The Saga Of My Long Hair

Strange how whenever I reconnect on Facebook with my students from a long time ago, say anywhere from 15 to 25 years ago, they almost always are startled on seeing my short hairdo and question me about the looong hair I used to have! Oh yeah, that was another time and another place, for sure! While teaching in the Department of English at Lady Doak College, Madurai, India, I seem to have impressed my students a great deal with my long hair, if not my teaching! Many of them have distinct memories of the particular way I used to put up my hair, and surprise me with their recollections of the same.

So it goes that I had hair long enough to sit on and I used to wear it in a single braid like a snake. By that, I mean that my braid wasn't too thick or too thin, but just the size of a medium snake. My students tell me that I wore matching hairclips with my hair pulled up from my face, and then loosely bound at the nape of my neck with two colored ball clips that matched the color of my saris. Seriously, I don't recall this very much at all. From the ball clips downwards hung a single braid that swung like a pendulum when I walked. The only thing that I remember was the hassle of having to pull my braid to the front so as not to sit on it and have it caught under my kind bottom. That, and also having my year old son pull my braid and grab those colored balls so he could chew on them like candy!

I do remember though that I held on to the long hair for 3 years after I moved to California. By this time, maintaining it was becoming a problem. In addition to caring for a rambunctious three year old, having to take care of the hair as well was wearing me down. My sister took me for a perm, and I sported waist length hair, all in curls, for some time. That too proved to be a nuisance soon enough - I had to iron curl it, mousse it, and what not - not exactly my cup of tea! My husband kept urging me to chop it all off, and one day out of desperation and frustration, I took the plunge. I categorically asked the hairstylist to do the deed, and to my greatest surprise, she refused to take the scissors to my head. She tried to talk me out of it - "It's beautiful as it is. Why do you want me to cut it?" - but when I held on, she asked me if she could take my hair after it was cut. I asked her what she would do with it, and she replied she'd make beautiful hair extensions with it. I sort of felt like the heroine of O.Henry's "Gift of the Magi", only my hair wasn't used to buy a gift for my beloved, but was probably meant to be attached to some stranger's hair!

Thus ended the saga of my long hair and the rest is history. When I tell my current students in Vancouver that once upon a time I used to have hair long enough to sit on, they look at me with an incredulous expression as if to say, "Get out of here!" Have I regretted one bit about having lost all that hair? Not really. I feel like I belong in this part of the world, and I think it goes quite well with how I dress to work these days. It's the perfect foil to my dress clothes, and needless to say, my husband has now quit complaining of how long I'm taking to groom my hair!