Baal Baal Dekho

I hated my hair as a kid. My parents would take me to the barber’s shop every six months for a haircut. I’d hate that place. Because every time I went there, my 10 inches long hair would be trimmed down to 3 inches. I had a boy-cut till I was 7 years old and a really short bob for the next 3 years. I’d always wish I had longer hair which could at least be plaited down into cute braids. You see, there’s a certain amount of vanity in long tresses.

By the time I got into the 6^th grade, I had shoulder length hair and I had decided upon growing it even longer. This was the time when the ritualized trips to the barber had come to an end and my mother finally decided to give me the freedom to style my hair whichever way I wanted. I grew my hair for the next couple of years. I finally had hair long enough to be tied into braids. But this was when I realized how unmanageable long hair can get.

Life without hair must be a lot easier to take. People who lose their hair and/or choose to shave their heads would know this.

A man can freely do so without giving it a second thought, but if a girl decides to take this step, she will become the talk of the town. Her bald head will soon become controversial. After all, a woman can’t go against what the society expects her to be –a fragile object of beauty? It just wouldn’t make sense in this society who has taught women to be Cosmo girls who wear high heels, have a beautiful figure, pursed lips, small hips and long and pretty hair. And even though it’s just hair, it says something about the vanity of our culture, doesn’t it? Despite how far we’ve come, beauty and sexuality remain tied to a woman’s hair.   

Why does a girl suddenly become unattractive if she has no hair on her head? Is our identity really a haircut away from being taken? What is this global fetish with hair?

Women have always conformed to the norms of the society. If we don’t toe the line of femininity or behave in a way which is even slightly different from the way society expects us to behave, we’re labeled as freaks. Outcasts. 

Sure, not every girl will look like Demi Moore from GI Jane or Natalie Portman from V for Vandetta, and some might even look crazier than the bald Britney Spears, but what people fail to realize is that nobody’s identity is molded by their hair, but rather by the content of their character; their morals, their values, their thoughts and their dreams.

And if a woman DOES decide to do this, she will surely be looked down upon. Some people might even stare at her, mock her, think she is stoned or start speculating about her sexuality. After all, long tresses have always looked desirable on women. It is the symbol of beauty  and if they are chopped off, people would say a woman has lost her sheen, even her femininity.

Come to think of it, shaving off the hair must be liberating. It’s low maintenance too. Going bald would also be more environment-friendly in saving water and the time that people spend in the shower washing and styling their hair. They wouldn’t have to worry about spending money on haircuts or on all those hair products people use to make their hair look lustrous and less stringy.

I’ve always wanted to try this too. But it’s difficult –throwing away something sure about yourself, a quintessential part of your identity. And it takes a strong person to break out from the normal and be different.
So, I guess I still try to hide behind the wall of my own hair because when I look at myself, that is one of the few beautiful things that I see  –and I know I have a lot to work on when it comes to my self esteem. I want to know what it feels like to not worry about my appearance. I want to know what it feels like to look a certain way that will ensure that no sane guy would ever hit on me and still be okay with it. I want to know what it feels like to be appreciated as who I’ve put in the time and effort to really become, and not just the body I was born in.

There will always be people who’ll tease me or deride me, but I guess I’ll also be able to find out who my real friends are; people who’ll be willing to look past my face and love the person inside.

I refuse to tell myself that I won’t value the same because I look a certain way. I know my hairstyle doesn’t define who I am. Plus, it’s just hair –It grows back! But I also realize that life would not be the same for me once I decide to do something so extreme. Maybe someday I’ll be able to muster all my courage and actually do it.

I wish I lived in a world where people are not so concerned with superficial ideas. At the end of the day, I don’t want people to remember me by the way I look or dress or carry my hair, but by the person I am.

Image Source: www.liesyoungwomenbelieve.com

Teen Nation Desperation

If you know a teenager, you would know one prominent and very likely, an annoying habit that is embedded in them – they are obsessive. Dangerously obsessive. You will find them hooked to a particular kind of music, movie, celebrity and they will be addicted to it till eternity. That will be all they would choose to talk about, irrespective of whether you’re interested to hear them out or not. And we’ve all been there, done that. However, thanks to today’s digital era, these obsessions spread like the plague. And teenagers being the young, impressionable creatures that they are, allow themselves to be obsessed and are preyed on by producers trying to sell some ridiculous idea that they are otherwise unsure of. Screw the injustice!

We have the misfortune of having a few such friends who are obsessed to the point of driving everyone around them up against the wall. And they are NOT going to slow down in the foreseeable future. So we present to you a list of obsessions our friends obsess with and just won’t stop – take a clue for the love of god! (Unless you’re sent on Earth by the evil forces and your ulterior motive is to kill us by making us hear your never ending rant.)

1. Harry Potter

If you’re anything like me, you’ve never read a Harry Potter book and neither are you a huge fan of the Harry Potter movies. Being a non-fan of the franchise, the release of a new Harry Potter movie would always make me feel like the only abnormal teenager who wasn’t in awe of this cute adolescent boy who has a lightening scar on his forehead. Watching a story about a young boy with hidden magical powers who is actually a wizard and his constant attempts to kill the ugly nose-less villain is something that never interested me. But as a teenager from an all-girls school, I do have a friend who is obsessed with this wizard and I fail to understand her fascination with him.

