THE POLITICS OF THE curly and the straight

The school Christmas Cantata was the grandest event of the year. I clearly remember, it was 1993, the class teacher asked me to join in it. It was quite a privilege since not everyone got to participate. I was rapturous inside though on the surface I only pretended to be obedient to the teacher. It really wasn’t that plain.
But…….a shepherd was not the role I was mentally prepared to play. A dull, brown, solemn looking shepherd was what I was to be, surrounded by pretty angels, very fair with curly hair. They looked divine to me and suddenly there came an air of inaccessibility about these chosen ones.
Well, this is what I wanted to be - an angel with curly hair. But whom could I say this to?
December came; the auditorium looked resplendent with Christmas lights and was reverberating with the sound of laughter and applause of the audience. No one noticed this solemn looking shepherd in a brown cloak. I didn’t even have a dialogue. The photographs taken later reflected how my glum face spoke of nothing that was ‘Christmassy’ in spirit.
I returned home and told my best friend over the phone, how much I had hated being the shepherd. She told me with her usual naughtiness, “At least you were not made a tree! Look at Parul, she had to get a huge dress stitched just to be a tree!!” But this was no help. I had to be a fairy with a long white dress, a crown and a wand and above all curly hair.
Next year it came December again and I was shepherd again this time. That evening I came back home and sulked, deciding never to be part of this event again. It took me two years to tell my mother that a fairy was what I wanted to be. An angel with curly hair! I learnt my first lesson….’voice yourself’ and there came the rewards…
She divided my hair into six parts and put paper rollers into it. Maa did it with an expertise that I could never have trusted her with. Within a few hours I had the locks of an angel, I danced around the house and even showed it to daddy who looked rather amused.
I went to bed feeling like I had won it finally. Next morning, the first thing I hurried towards the mirror and it was once again a flat mass of hair that fell poker straight on the face and then the eyes swelled and tears rolled out. No one could understand why??..........the magical mom who had created the curls last night too looked disappointed with herself and her creative sensibilities.
“It had to be temporary my child, it was only for a few hours”, she tried to explain. But the rationality some how did not permeate the flat mass of hair into the mind.
I got into the desperate explanation mode instead and told her that all my dolls had curly hair, the actresses in the movies had curly hair and the angels in the Christmas cantata too had curly hair. Maa looked wonder stuck for a while but then came up with an argument that was to stay with me for the rest of my life. Perhaps I can now look back with a certain mature detachment and understand the purpose of this incident being vividly and yet so hatefully etched in my mind. We have our lessons to learn.
Ma had told me, “But…you are a real girl!”
That said it all….
So here I am maa…your real girl ….with strength of mind and courage to see through life …the simpler things that stay within and are my driving forces!