The Beast That I Carry With Me! (Don’t worry, it isn’t some confession. Just a rant on my hair)

I have always thought that my hair deserves its very own blog. Because you see, having curly hair like mine is not a regular thing. It doesn’t happen to everybody and the straight/wavy haired majority is clueless about our plight. They do not understand that I appear to wear my hair the same way since I was a kid not because I necessarily like it, but because every haircut looks the same on me.

My feelings for my hair is sort of like love in those cheesy love stories… the girl is always at odds with the boy, declares that they hate each other and make each other’s lives hell (you know the drill) …and they realize their deep secret feelings for each other only when one of them: a) goes away to a distant land, b) agree to marry another person, or c) falls terminally sick.

It is like that with my hair too. I despise my curls (they should actually be called frizz, not curls) and am positive that they hate me back with passion. They grow on me though (metaphorically as well)! The frizz, the stubborn frizz, the un-tameable frizz…well, you get the picture. I secretly love how my hair is so unpredictable, mysterious, silly and humiliating…They manage to make me look wild and crazy when I NEED to appear neat and collected. They make me look childish when I would prefer a glam look and they misbehave EVERY time I make a special appearance! And just when I decide that ‘enough is enough, I am SO getting these bitches straightened permanently’, they lovingly curl around my fingers and beg to let them stay. They appear soft to touch and look whimsical. I realize with a pang that I will miss them. And I make up my mind to let them stay. Then the cycle begins all over again -_-

My hair definitely has its good moments. They do occasionally appear pretty and cute and stylish- the way curly hair is supposed to look like. But the catch is that these rare moments happen ONLY when I am about to sleep or take a shower or while alone at home. They are determined to not give me a cause to show them off. They never look pretty when I have company. My hair, you see, is quite shy!

I am armed for the worst-case-scenario though. The scenario being my future kids inheriting my hair! I know that they will hate me for inflicting this on them. Hell, I hate my own parents for not having curly hair themselves but still managing to produce an offspring with this stuff on her head. How hard was that, huh?

I have often wondered if I am adopted despite the overwhelming evidence otherwise. I happen to be the only person in my family with hair like this. I have a haunting collection of childhood photographs sporting a happy kid smiling at the camera oblivious to how her hair blocks everything else in the frame! And what about my scarred childhood when I couldn’t understand that I cannot have the same haircut as my sister and best friend? Talk about UNFAIR!

I still cringe when I look at those horrible childhood photos with my little sister. We were dressed alike but her hair looked shiny and glossy and neatly falling into a cute mushroom cut while I, well I looked like I had an ugly black hallow around my head.  It must be made illegal;parents maiming their curly-haired kids that is. Even I could see that what I had in the top of my head was not a mushroom. I remember complaining to my mom and having to bear the rubbish consolation that I look like Indira Gandhi with my new bob! What 7-year-old want to look like Indira Gandhi anyway? I didn’t even know who she was. I just wanted to look like that little girl in Poppy Umbrella ads. But thanx mom, for introducing me to Indian history…!

That is not the only time she made up excuses for my unnatural hair. I luuurved reading when I was little and literally read everything I could get my hands own. I even read the whole Bible during a summer vacation in my Primary School, much to the puzzlement of my parents, because I couldn’t find anything else! And while we are at it, let me tell you that there is some highly age-inappropriate stuff in Bible and it should be kept out of reach of children 😛 During this brief religious phase when my ambition was to die and become a saint, my mother tried to placate me  telling that Jesus, Mary and the angels had curly hair just like mine! I promptly believed that my hair was indeed divine and that it was a sign from heaven because (just like I suspected thanks to a biography of Joan of Arc) I was destined for great things. I made fun of my little sister’s ‘mortal’ silky straight hair so much so that she recently confessed how she grew up believing that her hair looked bad and prayed for ‘godly’ curls like mine. Sweet times!

But I have made a promise to my future girl child. A promise that I shall let her grew her hair in infancy so that she wouldn’t have to go through the triangle face phase in her teenage… Triangle Face phase is when people try to grow their curly hair long but it refuses to grow beyond the shoulder level.  It is perpetually shaped like a triangle (It did for me, anyway)! That is the least I can do to ease her realization that she will never have normal hair guaranteed to look the same most days. That, and the assurance that she resembles powerful woman figures or angels, depending on her orientation!

All that stuff that you find online like the ‘10 Truths only Curly-Haired Girls Will Understand’ and ‘Curly Hair Problems, while largely true and consoling, doesn’t take into account the predicament of girls like me living in a perennial humid weather.  You may think that winter is bad for your hair. Well, it is more than a season that is horrible to us. While it is raining half the time in this tiny state of Kerala, the rest of the year we spent sweating under the hot sun! Humidity is part of our lifestyle and I am curious if my hair will look better in non-humid climates and am tempted to travel abroad just to see if my theory works.

Speaking of the Online Sisterhood of Curly Haired Ones, I found a blog spewing pure pearls called The Curly Hair Problems. Like I said, Pure PEARLS…I have never before felt so completely understood. Some favourites of mine:

Curly Hair Problem #871

Accepting that a good hair day is like Narnia- You’ll never get there the same way twice!

Curly Hair Problem #935

Looking at Ramen noodles and realizing that even they have prettier curls than you.

Curly Hair Problem #939

You can’t deny that the curls on the floor are yours, since everyone else has obviously straight hair.

Curly Hair Problem #150

Not being able to casually run your fingers through your hair, because you may not get them back.

Curly Hair Problem #624

You only need a dime-sized amount of conditioner. LIE

Curly Hair Problem #313

Buying different hair products each month, because you know that the perfect one is just hiding from you.

Curly Hair Problem #869

You can’t afford this kind of hair.

Curly Hair Problem #886

Your hair can magically tie itself into knots.

Curly Hair Problem #865

You wonder how you can control your life when you can’t even control your hair.

Curly Hair Problem #105

Wishing that you had other people’s curls.

Curly Hair Problem #918

People say how ugly another curly-haired girl’s hair is, but quickly follows with “oh, but yours is gorgeous!”

Curly Hair Problem #591

“Is your hair naturally curly/”

“Do you really think that I would do *this* on purpose?”

Dear fellow-haired girls, I feel ya..! WE ARE QUEENS CROWNED IN OUR CURLS!