Op-ed: Hair Dilemma

Sorry Yaar, daring nahi hain! My friend Prabha said honestly in Hinglish. Sorry friend, I don’t dare.

She was replying to me when I asked her why she does not stop dying her hair.

Nina agreed in a non-partisan manner: Look, I wanted to and even tried, but when I look at those ugly white roots, it scares the hell out of me. I do not want to be included in that category of people who are, you know… she took a pause, OLD! Why should I? I am still young.

I looked at her lined face and thought, true enough, if that makes you feel good, and young, then why not?

I will confess, I used to henna, my hair till I started looking like there was a bush on fire over my head, with orange flames rising up like Medusa’s snakes.

And when I finally did give up henna the transformation into white hair (or should I say silver strands) was rapid. I realised how different I must have looked when a kaypoh auntie at a wedding asked: “Are you going through financial problems, Daisy?” Huh? I looked bewildered. “I mean no money to dye your hair?”

Don’t Dye you Die! Dye you Die! Hair dilemmas!!!

Hair. That one aspect of the human body that refuses to behave like a well-brought-up child. It grows where it shouldn’t, and disappears where it mustn’t .

So, let’s get to the great existential question of our times: to colour or not to colour?

In our twenties, many colour their hair out of rebellion. (Of course, there are mummies who remain forever in their twenties who do so out of defiance – I will not age, and two grown-up kids and a dog will not stop me!!).

Burgundy streaks, copper highlights, that one unfortunate experiment with “sun-kissed gold” that makes you look like a disappointed marigold. It was fun. It was self-expression. It was, importantly, also reversible.

Then one morning in our forties (or earlier, depending on genetics and life choices), we spot it. The first grey hair.

It doesn’t announce itself politely. It stands there, upright and defiant, like it has rights embedded in the human constitution.

You pluck it, of course, throttling the voice of your mother in your subconscious. Do not pluck your white hair. Every one you pluck, two will return. The next day, it returns – with friends. A full delegation. Possibly with a spokesperson.

This is when the negotiations begin.

Colouring, we are told, is maintenance. “Just touch up the roots,” they say, as if roots are not staging a take over yet. But they are. Every three weeks you find yourself in a salon chair, wrapped in foil like a festive leftover, while a young stylist named Chloe assures you that “salt and pepper is very in”.

Salt and pepper? Excuse me. I did not sign up to resemble kitchen condiments.

And yet, there is a moment – usually around the third hour of sitting still, with dye slowly marinating your scalp – when you begin to wonder: Who am I doing this for?

For society? For vanity? For that one auntie at a wedding who scans your head like a barcode?

Or is it for yourself because you are simply not ready to look like wisdom has overtaken youth?

Ah, but if colouring is one crisis, balding is a full-blown Greek tragedy.

It begins subtly. A slightly wider parting. A little more scalp visible under harsh lighting. Then suddenly, every mirror becomes an investigative journalist. Every photograph is evidence.

Men have had centuries to come to terms with balding. Some embrace it with heroic dignity – they go for the botak, clean-shaven look, oblivious to their Indian pot belly in tight slim fit jeans, which is the real problem.

Others cling on bravely, rearranging the remaining strands, all the way patting it down from the left to the right and spraying the hell out of it so it does not stand up like a flag when the wind blows, revealing the truth.

Women, however, are not allowed such theatrical exits. Thinning hair is treated like a scandal.

There are oils, serums, masks, tonics – each promising resurrection. Your bathroom begins to resemble a laboratory of hope.

You massage. You steam. You invert your body at alarming angles because someone on the internet said it increases blood circulation to the scalp. At this point, you are no longer sure whether you are growing hair or training for World Yoga Day.

You know what the poetic phrase for hair is right – “crowning glory”.

Who decided this? Who looked at hair and said: “Yes, this is the crown?” Because, if this is a crown, it is one that slips, sheds, rebels, and occasionally deserts the kingdom altogether.

But perhaps the phrase was never meant to be literal.

Perhaps “crowning glory” was always about what sits above the hair – the mind, the stories, the years of living that no dye, no serum, no miracle oil can replicate.

Because here’s the truth we whisper only to ourselves: Hair carries time.

Every grey strand is not just ageing – it is evidence. Of laughter that went on too long. Of stress that lasted too much. Of children raised, plays produced, friendships survived, losses endured.

And yet, we stand there in front of the mirror, debating highlights.

It is a deeply human contradiction – to want to honour time, and also edit it – slightly.

So what do we do? We oscillate.

One day, we are fierce. “This is me,” we declare, letting the greys shimmer like a spring uprising. The next day, we are in the salon again, saying: “Just colour the hair and leave a streak of white.”

No, not like a skunk lah – like Mrs Indira Gandhi, you say with frustration setting off a FOMO panic in Chloe the hairdresser as she desperately googles for this new cosplay icon that she has missed.

We try short hair, long hair, layers, no layers. We consider wigs briefly (usually after a particularly bad haircut). We consult friends, hairdressers, strangers with excellent hair at the supermarket and use a variety of AI apps looking for a miracle.

And slowly, without realising it, the question changes.

It is no longer “to colour or not to colour”. It becomes: What makes me feel like myself today?

Because hair, for all its drama, is just us. It is one of the few things we can change without fundamentally changing who we are.

So colour it. Or don’t.

Tie it up. Chop it off. Let it go wild. Let it go grey. It’s OK.

Just stand under the harsh bathroom light and make peace with what you see – or at least negotiate a temporary truce.

Because, at the end of the day, the real crowning glory is not what sits on your head.

It is the fact that you still show up, look in the mirror, and say – “All right then. Let’s do this. Hair or no hair.”