A Hair raising story...

Hair is dead. Hair falls. Hair re-grows. What is the big fuss about it? Look at the advertisements. Good for texture and volume. Hairspray. Gels. Sodium lauryl sulphate and silica based gunk dressed up under fancy names and weirder smells. Or maybe stranger home remedies. Eggs and papayas and mint- food to be imbibed through the head. All for a bunch of dead cells. So I never bother about my hair much.

I wash it two times a day- the head gets itchy if left unwashed. And I run a comb through my wet hair once in the morning and let it dry like that… it decides the style it wants by itself. Falls into its curls naturally and stays that way. Also earns me compliments. From men and women alike. Not that I need them. But my hair does not bother me. Because I do not bother it. Usually.

The long black strand in the book was mine. I know my hair. What was surprising was that this book – Haroun and the Sea of Stories- was from my short hair days. Of course I had not opened it before that. I was here in the US. The book was in Naini Tal and I had only now got it back with me in August. And opened now in January. No, I had not read it there. I was getting married and getting my teeth fixed. Try curling up with Salman Rushdie in that environment.

It could not be my hair. But it was my hair. Must have fallen out some time back, I reasoned. Immersing myself in the Processes too Complicated to explain, I forgot about it. And then it was time for dinner.

The next evening I opened the book again. There were two strands of hair where I had left off reading. Almost like a bookmark I thought. I ran a hand through my curled mane. The Shah of Blah was not so gripping this time. Or maybe it was just tiredness.

Then there were three. In the place where I had left off reading. Three long curly hair. Black with a copper streak through them. Not mine. These were not my hair. Definitely not. I never use color on my hair. Ever.

And four followed soon after. More copper. Then Five and Six and Seven. And they moved through the book. To where I had left off reading. Never anywhere else. And in no other book. I moved on to John Grisham. No hair there- nor in harry Potter- not Ken Follett. School work was similarly hairless, but Haroun and the Sea of Stories gained more and more. It was almost as if they were growing there.

Growing. One hair at a time. One by one adding on and on. What would happen if I read the book on and on. It is a slim volume. But somehow every time I settle down to read something distracts me…And I barely manage a page. Not even if I force myself. It is only Haroun and the Sea of Stories. No other book. I do not know what is happening. I have read the story. I know what happens in the end. But it is a horrid fascination that keeps me opening the book. To see what may come out of it……Something will emerge something will.. I know…. I need to find out…..

And today there was a blonde strand in my Harry Potter…..