On hair and other things
It’s still hanging over our heads: the neat hair argument. I remember when the hair-straightening craze started a few years back, I felt increasingly uncomfortable with my hair which is wavy and temperamental, the opposite of neat. (No silky waterfalls here.) It was all those adverts. Plus the nuns I grew up with had drummed into my head that hair must always look neat. It seemed like the adult world complied with such ridiculous notions.
I couldn’t bring myself to endure the unhealthy manipulation of permanent straightening. So I settled for using the hair-dryer and brush rather fiercely.
But it was tedious. And what a waste of time! And after one too many person had said, ‘oh your hair looks different all the time,’ I just chopped it off.
Now I’m growing it back, without interference. It is being given free run and every time I see it being its not curly-not straight, hyperactive self, I feel a little surge of pride like I’m bringing up someone particularly well.
Of course, I don’t have to go to places which demand strait-lacing of any kind so it’s easy. I wonder what I would do if I still had to attend client meetings, board meetings, weekly meetings and other such in some stuffy office. The pressure on women working in mainstream professions can be formidable. In a setting where you’re fighting to be ‘taken seriously’ most waking hours of your day, you’re unlikely to do anything that detracts from your cause. Add the public face element like in tv news or public relations or a host of others, and you’re even more screwed because they can actually demand you look a certain way. Between losing your job and losing your waves / curls, most women would choose the latter.
But there are enough women who don’t need to change their natural looks because of their profession but do it anyway. The urge to look like role models, the urge to fit in, the urge to belong — all hefty forces. But can we start fighting them, please?
Also, please read Nisha Susan’s story (in Tehelka again) on how we are creating an army of clones.
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Also, Jeanette Winterson reviews Alice Oswald’s new collection and talks about the role of nature in poetry, even today.
We can expect poetry to be relevant to our lives, but our lives include the inner and the mythic, the creative and the inventive. Our lives are lived on Earth, however much tarmac gets between us and the soil, and our lives are lived with the Moon and the stars above our heads, whatever the street lighting. Tarmac and street lighting are not more relevant than the estuary marsh or the Moon, only more pressing, which is a good reason for poetry to remind us of other truths.
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And this is what it looks like when the sea explodes.
March 21st, 2009 at 2:12 PM
Ah! Someone else who like Winterson too. I’m surprised at how many people know about her and love her writing…The count is almost negligible among the people I know…
March 23rd, 2009 at 1:37 AM
I own a straightener and a hair dryer that doubles up as a blowdryer. Happy to say neither have gotten much use lately. If you remember, I did not have straight hair in school. I cannot claim to have the confidence to go out with the frizz though. I need something to even keep the curls manageable! So is that any better, I wonder?
However, I will say it’s not being a professional in the corporate world that contributed or escalated any of this. This started in my good ol’ hometown, peer pressure from girls in my good ol’ convent school. Ring any bells?
March 24th, 2009 at 3:43 PM
I, on the other hand, have poker straight hair and I am frequently irritated by surreptitious grins of frisky hair stylist who feel the need to constantly touch my hair and ask me -”Don’t lie! You MUST HAVE straightened it!”
Bah!
Also, as someone who is majoring in philosophy I have always thought of my own hair as something of a disadvantage. Straight hair and Plato just don’t mix, I am told. Sigh. I wish it was mad curly and wavy and made me at least appear a philosopher in image.
Winterson’s comment about Oswald being a kinetic poet resonated with the fact that a lot of times I chant poems when I kickbox (much to my instructor’s horror).
I was reading some of your poems and they are excellent.
March 24th, 2009 at 5:28 PM
stylists*
March 24th, 2009 at 9:56 PM
I just read Nisha’s article Anu and while it isn’t anything I haven’t heard before – I’m a big fan of Shyam Benegal who has insisted on making regional movies, dialects in place and taking chances with so-called unconventional looking actors and always lamented our fixation on the Hindi-speaking, munda stereotype that gives nothing that you, me or our kids to relate to.
But what’s upsetting me is that 20 years down the line this hasn’t changed. In fact it’s gotten worse. With all the globalisation and affluence, shouldn’t it be a big F-U to the West? Why still preening, conforming? Of course the West is not the only one to blame; we started this whole thing ourselves. People here keep asking me if I do karva chauth. Leaving the feminist implications aside why should anyone assume the whole country follow this entirely north Indian tradition?
March 25th, 2009 at 5:28 PM
My other comment disappeared.
March 25th, 2009 at 5:32 PM
Bhagya: Really? I thought she was fairly mainstream these days. I didn’t read her until after college though. And welcome!
Girlonthebridge: Oh yes, bells dinging and donging
. Hmm, yes you’re right of course about it being nothing new. I’m not sure though how many people think about the straight hair issue because the fair skin issue (rightly, I think) is more talked about. And oh god, that must be irritating. I remember asking my mother about Karva Chauth when I was little because I had seen it in so many B’wood movies. She rather curtly informed me that Bengalis do not observe it. Heh.
