A bad hair (wedding) day.

I have not been to a lot of weddings outside Kerala, but I envy them. 

Whenever I tune into some Hindi wedding song I see all those impeccably ornamented, good looking , happy families, full of youngsters. An average looking baby born into such a family could suffer from some serious inferiority complex. And there are like fifty people in the 20 to 25 age bracket which is not logical, this being one among a lot of other things. For example the wedding in the movie 'Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani' (where there were no adults anywhere in the scene) is so awe inspiring. All along it is like- who wants adults at a wedding they are old, they can’t eat cake. Somewhere some super rich Dad was paying astronomical bills and was not invited to what he was paying for. The bride gets to choose her designer and her hair done in the most exquisite style and eventually ends up looking like a …a….err… Bollywood actress:-/ (Well, what else)

Talking about hair, I am sure there must be some great tradition behind the updo hairstyles for Christian brides. Christian weddings in Kerala- I’ve been dragged to a lot of them – and willingly went to a few. And this hair updo undoubtedly is one of the greatest traditions that no one ever dared to defy. Other smaller, insignificant traditions like marrying someone from the same religion or caste or age group were reformed ages ago.

The bride, who is usually a woman who has never appeared in an updo in public view before, does so on the biggest day of her life. Other days she did updos were at home, when there was load shedding. You cannot really call that an updo…it is something like a temporary (and futile) way of tying up the hair to keep it away from the face and neck because of increased perspiration.

I have always wondered why a comfortable and tried-and-tested hairdo cannot suffice on a wedding day. A bridal updo is considered to be very sophisticated and its origin dates back to the days of Adam and Eve. The bride has no choice but to submit herself to the hands of the experienced hairdresser (who does the obvious which she has been doing since decades now she can do it even in her sleep). Even though the day hugely belongs to the bride, her choices are comparable to the likes of white mice at the laboratory. Only the angle of elevation of the updo differs, and organza flowers on the updo replaced the traditional pearls, but the stylists are completely oblivious of the fact that no one really cares.

However I have noticed that a lot of pretty women end up looking like someone they are not. The hair, the comfortable partition that defined the shape of the face and everything that looked good on a woman is changed for worse. Yes some brides did look much more beautiful than usual, but most commonly it so happens otherwise. The updo for one is tried for the first time, the off white saree spells simplicity and hence the makeup needs to be tastefully done- but I have been witness to beautiful women who became quite unrecognizable.

Wedding rehearsals are still not very common yet. Why not someone just go ahead and let the hair loose if she is most comfortable and pretty in it? You can always trust hairpins to keep hair away from the face. A simple and uncomplicated tiara to complement that can look like a fine hairdo! Look at her- I am not saying that this is an uncomplicated tiara, but the hairdo is pretty simple.

Ban updos. They are not for us. Let’s admit it, updos can look sophisticated with gowns on some women but with sarees …I don’t know, they just rarely look good. Sarees and updos are so familiar to us; we see it every other day that we have ceased to see beyond it. With time we are just improving it but we did not replace it with what suits us best.

I had an updo put up at the back of my head on my wedding, and disliked it to my very core. I wished I could pluck it and throw it away. I had never done an updo before that, ever. And I got a terrible headache with hair pulled up so much that its strength was tested (so was my patience). There were as many hair pins as there were people at my wedding and I ended up looking like someone I was not. And you know what? I cannot go back to that day and do it better!

It is so ridiculous I had the guts to choose my life partner but not my hairstyle.

Image Courtesy:Google Images.