A few days back I was walking with a friend when we both noticed the very long, oiled, braided and flower-bedecked hair of two women walking in front of us. This is a fairly common sight in our part of the world, where many women still find the time (and have the inclination) to oil and be-flower their tresses. Unlike me, whose shoulder-length tresses are always falling out or turning alarmingly-greybeneath their hennaed-hideout under a hastily put-up perpetual-ponytail (Because of stress? Genetics? What is the bald truth?).
When I was young, my unruly-curly locks were tamed by a succession of severe ‘boys’ cuts’, and it was my secret, rebellious desire to grow-up and grow down my hair till my waist at least, sometimes to be demurely plaited (without the dodgy scent of hair-oil, though), sometimes to be left free (but miraculously tangle-free).
Alas, that was not to be. I have never had the fortune or the fortitude to grow my hair really long. And though I once shocked my family and erstwhile colleagues back in Kolkata when I appeared with temporarily truncated-to-my-ear-length tresses (somebody amiably compared me to a hen shorn of its neck-feathers), my usual hair-length varies, through steps and layers, from neck to shoulder. Rapunzel remains a distant, gradually-turning-grey, dream – to modify Shel Silverstein’s ‘The Ballad of Lucy Jordan’:
“At the age of 35 – (long ago, actually)
I realized I’d never ride –
Though Mumbai –
In a Mercedes –
With the sea-wind in my waist-length hair.”
PRAGMATIC P.S: Can anyone tell me why all the hair that falls with monotonous regularity from my head are always black, and the ones that determinedly cling on are grey?
Monday, June 23, 2008
REMEMBERING RAPUNZEL
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15 comments:
hehehe ... same here. :) Btw, Rapunzel was ironically my fave bed-time story as a child.
Don't get me started on hair. Always had fly-away hair and still battling frizz. Tagged you, btw!
ha ha ha u just touchd that wound.
once i had long beautiful hair but they hve deserted me now.
was in maharashtra some time back telling myself so this is sucharita's maharashtra
As you know I always had(still have) hair what everybody calls 'kaker basha'(crow's nest).I always envied people with sleek,lusturous,rapunzel like hair which forever eluded me.You had wonderful tresses though, somewhat like Julia Roberts & Arundhati Roy ish.Your answer to---why the grey hair doesn't fall? becoz like wisdom tooth they are wisdom hair,I guess!
Hi
PA,
even I loved the rapunzel fable - though it was more of a wish-fulfilment fantasy in my case.
MM,
thanks for tagging me again. I wanted a good anti-frizz, am stuck with aunty-frizz
Jyotsana,
how did you like maharashtra as compared to your part of the country?
lopa,
thanks for the wonderful compliment. and i hope your wise and witty remark about grey hair is correct, though my wisdom-quotient seems to be stagnating
"PRAGMATIC P.S: Can anyone tell me why all the hair that falls with monotonous regularity from my head are always black, and the ones that determinedly cling on are grey?"
Alas, I lack the poetic imagination to offer a suitable answer to this interesting question.
===================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
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With luck, I'll have my mother's and grandmother's hair -- not wildly thick but a pretty good head of it lasting throughout life. Why don't the gray ones fall out? I don't know, but I know the old wives' tale that you needn't bother plucking the grays, because when you pluck one, ten more grow in its place. An aside -- my sixteen year old daughter began growing gray at age ten, and now has a sizeable pure white patch at the nape of her neck. No reason why, not even from the doctor.
wow @ nancy. I'm 24 and I have around three greys that I can see, right at the front. Sometimes, I feel proud of them, like I've been through some life changing experiences.
wups, thanks for commenting such. (on my blog).
Hi Nancy, Jaquanda,
I seriously hope grey will be the in-colour for hair sometime soon, then I can stop hiding under henna.
Hi Peter,
Grey is not a guy-issue, is it? So I guess men are not too bothered about it. Good for them!
I don't know; I'm not ecstatic about my gray hairs.
I've decided that salt-n-pepper is more distinguished than hideous henna, only thing is that I can't take that definitive step for myself!
i remember how i grew my hair down to my thighs in high school for no apparent reason :) it seems like a stage that some filipino girls living in metro manila go through... in high school there were a couple other girls with hair about as long as mine (although not quite as thick). i still see girls in the corridors of my college walking around with wavy tresses cascading thinly down their backs in a loose ponytail; for some strange reason they all look alike to me, especially when i see them from behind.
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