The heap on one’s summit is verily called the crowning glory as it not only makes or mars a person’s appearance, but also arguably influences the person’s attitude. On a recent visit I observed that the braid or ponytail was a rarity in the United States, whereas our land is full of naughty ponytails, staid plaits and neat buns for the conservative, and the ‘wind-blown’ style reserved generally for the youngsters and avant-garde elders.
The nostalgic route takes me to the gates of my venerable school where apart from the strict ‘no-ear-hanging, no-bangle, no-ring, no- bindi’ rule, as school-goers we were allowed only two strict plaits tied with red ribbons. Yet again, if the braids were below waist-length they had to be tied up, with the ribbons seen behind each ear. Some girls took prior permission to sport a loosely tied plait on the days they had washed their crop.
The school had its day of lenience, with all the teeming, effervescent teenagers! Saturdays — the colour-dress day — saw a few of my seniors sporting two small buns on either side behind the ears, a la Dimple Kapadia in the 1970s movie Bobby . I would gape at other seniors who would indulge in the weird style called ‘teasing’, which involved roughing up the hair to a great extent and arranging it like a beehive. The taller it was, the more wows it attracted!
I recollect an incident, where as a teenager I had tagged behind my mother to a family friend’s place. My mother and the hostess were engaged in a conversation in the presence of the hostess’s drowsy looking mother-in-law, who to my young mind seemed a hundred years old.
I was happily leafing through the pages of a daily. Just then a relative of the hostess arrived and it thrilled me no end to see her ‘beehive’, almost seven to eight inches high. Little did I know that my excitement would be short-lived. As she reclined on the sofa with a proud look on her face — the ‘teasing’ style was not for the layman, you see — the old lady suddenly woke up from her stupor and saw the beehive-like thingy staring at her. She jumped up with alacrity and landed a heavy hand on the hive exclaiming, “What on earth is this?” I don’t exactly remember whose face became redder, that of the guest whose hairdo had now been flattened, or that of the hostess!
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