i don't really know how to start this piece so let me state some facts to get the ball rolling - i was 17. i used my dad’s trimmer. it died midway, so i had to use my brother’s trimmer. it was a mix of blade 1 and 2 and ended up as a very choppy buzz cut. my hair couldn’t get shorter unless i put a lot of shaving foam and took a blade to it. that approach scared me because i couldn’t even shave my own legs at the time without cutting myself, let alone my head. so that’s what i had. a choppy buzz cut with a lot of scalp shining from underneath.
people ask why i did it, and i never know which answer to give them. the easiest is that it was the peak of covid. that should be enough explanation. but it wouldn’t be the truth. i mean, yes, i was at home, unable to go outside, spending more time with my family than i had in years. i was a senior in high school, supposed to be preparing for my board exams, the equivalent of the sats, except unlike the sats, you couldn’t just take them again. if you screwed up, that was it. and at that point, the exams still weren’t canceled. so i was in a constant state of stress - if i would even pass, if i would ever leave this house, if anything would ever go back to normal. on top of that, my body was going through a lot: medicines, hormones, tests, more tests, even more tests, and then some more medicines. i wasn’t exactly sick, just... weak. i remember losing so much hair during that time. i would wake up to find strands on my pillow, in my sink, between my fingers when i ran my hands through my hair. it added to the stress. and then one day, i just snapped and got rid of all of it.
my dad loved it. my mom cried. my brother laughed. it didn’t faze me because it was exactly what i expected. the minute i took the trimmer, i knew that for the next year i would be subjected to a lot of questions, taunts, anger, laughter, and whatnot. so i tried my best not to let my parents’ reaction faze me. besides, i had the safety net of lockdown. nobody could see me unless i wanted them to. i had months to get comfortable in my skin, months to exist without the option of hiding behind my hair. and it wasn’t easy. it took so much patience, so much restraint to not immediately regret it.
then, in october, lockdown lifted. i was called back to school. i also had a very hearty invitation to a cousin’s wedding, followed by another function in my grandmother’s village. this was it. this was god testing me. all those instagram posts i made from the comfort of my room about how liberating it was to shave your head were coming back to bite me.
school was easy. my chemistry professor, who absolutely despised me before, started treating me kindly. either i had earned his respect, or he thought i was terminally ill. it worked out either way. everyone was partly impressed and partly shocked that i, of all people, would do something like this. of course, i got some looks here and there, but nothing that really affected me.
shopping for the wedding, however, was hilarious. every salesman had a different pitch for me, as if a girl with a buzz cut wearing a lehenga was either revolutionary or outright blasphemous. “beta, maybe you’d like something simpler?” “this color would look better on someone with long hair.” “are you sure you want this style?” at the end of the day, i had laughed so much that my stomach hurt.
the real test came when i went to my grandmother’s village. the women there had always looked at me like i was some foreign creature. they could never quite wrap their heads around me: how i could be so outspoken, how i would say no to chores, how i would argue with men in conversations. they would gather around me as i attended online classes, watching in awe as i spoke in english, even if it was something as simple as “sir, could you repeat that? my internet is bad.” and then i walked in with a buzz cut, and i think my grandmother nearly had a heart attack. her first question was, of course, if this was a one-time thing or if i planned to keep it because, after all, who would marry a girl with no hair? that evening, when all the village women sat together to talk, i was the first thing they addressed - how my height and build made me look like a boy, how i should start looking for a wife instead. they giggled when they said it, but even in humor, there was truth. i still wonder what would have happened if i had said, “that’s exactly what i’m looking for.” but i didn’t. i just laughed and ran my hands over the short, rough strands of hair on my head.
i remember going to a trampoline park with my cousins once, and the guy working there asked if i was a boxer. he took one look at me: my height, my build, my buzzed head, and thought i was an athlete. when i told him i wasn’t, he was genuinely confused. “then why did you cut your hair?” i tried explaining, but he couldn’t wrap his head around it. he needed a reason. women, in his mind, didn’t just cut their hair without one.
and maybe that’s why, despite everything, despite the laughter and the stares and the constant justifications, i never really regretted it. because society didn’t treat me differently. if anything, they treated me with more respect. suddenly, people listened when i spoke. men, who once brushed off my opinions, now looked at me directly. shopkeepers, teachers, strangers: they all spoke to me differently. i wasn’t told to “smile more.” i wasn’t dismissed as easily. it was subtle, but it was undeniable. my presence carried a weight it never had before, like i had unknowingly stepped into a version of myself that people had no choice but to take seriously. and maybe that’s what unsettled them, not the lack of hair, but the fact that i had stripped away something they thought defined me, and i was still standing, still myself, still whole. maybe they weren’t used to a woman who didn’t need permission to take up space. maybe they didn’t know what to do with a girl who had nothing to hide behind.
years have passed now. my hair is longer. i know that i don’t command the same kind of respect i did back then, not in the same way. but i’ve learned how to take up space, how to hold my ground. if they let a woman with a shaved head do it, then they should damn well let a woman with long hair do it too.
Now I really want the lockdown to be back again so that I could do tht too (NOT JUST TO COPY) (I would love to be bald)
HHHHH
this is so hilariously relatable, especially when the only thought you had while doing it was- “it is just hair and it grows back”, it is kind of awful i’d say how vaguely society looks at women with short hair (although we had the same perception as a child)
maybe we’ve outgrown them or maybe maybe they just take life too seriously :)