Short hair!

Now, I may have mentioned (just once or twice... or a million times) that my short hair is a constant source of confusion and concern for Bangladeshis. Beautiful women have long black hair. The only reasons a woman would have short hair are because she is sick, has lice or is crazy. Many, many times I have tried to point out the virtues of short hair (cooler in summer, easy to look after, suits my face etc) but with no success in swaying peoples' opinion. The standard trifecta of questions (what is your name / country / marital status) includes a bonus question for me: why do you have short hair?

The first time I had a hair cut here, the colleague who took me got a severe telling off by all the others upon seeing my trimmed locks on our return. When wearing a sari at a work function the other day, one of the most senior staff members told me that everything about my appearance was "most excellent - the only problem is you do not have beautiful long hair." [I also got told I was "heavy shundor*" which I was initially offended by, until I realised that "heavy" is one of those words whose meaning gets lost in translation.]

* shundor = beautiful

So I could hardly contain my excitement a couple of months ago when I spotted a female news reader - with short hair! I pointed this out to the other people who live with me, but they just dismissed this, saying, "But this is not Bengali system."

And then, at another work function today, I met a very funky young Bangladeshi woman with short hair. She was most surprised when I asked for her photograph, wondering what the hell was so photogenic about her. When I said it was because of her short hair, I don't think she could have been any more pleased than if I'd said it's because she is an Aishwarya Rai lookalike. This groovy chick has spent lots of time in Burma studying with Buddhist monks there, trekked illegally into Thailand and Cambodia, so far refused to get married... Pretty different to most other Bangladeshi women.
When I looked at the photo later, I was filled with jealousy cos her haircut's way cooler than mine! I should have asked where she had it done...