With the release of every new Harry Potter book, I’ve seen this fan’s obsession grow stronger. Any mention of Harry Potter makes her scream, applaud, laugh, or overall just become rather giddy. While other teenage girls would want a cute little dog as a pet, this Potterhead begs her parents to get her an owl. And even though people might start to think that she has gotten clinically insane when she calls the teachers she doesn’t like “Snape” and says things like “Wingardium Leviosa” and “Expelliarmus” in everyday conversations, she doesn’t mind being a crazy fan. She’s that one friend who’d always wish to dress up as a wizard or a witch for Halloween and owns several pairs of black robes and pointed hats. She memorizes spells and sorts everyone she meets into “Houses”. She believes she knows more about Harry potter than J.K. Rowling does. And the worst part is – you would expect her to get past this Potter obsession now that the series has ended, but it has clearly worsened it. Damn you, unfair life!

2. Justin Bieber

While many teen pop stars have inspired hysterical behavior, Bieber fans are the craziest. This group of people suffering from the highly contagious Bieber-Fever usually consists of the hopelessly romantic teenage girls and a few pedophilic gay men. The mindset of these fans is something that no sane person should attempt to decipher. They feel some sort of bizarre attachment to this boy which I personally find slightly creepy.

I’d like to make it clear here, that I’m not one of the people who hates his music or finds him annoying. I don’t care if my calves are probably bigger than his, or if he looks like a girl and has a high voice, or even if he swings his hair more often than the women in shampoo commercials. But like everyone, I too have that one friend who’s so completely obsessed with this baby-faced teen sensation, that it makes me wish I were deaf when I’m around her so I couldn’t hear her constant blabber about her love for Bieber. She can only express her fan-girl joy by either screaming at the top of her lungs or crying hysterically at the mention of his name. She’s someone who has seen every Youtube video of Justin Bieber and can dance around outside singing his songs all day long. She checks the newspaper everyday to cut his clippings. And I swear I saw her cry when he recently won an award. If only she knew that more than star-struck, she comes off as annoying!

3. One Direction

It’s a well established fact that all teenage girls are obsessed with songs that sound like pretty white teens singing about “love”. And a certain friend of mine is madly addicted to this boy band which seems like the next Backstreet Boys and is giving our beloved Justin Bieber a run for his money. Remember girls drooling and dying over Bieber’s hair flip? Well imagine FIVE Biebers, all flipping their hair in sync (the horror!). And there you got One Direction.

One thing that is as difficult to comprehend as their British accent is why most (not all) of the mainstream music is total and utter crap. There is no originality and no soul (imagine record labels hiring guys to be writing songs for you, others composing songs for you, a few other auto tuning “your” songs and the rest of the guys making you look pretty on the album cover). Not that One Direction is absolute rubbish, there has to be SOMETHING about them that makes them this huge. The sad part is that often more obscure artistes fail to get such recognition. No denying that some of their songs are quite catchy and they comprise of five cute looking boys, but my friend finding them irresistible and wishing one of these guys would sweep her off her feet and end up marrying her has become a bit too much now. And too much of anything is bad. This is why I’m just one step away from banging my head against a wall.

4. Taylor Lautner

Tanned skin, buffed up body, handsome looks –this is probably what every teenage girl wants in her dream guy. But Taylor Lautner is certainly not the only celebrity possessing these qualities. Then why is my friend obsessed with him? Because she is more addicted to the sexy werewolf, Jacob Black and not the actor playing him.

Apart from her walls adorning Twilight posters where she mercilessly cropped out the irresistible vampire, Edward Cullen, she proudly proclaims she is in “Team Jacob” and has dedicated countless Facebook pages and groups to the same (which makes it all the more terrifying). Certainly, the odds of a Jacob Black making her his werewolf princess are as high as Taylor Swift refraining from singing love songs. But she is addicted and it doesn’t seem like there’s any turning back.
Having a crush on an out of reach celebrity who is oblivious to your existence is understandable (we have all been there, right?), but having a crush on a fictional supernatural character is just pitiful.

5. Vampires

The “Dracula” –once known for venturing in the dark and mercilessly feeding on human blood has now become a butt of jokes thanks to the growing number of writers and producers for turning these evil, scary, mysterious and terribly hideous vampires into vulnerable, sympathetic creatures who not only survive, BUT glitter under the sun. Sure their knowledge about vampires is as limited as Paris Hilton’s brain and the teenage girls who’re drooling over them wouldn’t recognize one if it bit them in the ass.

Who would’ve thought a decade ago that a day would come when young girls would want a vampire to suck their blood? And vampires too, along with having to deal with everyday teenage issues, have to resist the urge of sucking the blood of the otherwise quiet, socially awkward girl, who for some reason seems incredibly attractive to all vampires who also happen to be hot guys. And this vampire epidemic does not seem to recede. My vampire-obsessed friend loves all blood suckers, be it Edward Cullen from the Twilight-puke-Saga, the Salvatore brothers from the Vampire Diaries, or the ones from True Blood. The situation has gotten so worse that now she actually believes that vampires exist. If her obsession doesn’t die down soon, I would just show her Bram Stocker’s Dracula –this movie will prove to her that vampires are horrifying creatures and not wimpy ones.


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