Monday, July 02, 2012

Hair Tales


Folks like Rapunzel have nothing better to do than stand in the balconies of towers showing off their long hair cascading to the ground in ringlets, so that fellows can climb on that and reach the balcony, possibly in a great display of stupidity..

In reality, things are much different.

As a little girl, she had lovely soft curly hair, each strand with a perfect Young's Modulus, and regardless of how enthusiastically you brushed it straight, she always ended up with a halo of curls around a determined face.  It was a breeze to maintain the hair. Even if you just washed it, and went out to play, her hair never flew helter skelter, but always dried and withdrew firmly,  each strand  curling  with a lot of natural grace.

By and by,  as a child of 5, she got a chance to travel to Germany, and  a whole new world opened up.  Life was just endlessly thrilling with no writing in kindergaarten, lots of life experience field trips, the teachers exclaiming in wonder over her wheatish complexion, jet black thick curls and she herself going gaga over her best friend who had waist length blonde hair that fell in ringlets.  She occasionally observed people on trips , and even on TV (she learned German very fast), and was enraptured with the punk hairstyle.  Her mother once found a pair of scissors , and a couple of chocolate wrappers under the pillows, and the next time the hair was combed, there were these weird fringes that curled, and a few standing up on top of her head.  The then current hair style was the "wet look" which folks cultivated with a lot of slathering of gel and stuff, but the little one achieved that by simply not drying her own hair, causing stuff to get entangled later on.

Back in India, her face radially framed by a mass of curly hair, classmates would tease her over a then highly regarded Godman, who had similar hair. The experiments continued, with the hair getting a providential escape from certain doom, when , during a fancy dress competition, she became Indira Gandhi , and  her mother arrived in the nick of time to snatch away a jar of fevicol, with which she was planning to get the white streaks in her hair. Talcum powder was immediately substitued.

Teenage, and college, and the curls were getting to be a problem, where slim girls were moving around with straight hair, and appeared on TV and movies, looking at you through their equally slim eyelashes,  slathered in mascara.  The salon where she went for a haircut, always marvelled at the quality of her hair and mentioned it to her mother. She herself quietly observed, girls her own age, having strands wrapped in silver foil, and later emerging with red streaks. In a wild streak of independence, experiments were done at home using bleach for silver streaks and some fancy hair color for red streaks. Fancy shampoos and conditioners were insisted on, on trips to supermarkets, and she started reading labels.

There emerged friends, who massively straightened their hair in the vacations, and appeared with hair that looked like a broom when tied up.  Some folks went blonde, with a red tinge.  Her confidence was a bit shaken , but then someone gifted her a hair straightener.  Capturing unruly strands and curls between two flat heated plates, and kind of moving across the strands was the lesiure activity of choice. And Curls was, well, a 5 letter word.

All through, the gentle hints at wanting to straighten her hair , now became fairly vocal. 

In between , shampoos for shining, straight, clean and clear, head and shoulders, strength, colored , damaged hair etc, made their way across the bathroom shelf with an amazing frequency.  Then came serums.  Then concoctions like curds, tomatoes, oil, and beaten eggs, were mixed in various combinations and proportions  and slathered on the hair, and washed up, leaving the hair clean, but the bathroom smelling .

One fine day, having worn down the resisitance of the opposition and budget  controllers  by sheer persisitence, the hair was straightened, appeared on FB and was commented on favourably by many.  She had become a photoblogger in the meanwhile and got to attend a blogger meet sponsored by Dove, where actual hair washes were conducted and folks emerged from behind curtains, supposedly transformed. Her mother , in the meanwhile, had developed significant grey strands, and was constantly badgered by the daughter into getting it transformed into what it was not.

Then, thanks to the bloggers meet, she discovered something called , mask or masque , (depending how sophisticated you want to sound), and she gleefully came home with a hamper of stuff .

Today, her straight hair has remained straight, no one teases her about certain Godmen, she doesnt look wistfully at certain magazine photos of silky strands of hair falling languidly across heavily made up faces, and she has developed a technique of clicking excellent photographs of herself, displaying  a crown of hair, gracefully falling across her face.

Her mother  would love to say that , that was the end of the daughter's  hair problems.  She  doesn't really know.

 Fashions change. Girls change. Sometimes the mothers change the way they think.

Turns out that earlier , folks used things like boiled slugs, olive oil, honey, saffron, soap and cumin to improve and condition the hair.  Exclusive modern hair treatments often contain ingredients like snake venom, bird droppings, snail serum, cow dung, caviar, hemp and hold your breath, whale vomit.

Snakes, birds, snails and cow dung is locally in great abundance. It boggles the mind to wonder how you collect a whale's vomit. But never mind.  Whales-in-retail hasnt yet happened in Parliament. (We tend to latch on avidly, to things that arrive from the west ).

And one must be grateful to be living at a time when hair treatments are available in decent containers, without wild ingredients.

Until then, the mother hurriedly declares, that yes, that was the end of her daughter's hair problems... 

   
(Submitted as an entry for the Dove  " ... and that was the end of my hair problems!"
competition with the Dove Hair-Aware App  )

27 comments:

  1. Superlike! Wow, what a hair raising tale that was....but the end results have me smiling. Now that is what I call a winner :)

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    1. Neat! Beautifully put. Reminded me of my efforts at being tall! It has in fact inspired me to write all about it. Thank you for a nice post!

