Tangled

This post is all about my hair.

If you are wondering why I am writing a whole post about a bunch of dead cells when there are more important socially relevant subjects in the world, I’d say bad luck! My blog, I can write about anything I wish to ….who reads these stuffs anyway. So over to my my rants about the black dead fibers that dangle from the pores of my head down my shoulders.

No tale is complete without a flash back. So here is mine.I come from a family with a legacy of long thick hair. It is something the females in my family take pride on. Apparently I was fond of my long hair too when I was little . When I was ten, my mother had to bribe me with a trip to ice cream parlor(from as long as I remember, I always ordered orange juice instead of ice cream when I was a child. This ice cream craving calorie gobbler came into existence much later) and a movie to let her cut my long hair shoulder length.

But I pretty much outgrew my love for long hair soon after. But my mother for some reason decided that long hair was much better than the shorter version.So basically when i wanted to grow my hair long, I gave into mortal temptation and let it go. When I wanted a shorter hair style, I had to suck it up and flaunt a  longer mass.

Those days my hair was always soaked in oil. Every Tuesday and Friday evening, my mother would dutifully give my hair an oil massage. Every alternate Sunday, it was the shampoo day and once a month my mother used lice control cream on my hair(yeah…I had lice in my hair when I was at school….not a big deal…I finally got rid of it right?)

So basically my oily hair was glued onto my head and I wore it in two braids on the either side during my school days.Two neat bows of white ribbon on the plaits completed the picture

Yes, my hair was long and thick, but it was equally frizzy. Leaving it loose was never an option.And on the very rare occasions that I did, I had to pay the price. It became so tangled in some occasions that I had to chop off a few strands with scissors

If I don’t count the salon trip I made when I was 10, my mother was my hair dresser cum hair caretaker untilI I turned 17. And of course she did a much better job that my lazy self and this made her proclaim the sole ownership of my hair .She mercilessly ignored my repeated requests for consent to crop my hair short.

During my 4 years stint in college, I always wore my hair in a tight braid. On the days I washed my hair, I would  go to bed leaving my hair loose and would wake up to find my hair in a tangled mess (which my mother has nicknamed a bird’s nest). Every time I go home. my mother used to sigh seeing the sorry state of the unkempt hair. But she was adamant about not cutting it off. According to her, long hair equaled better chance of being liked by prospective  groom and his family.

I won’t blame my mother here.I am not particularly good looking. If at all I had received complements (not counting the “return” complements you get in exchange to a complement that you had once given) from others about my looks(very rare, I assure), nine in ten times it was for my hair. No wonder my mother decided that the only way I could get a decent man was by showing off my long black locks.

After consistently sporting the same dull braid for four long years, I left my college life and for the first time in my life moved out the small state of Kerala for a job in Chennai. Sleek and straight had become the fashion statement for hairs by then. I would have happily straightened my hair if not for the fact that it was expensive and that it was not permanent.After six months or so, the once straightened stylish hair would look like a cross between street dog and German shepherd- neither there nor here. I longed for a different hairstyle, probably a layer cut. But I was so accustomed to my year’s old look that I got a cold feet every time I reached the salon.

I got married and as my mother had predicted got a husband who’s ‘ideal wife’ had long hair. I am sure I never managed to fulfill any other criteria that he had in mind for his ideal wife.So I kept the long tangly mess called my hair

It was soon after the delivery of my daughter that I decided that enough was enough. Pushing out a three pound baby from your body after enduring all those pain has it’s perks. I realized that if I could give birth, then I could do anything. I played a part in executing God’s miracle.I felt invincible.If you have ever gone through a pregnancy and child birth, you will know what I mean when I speak of this sense of accomplishment.

28 days after my baby was born, I got my first hair cut in a salon in years( and it was not trimming the ends, mind you.I got a layer cut that day). It was big step for me, a very big step.

Not much has changed since. I have moved a notch up by replacing my permanent braid with a permanent pony tail, but at least it looks a bit better :)…

PS: I have recently purchased a flat iron and am looking forward to finally let my hair down