RED RIDING HOOD

After sitting on the fence for a very long time, I’ve taken the plunge. Head first, straight into L’Oreal’s Majirel hair colour, shades Mahogony and Dark Brown.

After being henna-headed for decades (to hide the grey), I needed the festive push of Diwali to dive into the bewildering and number-crunching (shades 5.6 and 3.2 in ratios of 20:80, or some such complicated equation) world of hair-colours.

If henna was DIY (Do it Yourself), then hair colour, at least for me, is very definitely GID@P (Get it done at Parlour).

And so I did. My fairy godmother, Kadambari (god bless her), who has been gently nudging me to take the plunge for a very long time, held my head and hand and led me gently into the colour-whirlpool. From where I emerged, all red-tinged hair, a local lady with a global head.

The mirror reflected a disappointingly brown head (though without a hint of grey). It was only when the light falls on it that the red shines, dazzling the eye.

I stepped out of the salon, peering at every passing mirror/glass and preening at my image. Imagine my horror when I peeped into the front-pane of a parked autorickshaw, with the sun in my eyes, hoping to see my own partial reflection and instead gazing into the quizzical eyes of a just-woken-up-from-sleep autorickshawallah (driver), who leered at me, thinking probably that I was soliciting him for unnameable services.

Like Red Riding Hood, I fled.

CREEPY-CRAWLY

Just a while ago, I was watching a re-run of a Tom and Jerry cartoon where, in a rare instance of camaraderie, Tom and Jerry together take care of a crawling baby while the parents are away and the oblivious baby-sitter is chatting on the phone (can anybody tell me why all fictional babysitters are like this, be it here, or in Calvin and Hobbes, or elsewhere?).

I just love the fluidity of motion in the Tom and Jerry shorts, and the baby shown in this particular cartoon is one heck of a smooth mover. It just crawls everywhere – over baby-cots, under carpets, through chutes, into mailboxes, around table-legs, and even underneath a sink full of dirty water. And all this in angelic silence (or devilish determination, depending on your point of view) with a beatific smile pasted on its face.

Reminded me of the times when my li’l cat (the elder one) and the copy-kitten (her younger sister) were in their creepy-crawly stages. Every surface was crawl-able, and every object was put-in-the-mouth-able! They were absolutely unstoppable when awake, till they thankfully fell asleep at the end of another exciting (for them) and exhausting (for me) day. Sure gave me a lot of heart-in-the-mouth moments and grey hairs.

REMEMBERING RAPUNZEL

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?