hair, and got a boy-cut (or some fancy name of the cut which I still wouldn’t know). I sought recommendations on the best stylist in town (Mumbai), fixed an appointment, and sat patiently as the stylist refused to cut my hair. It hurt her artistic integrity to cut it; it annoyed me no end to not have it cut. Finally when I had waited it out stubbornly till the salon’s closing time, she got one of her colleagues to do it.
Since then I have grown somewhat wiser, or at least more reflective. And every time I encounter this urge to cut my hair all of a sudden, I pause to ask myself- what is it in my life that I so desperately want to change? Ever wondered why when something annoys us, we want it to get ‘out of our hair’?
It’s the same hair, but I have new reasons to want to cut it now and then. When my hair suddenly begins to strike me as too boring, or too messy, too much work to maintain, I ask myself- what in my life is too boring, or too messy, or too much work than what I want to put in? If I can get past the repetitive refrain in my head of ‘cut your hair’, ‘cut your hair’.. I typically do find the answer.
I don’t know why the physical things are seen as superficial. The colour of the lipstick you want to wear, whether you choose to shave your underarms or not, how you want to wear your hair.. all of this is extremely critical. None of it is superficial. The only thing over which anyone has any tangible and immediate control at all, and that too of course not fully, is their own body. All of these ‘superficial’ urges point to the kind of control you want to exercise over your life, and your world. I was in a workshop last year where I was paired with a fabulous lady for a brief exercise- we had to make assumptions about each other and test them out. She said, ” I see that you are wearing bright orange, and I assume that you needed to feel energetic today.” She was 100% spot on. I had been so tired from the intensive workshop the previous day, that I needed the bright orange that morning to keep me energetic. My choice of colour to wear indicated the control I wanted to exercise over my day.
Working with this ‘everything physical is actually symbolic’ framework, let’s go back to hair and really stretch this argument 🙂 There’s nothing the matter with cutting one’s hair really. But the thing is, I have very curly hair. And the process of maintaining it when cut, and the pain of growing it out over a year through various embarrassing stages, has made me really pay attention to what goes on. For one, I am baffled at how nobody has any idea on what to do with curly hair. I typically find that stylists don’t even know how to cut or style it without straightening it. Isn’t that especially strange when it comes to India? Most of the ladies from the southern states, as well as the ladies from the mountains, typically tend to have curly hair. That’s a very large segment of women then with curly hair. But the beauty industry operates as if this segment does not exist. No, actually with the assumption that everyone with curly hair actually wants straight hair. The same way the beauty industry assumes that everyone of dark skin tone will want to get fairer. And so it stops being just about skin colour and hair texture, but about identity, self-esteem, even race.
One of my very first ‘hair’ memories is of one evening when I was perhaps 6 or 7 years old, my mother was combing my hair before I went out to play. I asked her, why she doesn’t comb my hair like some of the other girls’- the ‘blunt’ cut was common those days.. you saw it everywhere from TV to classrooms. I didn’t yet have the discernment to tell that it depended on kind of hair, and my mother was very indulgent that day. She spent a very long time trying to comb my hair back from my face over and over, and roll it at the ends with a brush.. finally with a hairstyle looking like it urgently wanted to be something else, and a hairband on which all hopes were pinned to hold stuff in place, I went out to play. I was heartbroken when I saw in one of the car windows that within ten minutes the style which had taken perhaps an hour to create was now looking much like a bird’s nest.
I remember also when my mum took me for a haircut, perhaps around the same age. Did I mention I get my hair from my mum? The two ladies who were attending to me kept making comments about my mum’s hair, and advising her to please do something about it. I was furious. I was thinking- Do you know who she is? You wouldn’t dare if you knew her. That, I saw in the two ladies, is the world trying to feed off your insecurities.. and that, I saw in my mum, is how you regally ignore it.
I would know nothing about what to do with curly hair, if it were not for my mum. The most important thing to do is this- to embrace it. To embrace yourself. Who you are. So what happens when you don’t? I landed once more in a salon very recently to evaluate options to cut my hair very short. The salon lady assumed I would straighten it if I cut it short (because like I said, no one knows how to do anything with curly hair). “Ok will you cut my hair if I do straighten it?” I asked. “No no”, she said, “You have two options: either you will waste your time every day if you go with heat-straightening, or you will damage it irreparably if you go for chemical straightening.”
Those are among the two things that happen when you try to subvert your real self- you waste a lot of time, you cause yourself irreparable damage. The physical is not so different from the non-physical, is it?
I learnt this at least with my hair over time, and I have to keep learning it. On the evening of my Sangeet ceremony, I went to the parlour I had booked a month in advance, to find they could not style my hair except by straightening it. I refused. End result, they spent two hours doing something (I’m sure they had no idea what) which I had to then undo in last 5 minutes in frantic horror, and tie my hair like I was tying it every single day. I felt quite relieved to be honest.
For my brother’s wedding, not only was the stylist aghast that I would not straighten my hair, but also had oil in it! This time it turned out pretty well though.
My next struggle is to let my hair loose. When I first saw Kangana Ranaut in the trailers of Gangster (about a decade back, was it?), I was ecstatic. Somebody on screen had hair like mine! I have learnt to keep my hair combed, and oiled and tied. In control. She lets her hair loose, the curls untamed. I had found it fascinating. All these years later, I found myself again wondering in awe when I saw her interview on Aap Ki Adalat over the Hrithik controversy, nepotism and a lot more. “She lets loose, what we keep tied up,” I was reminded. Hair. And a lot else. She lets loose what we tie up.
I found myself on the other side of the struggle recently, when an Egyptian colleague, who also has hair like mine and typically leaves it loose, had straightened it out for an important meeting. “Don’t mind,” I told her, “but the curls go much better on you. They are your unique feature. You should keep it.”
“That is true,” she seemed relieved, “Oh, it will save me so much time and energy!”
I watched from far away as the words seemed to drop from my mouth. I was pleased.
I don’t for once mean to trash anyone’s style and personal choices, or to make one choice come out better or worse than another.. but to take a moment to appreciate all that goes on behind a purely ‘physical’ choice. And to perhaps ask yourself, ” What do I really need in my life, when I am feeling the urge to colour my hair purple?”
Featured pic: From couple of weeks back
