Why Is My Short Hair Anyone Else’s Business?

When did the length of my hair makes its way into your nose? How did it, even after I cut it short, reach your nose and go down into your stomach?

Wow, I deserve the Nobel for Physiology and Medicine this year for discovering this marvellous ‘anatomical corridor’. Or was it known to everyone else? My biology teacher never taught me this, she was a monster who made us memorise each line in the textbook by heart, but there was no line mentioning this pathway!

You can verify the factuality of my discovery by checking it up on the internet. Just like you read up about every medical medical malady, real or imaginary. And then go blurt it out to your doctor – that rare breed of humans who have amazingly high level of tolerance for everything and everyone, especially those who plague them with misinformation and wreck their brains.

I may sound like a maniac, but I am no maniac, atleast, not yet. But my neighbour thinks there is something wrong with me, as do many others in my neighbourhood.

They have explanations too, it’s cancer, ‘of the blood’, incurable, eating her brain; it’s mental illness, depression, stress, failed relationship; she’s a rebel, a femin…(ssh, the dreaded F word). Society seems to have one (or many) reasons for why I have short hair. When I, myself have none, I had just got it done on an impulse, without much (any) thought.

Does length matter?

But why does my hair cut create such a stir? It’s too short to even notice, or is that it is too short and so they notice? Well, fact time! India is a country, proud of its culture and heritage, and nowhere is it mentioned of a queen, a freedom fighter(oops, only a handful of females we know!) or anyone great woman, having cropped hair.

Illustrated children’s mythology books show Sita with long hair and Draupadi who didn’t tie her hair (they didn’t have hair ties then and maybe she had silky hair that couldn’t be tied, or she wanted to let her hair down-pun intended-indeed).

I have questions, to ask anyone who dares to speak about it to me to my face. But how do I when it’s all a hush-hush, behind my back, and limited to just stares? Culture resides is in the gorgeous long hair of women or what?! And are all princesses born with luscious locks? What did the royal barbers do (only oil massage?)

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Did my hair really go all the way across my head and into your nose? I really want to take on all those nosey parkers whose business is my hair, but in passive retaliation I can only write and end this writing with a quote (a preview of a quote to be a quote when I become famous and give interviews – yes, I am a dreamer) myself, “Your nose is best on your face, it has no business in the length of my locks”.

Image source: a still from the film PK

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