Woman

The night was soggy, Houston autumn, frogs like squeeze boxes wheezing in and out. Her neighbors' nakedness seemed sad and enervated. Breasts flat on her chest, a kind of melted look to her flesh, ankles thick on splayed bare feet.

I had scribbled these lines down from the March 26, 2013 issue of the New Yorker. I'm not sure who or what wrote it, but the lines stood out to me as the description of a woman in a bind about her own body.

My Hair and a Jog Down Memory Lane

I have plans to shampoo my hair today. Typically, I apply oil--not the American hot oil, but the Indian "cold" (room temp) oil--before I shampoo, because it is said that mass-produced shampoo has high soap-content that dries the scalp.

When applying oil ("Keokarpin") I remembered how in India girls used to be told, that to grow long, "black" hair, a definite sign of the fact that you are a female, you had, not only to apply oil regularly, but also comb through the hair strands.

There are Indian erotic temple sculptures where ample-bosomed and narrow-waisted female pose with implements in their hands--the all Indian comb.

To comb through the length and depth of your hair is, by default, a rite of passage into womanhood (the right kind of womanhood).

So, in response to my memory jog to time past, I picked up my hair brush after applying oil to my hair. Then, I put it down. Nope, I also remember the scientific discourse on the Indian female's conviction that combing hair frequently will make the hair fuller and better. Even then, scientists said the opposite was true: To subject the scalp to the rough teeth of a comb was to depredate the scalp and the hair roots embedded therein. The advise was to comb less frequently and use a comb lightly to untangle strands.

I recall that the popular voice of this anti-popular hair discourse was one Sravanti Mazumdar, a brand-ambassador for the body cream Boroline via radio. 

Mazumdar, a fashionable woman with short hair, would remind listeners in the "Jobakusum" hair oil radio advert, how not to engage in "excessive" combing.