Hair and There - With Naga

There’s something about barbers, excuse moi, hairstylists that is akin to executioners. They pin you into the chair, cover you up with a cloth, slop your wet hair back and make you look ghastly in the mirror and then…menacingly approach wielding their weapons. “And what would you like this time—short, in steps, permed, curled or should I just take your head off?” Cut it off, Vasu—I mean the hair. And snip, snip, snip—hair today, gone tomorrow.

Very short this time, because I’ve finally learned to like my face.

Naga’s hair woes were a story altogether. She could not cut her hair. “What all I have to do, Madam, to be a ‘good’ daughter-in-law! I must keep long, long hair. My mother-in-law boasts to fellow neighbors, “Look at my bahu! She is working woman and yet no need for style-vile short hair”. Long hair is my certificate for a moral character.”

But Naga—it’s your hair.

“Yes, Madam, it is. And grew it did, all the way down to my knees. Full 15 minutes it took me to wash, an hour to dry and another 15 minutes to comb it. Even my husband would not let me cut it, so much he liked.”

They probably see it as a sign of beauty

“Only sign I got was that people in my family were mad about my hair. After all, they were not carrying all that hair on their heads. My husband and mother-in-law would say, “Why you want U, V and W haircuts, Naga?” So I had to find a way to deal with the hair in the hot Andhra summer.”

So what did you do Naga?

“Like a good daughter-in-law I told my mother-in-law and husband that I wanted to go on a pilgrimage—how can they say no? So I went to Tirupati and got an O cut.”

Oh my, Naga, you tonsured your hair?

“Yes Madam”, gleamed Naga. “The bald style grew into cropped style, cropped into boy-cut, boy-cut into short blunt, then shoulder length—and the best thing is Madam, all these hairstyles I got for free!”

Vasu! I screamed mentally thinking of the bill!