Hairy Tales!

Write about a time when you didn’t take action but wish you had. What would you do differently?

Indian marriages are a lot of fun. South Indian marriages are fun and scheduled for super early morning starts, so odds are, the bride and groom are exhausted even before the ceremonies start. Although I had a love-first arranged-later marriage, my marriage is no different. I had a 9 am Muhurthamwhich meant that I woke up around 330am to start getting ready.

The first order of business was the bath, mine was a cold-bucket bath, because the marriage hall I got married in, used firewood to heat water, and no one was up at 3 am, to have the water heated for me. A quick cold shower later, I stood in the room, shivering trying to drape a regular sari, when Mum came and insisted, I draped the 9-yard sari. The 9-yard sari is an extremely comfortable drape, it’s a combination pant/sari that gives you the comfort and flexibility of wearing a pant and a sari. However, at that point in time, I was not comfortable draping a sari, of any kind. So, I decided to wear/drape the sari, over leggings.

It is only after you have worn the clothes and are ready, that the makeup and hair styling start. I know that for a lot of girls, getting married is a big thing and one that they dream, plan, and figure out long before the event. For me, it was just a ceremony that would let me live with the spouse without causing heart palpitations for the rest of the family. So it was a means to an end. I had not gone on a diet. I had not thought about hairstyles and things like that. When I met my spouse, and we were courting each other, I had short hair. At that point, my office was located right outside my college, so it was familiar stomping grounds, and I knew of a parlor I used frequently when in college. I had been there and got my short hair permed. I thought I looked like Amelia Jane. I have no idea about the reality. I only know that the younger sibling who is always my shadow when I am up to no good, was also doing something equally shady. Anyway, my hair was short. First, I permed it. Then got bored of it real fast, and had it straightened just before I got engaged. The perm had lasted all of 2 months. The straightened hair was left to grow out as it would. A few months later, when the dates for the wedding had been finalized, my hair was a few inches longer. It just about skimmed my shoulder. Calling it long would be a misnomer. It was short. And the ideal way to style it would be to leave it as is.

I hadn’t thought through the process of the wedding itself. Unlike the over-dramatized white weddings we see on screen, Indian weddings are colorful and the dress for the main event is invariably always fixed. For me, it was the red or arakku-colored (beetle nut-colored) 9-yard sari. At least, mine was. Traditionally, the bride has long hair, that’s plaited with flowers and decorated. The sari itself is light, but with the jewelry and accessories, just the clothes can easily weigh a couple of kilograms more. To this, if you add flowers and artificial hair and decorations to the head, that’s another 2 kilograms. And that is what I had done. My hair was barely shoulder length, and I could not even hold it all together with a tie, to this, the stylist decided to add flowers and decorations.

My hair was pulled back and tied with tons of tiny strings, and everything below the shoulders was artificial. The reason I mention this is because, when you attach artificial hair with strings to real hair, the places where these joins occur are stiff and inflexible. I had a lot of costume changes throughout the ceremony and the stylist was aware of that, so she had braided the hair to ensure that I could just bend back and drape my dresses and saris around without disturbing my hairstyle. She had used a lot of string and pins and clips and then there was the business of the flower crown that she decided to use. I wasn’t too keen, but the stylist convinced me by stating that there were so many clips on my hair at that point, this would be the easiest way to hide all that mess. So as a cover to hide the pins piercing my scalp to hold the weight of all those flowers on my head, I had a flower crown. The sari draping took about 20 minutes, but the hairstyling took her a couple of hours. By the time she was done with the hair, I decided to keep the makeup simple and managed it on my own. When Dad came in to ‘see’ me, he was stunned by the transformation. I had a braid that was easily 6 inches in diameter with the flowers adorning it and it reached my waist.

A lot of back and forth goes on during the ceremony. The groom’s family gave a sari, I need to go and change into it. We give something, the groom must go and change into it. It’s a lot of fun. It’s very time-consuming. And if you have hair, that’s getting pulled out by the roots, slowly, then it’s also amazingly painful. All this give and take happens around the sacred fire on the dais. And everyone in the immediate family is sitting around you witnessing the back and forth, firsthand. There is a lot of talking. A lot of, ‘This is how it’s done’, ‘Are you not doing this’, ‘Bring this for her’, and ‘Give him these conversations that you have to contend with as well. In the middle of all this chaos, if a significantly senior relative from the groom’s side offers you an accessory, then as a mark of respect, everyone sitting around you, will ensure you wear that accessory. Ideally, that accessory should be given to you, so you can step out, and do the wardrobe change privately.

For me, it was a chain. And everyone wanted me to wear it immediately. Mum was preoccupied with the ceremonies. The younger sibling was talking with her friends. And the relative from the groom’s side had dropped it around my head and was tugging at it with all her might, to get it around my neck. My hairstyle had added an extra six inches around the neck. So, although visually the chain seemed big enough to go around my head, with the flowers and the braid and the joins in the style, it was too stiff and was not malleable. The Purohit conducting the ceremony did not stop the chanting when this gift was offered, they continued chanting while I was getting choked by an over-enthusiastic relative. It reached a point when the siblings realized what was happening and all of them came around to rescue and resuscitate me. The Purohit had stopped his chanting and with a frown marring his big broad forehead, insisted that the histrionics needed to stop. The offending accessory, the chain, was removed and placed in my hand and he decided that was the end of the matter.

While the elders’ presence is very important during the ceremony, the Purohit is a notch higher as he officiates and mediates between us mere mortals and the gods whose blessings he is invoking on our behalf to bless our nuptials. So his instruction got no arguments and the ceremonies restarted.

I knew that trying to wear the chain without opening the lock, was going to cause chaos. I had sat through every traumatic minute of the hairstyle. I should have just accepted it as it was and insisted that I would wear it later. The fact that I kept quiet was to not offend anyone when they tried to put the chain around my neck. The chaos that followed with one person trying to pull the hair, the other pulling the chain, the third person directing this entire drama while seated a few feet away, and a fourth one trying to figure out the location of the clasp of the chain that was already choking me. A lot of hands. A lot of directors.

And I still remember that this was the only part of the entire ceremony where I felt like I was standing a few feet away from my body, watching as a lot of push-pull, tug of war happened around my neck. I was itching to tell everyone to stop. To tell them that it hurt. To tell them, that my hair was not going to unbraid because they were jostling it so much. I had tears in my eyes, and all I was trying to do then- was not let it drop. Because I was upset with the entire ‘chain drama’ and not because I was getting married, which is usually the reason the bride cries during her wedding. Even now I wish I had insisted that I would wear the chain later. Taken it and kept it aside. It would have reduced the drama on the dais. It would have avoided the ‘out-of-body’ experience on my big day. And, I really wish I hadn’t bothered with the damn hairdo. It made me look gorgeous, but it was not worth the pain. And finally, I wish I had eaten something that morning. A hungry bride is an angry bride.