My Hairy Fairy Story

I would like to ask a few questions to men in general:

1. Do you think my ridiculous hair style is more ridiculous than the hair in your arm pit that I can see through your t shirt sleeves?
2. What makes you think that long, thick haired women are hotter - doesn’t it strike you that they might as well be Jehadi militants hiding nuclear weapons beneath their long tresses and you might never know it? (At least everyone can see what's on my scalp.)
3. If you can be OK with me wearing denim jeans like you, why cant you be OK with me having hair as lengthy as yours?
4. Or are you the saddest of the sad kind that joins communities in Orkut called "We Love Women Who Wear Chudidhar"?
5. Will you get scared if I tell you that your ass is cute?

I have been trying to not refer to this subject - but the circumstances are so. I am hereby sharing with general populace the story of what has been my constant source of embarrassment and entertainment for the past 6 months - viz. my latest, really short hair cut. Here are a few snippets of public reaction for the same:

W.T.F.Iceman was sitting a row ahead of me. He said "I need to get a haircut; my hair's starting to look like Chethana's". (I know you are reading this, you meano.)

A few days ago, PJ told me that with my latest hair-do, I look like I could play for the Brazilian (soccer) Team. Not-subtly-hinting at Ronaldinho.

A year junior smart ass asked me "It seems you had normal hair last year?"

The worst, of course, has to come from a mother. She watched a clipping of me talking on the local Namma TV and asked with sincere concern if I combed my hair every day.

Flashback:

I got my hair cut in that god forsaken place called Bounce in Bengaluru for a ridiculously high amount. After the lady pronounced that she was done, I gingerly opened one of my eyes and looked into the hundred mirrors surrounding me. I looked like someone right out of the sketches in NCERT text books about pre-historic cave people. I just stared at myself in disbelief.

She asked me : "so, you like it?" [ :-) :-) ]

I said: "I, urm , look like a .... boy." [ :-/ ]

She: "Hehe. Of course not, you look awesome."

I: "Er, dont you think it's been cut too short? I mean, there is no hair on my head."

Other people in the Salon including one gay hair designer: “OH look at you - Soooooo pretty!"

I think people in the salon are professionally trained to act thrilled-by-beauty, especially when one among them has royally screwed up a customer's head. This particular set, may I add, acted brilliantly well on that count.

Present:

6 months past and my hair has grown really long now. Compared to before. Now I can use 4 hair clips and one elastic band and achieve a ponytail that is 1 inch in length.

I am not a newbie to having really short hair, but men around me apparently are. Which means that not only have I enjoyed being butt of many hair jokes for the past few months, I have also intimidated some poor people into thinking that I am some :

a) super-intellectual Arundhathi Roy type or

b) power yielding Indira Gandhi type.

All the kicks of being a short-haired carefree woman apart, I have been feeling nauseated ever since I lost almost all my hair to some freak medical thing. That sensation just hasn’t left me. And I still look into the mirror only for the necessary stuff. I otherwise avoid that process altogether.

I am leaving you with something from Maloose. The first time I saw it, it shook something deep within me. As though I was mourning afresh for the loss of something so superficial, yet deeply precious. It’s called Once upon a Hair Cut.