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  2. Awesome awesome awesome.....loved it....finally something brought a smile at the end of a crappiest day ever...:)
    Reminded me of what every girl does at one stage or the other...you missed couple more, mayonese, methi in curd.....hahah...very funny.

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    1. F-in-F, thank you ! Someone even mentioned black tea, soaked ground methi seeds, so I guess the sky or should I say the kitchen is the limit...

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    2. I forgot to add in my previous comment. My story goes like Rachna's too, just that I don't have that rich locks. And to add, I love straight hair..and there is not one single day when I did not curse my hair. Now I realise, curly is better..even with few strands, you can still make it look as if you have a bunch on your head. :P

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  3. Loved the post! I wonder why this obsession with straight hair in our country. I had curls too while growing up. My mom used to painstakingly open them out. My hair wasn't too curly by heavily wavy. It was thick and very good quality. All that oiling held me in good stead, and it started looking pretty much straight on its own. Even today, I get these lovely curls when I wash my hair and leave it to dry without combing. Just the ends curl, and I love the way it frames my face. I've never straightened my hair. I could relate to the story of your girl. When I was in the US, the hairdressers went gaga over my hair. One commented that she had never seen such thick, beautiful hair! Does it take others to reiterate your beauty? All the best for the contest!

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    1. Rachna, Thank you ! We did a lot of research and talking to a friend who runs her own beauty parlour before deciding on the straightening. But the results have been good. I just wonder what people did in my childhood. This current obsession with forms of hair is clearly being fueled by the commercials...

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  4. Hahah!! Very well written :-)
    Earlier curled hair was said to be a sign of beauty...now it's moved toward straight hair I think! Sigh!

    OMG @ using fevicol for white streaks!! Thank goodness that was seen and stopped in time!

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    1. Ashwathy, thank you ! And I actually left out the stuff about ironing the hair with a clothes iron :-))

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  5. Ha ha! Very entertaining!

    And the story is not much different whatever kind of hair one has. Those with curly hair want it straightened, and those with straight hair would do anything to have a few curls. :)

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    1. Manju, thank you! The grass is always greener on the other side, isnt it ?...:-)

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  6. That picture with the straightened hair looks lovely! Totally understand all this fetish for straight hair what with everyone on screen with straight hair and fair skin, and the rest looked down on as lesser mortals!

    For me it was, trying to grow my short wavy hair to at least shoulder length that seemed to take ages with growing frustration and falling hair. When I finally gave up and rushed to the Salon to have my hair chopped off, the Tibetan lady convinced me to try straightening and I DID! My friends were just as surprised as I was to see that long straight hair didn't look too bad on me, after all! Now my own wavy hair is growing out those smooth strands and my hands are itching to chop them off again!

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    1. RGB, I have often wondered, if 50 years ago, young girls had such apsirations, interests and traumas related to looks. Maybe they did, but knew how much of it to take seriously. There was a sense of appreciating what you had. Today its all about cribbing about something you dont.....

      And yes, the young girl is seeing some waves appear as the straightened hair grows, but that seems to have its own plus points....!

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  7. So sweet. I thought at first it was a story, then wondered whether you were referring to yourself...and then realized it was about Pankaja. Very beautifully narrated, Suranga.

    And errrgh - I had no idea all those ingredients went into hair products! Viva la shikakai, la curd, la mehendi, la methi, la coffee... :D

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  8. And I meant to add...Pankaja looks fabulous in the photo - and your blog header is stunning!

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    1. Vidya, Thank you for the kind words . I am so relieved we dont have any of that whale stuff.... and thank you for the compliment... duly being conveyed to Pankaja .

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  9. Ha ha! How wonderful to have a daughter! I am one of those mothers who never could take care of her own hair and thank goodness God perhaps knew what a mess I would make of a daughter's hair and so didn't give me one :)

    Lovely narration with the vintage Suranga stamp all over it. And yes, Pinky's latest style is super cute as is her smile.

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    1. Zephyr, Thank you, and I have been scouring around for a picture with the curly hair . Will add it in as soon as I find it ! Like you, I too have a kind of disregard for the vagaries of hair, and so sometimes am amazed at all the trouble she takes over doing her own .... Your remarks duly conveyed to the girl.... !

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  10. Your daughter looks great with her new hairstyle. Grass is always greener on the other side. I have straight, silky hair (the hairdressers here go gaga over it!) and how I would like it to curl! I would love to see her photo with the curls (just to sigh over it!):). I would have gladly gone the curling route, if my hair was thick!

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    1. Gayatri, Thank you. And i totally agree, the grass is always greener on the other side...

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    2. Thank you for putting up her photo with curls. Beautiful!

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  11. I thought the only thing to hair was about losing it or it turning grey ! phew. So many things.

    I better know... ! now, especially ! :)

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    1. Kavi, I guess learning never ends. For some, its about going someplace and getting strands of hair woven and attached. For some , it is about getting their own hair (what little exists) pulled in fun. Take it from me, the latter is more fun ...

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  12. sometimes we wish for something we can not get , like i hv long straight hair but i love curly hair like maggi :)
    Your daughter looks great in straight hair :)

    Jasmeet
    emotestar@blogspot.com

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  13. How beautiful is your daughter and what a smile. This post could have been written by my sister who has two curly haired daughters who now straighten their hair. I will send this post to her. Love it!

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  14. Dear Suranga aji, not sure if you remember me! I now have a new blog, Big A and Little a where I write mainly about my two boys! Glad to reconnect with you!!
    Roshni

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