Curly Tales
Embark on a journey of self-acceptance as the author Dr. Puja Banerjee Barua decides to embrace and celebrate her naturally curly and frizzy hair after years of conforming to societal beauty standards. A candid exploration of the struggles with salon treatments and the realization that true beauty lies in accepting oneself.
I have decided…enough of pretence and denial! Not only am l going to live with them, but also enjoy them! What am l talking about? Ah! My curly, frizzy hair! What else?!
How’s that for a googly?! For years l have been aping others and making annual trips to the salon, putting up with long, insufferable hours of sheer torture in a bid to straighten out my wild, obstinate waves and curls! I have sat through nicks, been scorched, scalded, my scalp pulled off my skull, every possible 3rd-degree torture inflicted upon me in the name of rebonding! Such a sham the term itself is! There is everything but ‘rebonding’ happening, in effect! Every kind of bond is broken during those few hours every year… the one that l have had with my tempestuous locks since birth, the one between my hair roots and my scalp, even the one between my parents and me in a way because l am practically denying my inheritance! Do you wonder now why the people in the business of ‘beautification’ use such misnomers?! They smoothen out any creases that your conscience might be developing!!
I have even been told by my hair dressers and stylists, with an air of exasperation, that l am a bad client because l don’t make the prescribed number of visits to the salon… seems l need to straighten out a few things besides my curly hair!
Well, now that l am well over the hill (ahem! Not giving you folks the number!), l have let go of all need to conform; beauty is in accepting oneself as one is and revelling in it, l have realised!
Why look like an assembly line product?! Almost everyone l know has hair as ‘straight’ as broomsticks! Shiny and glossy, no doubt…but even the shine has to be carefully kept on with ‘products’! Too much trouble for working, multitasking, semi-demented women like me who can barely get through their regular grooming!
I will not deny though that for the duration l had my artificially straightened/rebonded hair, in a way life was a breeze for me…on most days, l wouldn’t put a comb to my hair, with none the wiser! And l must say it was easier to style and tie. But l always felt my conscience pricking me, telling me that it wasn’t me after all!
So this time, when it was paramount that l make a trip to the salon, l opted out with resolute firmness! How can l expect the world to bear with my crazy frizzy hair and even like it, if l cannot myself?! Time for change…time to touch base with who l am….and learn to love myself!
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