My Daughter’s hair

“Ammaa..” my daughter was calling me. From the sound of it I knew something was wrong. The word Amma ( meaning mom) can be said in different ways. A mother knows, just like I knew when my daughter was an infant and she would cry…. I would know whether it was for hunger, for feeling tired or just bored…. It took me sometime but I learnt it. Similarly now I knew.
I looked at the clock it was 7.05. My mind was calculating furiously…. If it was a small problem maybe I can fix it… if it is a bigger problem I have to do the it- is- not- the- end- of- the- world routine. Then I realized that the bus text hadn’t come yet…. So how much time do I have? Is there a mistake… last evening’s bus text was also late… maybe I should call Nagraj(The school bus in-charge) My chain of thought was interrupted as I felt my daughter’s arms hug me!! OMG it is a big problem …. Maybe I should just go with the it-is-not-the-end-of-world routine. I hugged her back waiting for her to say something.
Gone are the days when I would go ahead and tell her that I know what was going on in her mind. I have learnt that if I do that then the hands would go right back where they came from and my daughter would suddenly become this stranger. She would go away without saying a word and that hurts a lot more than when she answers back…. I think all moms understand this. I didn’t want her to go away to school with that look on her face. God knows that it is only fleeting… she will forget about the whole thing once she reaches school. But, something told me that this was serious.
Then she slowly told me ….” My hair…” . I was relieved it was not a forgotten homework, it was not about losing an important notebook … just before the exams and thank god it was not that she had an exam today and she hadn’t studied for it. I had to hold back a smile that was about break on my face. With all seriousness I asked “what about it?” Then I noticed her hair. It looked all clumped up… like how my hair used to be after my mom had put all that oil in it. Definitely it was not a big deal. I told her, “maybe we can comb it and put a hairpin… it will look neat”. She shook her head “why has my hair become like this? It used to be so soft?” My 15year old know- it-all, thinks that hair can actually change from one type to the other overnight? It is unbelievable.
Then I realized, however intelligent she maybe when it comes to various other things, she was still a 15 year old. For her, hair mattered a lot more than it did to me. “Okay, as soon as you come home today we will wash it again and make it better” I said hoping against hope that it would solve the problem and she would start stepping out of the house. She started wearing her shoes but didn’t look convinced. At that time her father came up and said “why is your hair like that, what if you get pulled up for hair not being combed properly?” My daughter gave me a pained look. My husband understands my daughter very well in certain matters… mostly academics and building her confidence, etc. But, hair was completely my domain. Really, what do fathers know about such things? I just gave him a don’t-say-a-word-more look and stepped out with her to the car. All through the ride to the bus stop I kept telling her stories about how people deal with embarrassment. At the bus stop she didn’t get down like she always does once she sees her friends. She asked to stay in the car till the bus came. I told her more stories to make her feel better.
Finally, I asked her what it would say about her if she stayed back home just because she had a bad hair day? That seemed to have had an effect as the next thing she said was” it became like this because of that shampoo you asked me to use” That made me feel better because my feisty daughter was back…. She hadn’t done anything for her hair to be like that, it was all Amma’s fault. I smiled inside. At the same time she saw the yellow bus in the rear view mirror and quickly got out of the car, pulling her bag up her shoulder…. Yelling I love you … she was gone. I was glad that my daughter did realize that there were more serious things to worry about than her hair…. Like missing the bus… OMG! that would be the worst.