The problem is people base their assumptions on Bollywood movies, and the biggest production houses do focus on north Indian (Punjabi?) culture. There is so little awareness about any of the other states.
March 25th, 2009 at 5:33 PM
Although I would say Mani Ratnam may have improved that a bit with regard to Tamilians –do you feel that or am I misguided?
March 25th, 2009 at 11:34 PM
Has he? He has certainly brought great quality to Tamil movies or rather Indian movies and I think far better than 90% of hindi directors but what I find is that South India constantly aspires to B’wood. The man cannot speak a lick of Hindi but now has taken to making Hindi movies (guru, and now one with the Bacchhans, god help us). I don’t grudge him whatever his creative heart desires but I do worry because everyone in India still places B’wood on a pedestal. Shouldn’t all the B’wood dirs be aspiring to Ratnam?
I like Rajiv Menon too. Have you and your Tam husband watched Kandukondein? It’s my favorite despite Ms. World. I like South Indian directors because they tie her hair tightly behind, take away her eye shadow and remind her that her purpose is to act not flutter her eyelashes. Heheeeee
March 26th, 2009 at 10:47 AM
Yes, me and my (half-)Tam husband have watched Kandukondain. There were no subtitles so he had to translate, poor guy, with me going ‘what? what? what?’ every 30 seconds. LOL on Aishwarya. Yes, she was better than her later self in Iruvar too. Hmm, you’re right about Ratnam aspiring to Bollywood, of course but his dubbed movies at least brought a different world to those of us in Bombay. Otherwise, it was mostly the Yash Chopra Punju shaadi spectacle.
March 26th, 2009 at 11:52 AM
I, on the other hand, have poker straight hair and I am frequently irritated by surreptitious grins of frisky hair stylists who feel the need to constantly touch my hair and ask me -”Don’t lie! You MUST HAVE straightened it!”
Bah!
Also, as someone who is majoring in philosophy I have always thought of my own hair as something of a disadvantage. Straight hair and Plato just don’t mix, I am told. Sigh. I wish it was mad curly and wavy and made me at least appear a philosopher in image.
Winterson’s comment about Oswald being a kinetic poet resonated with the fact that a lot of times I chant poems when I kickbox (much to my instructor’s horror).
I was reading some of your poems and they are excellent.
March 27th, 2009 at 12:59 AM
Scherezade: Lol…we can never win, can we? I’m sure you make a very serious, soulful philosopher in straight hair. I think everyone looks best in what they already have — of course, this may be a wee bit idealistic but for the part, it’s true.
Thank you for your kind comment on my poems.
March 27th, 2009 at 12:58 PM
Yes, one is lucky if one doesn’t have to fit any ‘norms’. But most people like to follow the norms even if they don’t have to. The fashion industry. I did an interview with a hairdresser recently who revealed that of course, the big salons make their money from selling products and treatments of different kinds which become absolutely ‘necessary’, not from hair cuts, which are just the basic entry point for a client.
March 27th, 2009 at 4:51 PM
I cut it off last evening and now sport an easy to manage (and awesome to boot) bob. Posh Victoria Spice Beckham(wheww)has got nothing on me. Hah!
Also, I am delighted by the Lightness of My hair Not Being. (Apologies to Kundera.)
Anthropologically speaking, it’s fascinating to read of how the practice of shaving a woman’s head bald was considered an apt punishment. As though presence (or absence, not to mention length, texture et al) of hair was directly proportional her “woman-ness” and shearing it would render her less of a woman. It was symbolic of reducing her Being by eliminating what is often referred to a secondary sexual characteristic.
Even more remarkable is the fact that I faced much eye-rolling and hush-hush-is-she-off-her-rockers type of outlash when I got rid of my headful of hair a long time ago but a friend’s aunt who shaved hers off at the same time after a pilgrimage to tirupathi received much reverence and appreciation.
Odd are the ways of this world, I say.
And I look more the rabid, will-use-sandpaper jackets-to-cover-her-books type of philosopher. It’s discipline of and for mendicants. Or those who had unfocussed and lethargic parents.
March 27th, 2009 at 9:10 PM
Banno: ‘necessary’, huh? Yes, I suppose once a person gets used to seeing themselves a certain way, they want to continue looking like that even if they have to pay through their noses or whatever. The real worry is this: how bombarded are we with one specific of beauty that we’re convinced we look better only when it conforms to that? It’s scary in a way.
Scheherezade:
Go girl! Just saw this movie called Caramel which has a similar story–in the end, the girl gets the haircut and emerges looking so free, it’s adorable.
It’s interesting the connotations attached to hair — freedom, sexiness, sacrifice — and not just in India (remember Jo cutting her long hair off in Little Women and what a significant moment in the book it is?)
April 6th, 2009 at 6:44 PM
I feel you on the curly hair thing. Some people have very pretty curly hair, I don’t. Even tried cutting it all off. Now I’ve been blowdrying my hair every time I wash it (on doctor’s orders), but I can’t imagine having to do that for the rest of my life.
We must start a Facebook group. Militate for equal rights.