Let me be honest, it took me months and months of reassurance and all the
guts I had to finally do something I’ve always wanted to do. Shave my head.
And I’m appalled at how everyone including myself thought it was a big deal,
until I realised it really shouldn’t have been.
Society has indeed glorified our obsession towards our appearance.
I was in school when my grandmother got diagnosed with cancer. I knew the
treatment would be painful, but it was only recently when I saw a
documentary, that I understood its depth; the massive amount of physical as
well as mental strength a person needs to fight this disease. My family chose
to keep me out of nani’s treatment as I was only a kid back then but that’s
when I decided that I wanted to go bald at least once in my life to show my
support for cancer patients.
This lockdown has given us all some time to reflect on ourselves, and it made
me realize how out of touch I was with things that really matter. Going through
my school scrapbook took me back to how much donating my hair meant to
me and I considered acting upon it this birthday. But guess what? The first
thought that came to my head was “How are people going to react to it?”
Unfortunately, with the kind of influence social media has on our lives these
days I guess it’s only natural to feel this way.
The concept of beauty and femininity is so vast; beauty is supposed to be
defined by YOUR definition of what YOU consider beautiful but instead we’ve
been drilled with an unrealistic prototype of beauty, thanks to the misleading
representations of the same via media.
With time the kind of content we’re consuming is surely moving towards a
more open mindset however, the main theme still remains true to the
stereotypical image of what is perceived as the ideal indian woman. Long hair,
fair-skinned, tall, slim and obedient- as Sima aunty would gleefully agree.
Finding your own identity is absolutely not acceptable by the Indian society as
that has already been laid out for you. It very soon becomes about how you
have to fit in rather than find your own voice.
What is also absolutely ridiculous is, how what might be liberating to one
woman is taught to be unacceptable to the others. There’s so much to explore
and experiment with and yet we are caged to a definitive way of living our
lives.
I can’t even begin to explain how empowering it felt to shave my head! This
was a major act of letting go and a much needed one too. We’re constantly
being compared; sometimes by others but most of the times by ourselves.
With no hair, I’m coming to accept and love the features I’m blessed with. It’s
about diving deeper than the surface of how I look, into who I am.
People who’re diagnosed with Cancer or Alopecia aren’t given a choice about
the way they look. Their body is anyway fighting a very exhaustive battle and
my only hope is that they shouldn’t have to fight a mental one too about the
way they look. We’ve got to normalise the fact that not everybody needs to
look a certain way to be beautiful.
I'm not letting any magazine tell me what is attractive or any soap opera tell
me what is considered feminine.
It’s time we start associating the word strong to feminine because women are
done being weak- we’ve ought to stop feeling apologetic for doing things that
make us happy.
We can shave our heads, have tattoos, ride bikes and still be the most loving
versions of ourselves. Even if Gopi bahu preaches otherwise.
wow