“you should begin your post with that”*

[an old post, originally posted on 26 july 2008:]

no longer possessing my once-vivid memory, i try to hold on to the stories – the same ones told and retold – by my parents. stories my father and mother tell each other and me. it’s a deeply oral punjabi tradition that continues to hold my childhood close enough for me to remember the relatives and conversations that i was too young to appreciate.

my mother had curly, black hair, with tendrils grazing her forehead and neck. i would have told her her hair was beautiful, but she resented it for not growing quite thick and long enough for a paranda (the traditional braid tassle).

she was ready to live her hair dreams vicariously through me. alas, i was born in a worse hair predicament than her. with thin dark brown hair that hardly covered half of my scalp, i was not the daughter she deserved.

my mother heard that rubbing surma on my scalp would give me luscious hair. she had knew that shaving would make the hair follicles thicker. not wanting to take chances, she tried both things simultaneously. so, yes – i walked around with a bald head during the day, and slept with a nightly application of surma (my mother did not want to embarrass me) for quite some time. by which i mean over three years.

my first balding occurred when i was a little seven-day-old, according to islamic tradition. i have self- and family-constructed images of a head not in proportion with the body – a physical quirk made all the more noticeable with my baldness – flitting from one memory to the next.

there’s one memory in particular that i recall as my own, and not my parents’.

i am running away from the front yard of my maternal home, retreating to the rooms through the veranda. there are three bedrooms standing adjacently, but not enough places to hide. i don’t know which room i run into. i hide behind clothes messily thrown on hangers. i make myself invisible behind the smell of moth balls and of clothes not worn for months.

minutes or hours later, my mother finds my feet and pulls me from the layers of duppattas, and shalwar-qameez suits. i fight back tears as i prepare to show myself to the guests who have arrived from another city. i let my mother see my face before walking out of that room.

i would not have to go through another balding.

——–

*said z, in response to my, “as a child, i had my head shaved fourteen times.”