A Free WOMAN: Shaving my Head in 2024

How I came to feel more feminine than I ever have once I shaved my head & other ways in which this act has impacted my world(view):

Hair is such an integral part of feeling feminine – at least that’s what we, both men & women, are subliminally and directly fed from the moment we gain a social sense of gender as female. I always enjoyed lush thick hair while growing up. My hair was not my own – it belonged to my mother, my family. It was something that made these people proud. Most older people asked me how I managed to maintain my hair (as if as a teenager I cared about nourishment or nurturance!).

I was always asked by elders, “Anjuri, what do you apply in your hair? How is it so black? How is it so thick? How is it so long?” – I sported buttocks-level hair once (early to mid-teens). I don’t recall it being a conscious choice I had made – that length of hair. I don’t even think it was a choice given/ afforded to me back then. It was my mother’s decision. Anjuri shall have long hair (most probably because she had Rapunzel-level hair back when She was my age) she must have decided by default. Or maybe even She didn’t actively decide that either. Either way, Anjuri had very long hair.

Then one day, in my late teens (around 15 maybe), I decided I had had enough of the boring long hair. I was waking up to my own ‘agency’. I was waking up to the power of accumulated ‘pocket money’ and was ready to make a decision and live with its consequences – I went to a salon with my then boyfriend-cum-best-friend and got most of my hair chopped off – leaving it shoulder-length only. It was the Rachel-mixed-with-Urmila-Matondkar-feather-cut haircut, sort of. (re: Urmila Matondkar’s hairstyle from Pyar Tune Kya Kiya). I looked beautiful, to say the least. And it felt oh so light and freeeeeeee.

It has to be said here – clearly – writing about this has made me realise that this was possibly one of the first decisions I took in my life, for me, by myself, without caring about anyone else’s opinion. A first of many more to come!

I guess this is where my emotional independence began taking root and shape.

So, I had gotten my long hair cut to 1/6th or 1/7th of its original length. I was elated at how it looked and felt. My bestie-boyfriend loved it too! Such joy!

But all this joy-making came to a rude halt the minute I reached home.

It was the scandal of the family that year, or at least that month – “Aaaaaaaaaah (screams), Anjuri cut her hair off! Anjuri destroyed her hair!” My mother, upon seeing me with short hair, stopped eating her meals for a couple of days. She threatened to throw me out of the house. She was convinced I was a bad girl. That I had somehow rotted in character, overnight.

How could I? How could I decide something like this singlehandedly about parts of my body!?!? How dare I? Didn’t I understand this unspoken law – I don’t/ can’t belong to myself. Bits and pieces of me, especially the “best looking/ feeling” ones belonged to my mother, my family, my extended family, the neighbours, the school I attended, society at large, all the Toms, Dicks & Harrys!!!

Why couldn’t I understand this simple truism?

My poor family. I had let them down, by cutting my hair to a length that was to my liking. (rolling eyes emoji)

Believe it or not, 34 years have passed since I made that choice, and this is STILL SPOKEN ABOUT IN MY HOUSEHOLD. It is a legend. That hair was a legend. And I am forever pigeonholed as the moron girl who DESTROYED HER OWN BEAUTY, destroyed her god-given asset.

And this is NOT JUST MY STORY – many girls share it (my own elder cousin sister, 2 years my senior was shamed so much about taking that decision a couple of years before I did – she was continually compared to me and taunted, “Look at Anjuri, she is such a good girl, what lovely long hair she has!“. Its a miracle she didn’t end up hating my guts.). But she was stubborn as well. She soldiered on. So did I.

Ever since that first incident (chopping my hair off), I decided that all decisions about my body must come from Me and Me alone – and there has been no turning back. Whether it is experimenting heavily with hair length, hair colour, getting tattooed, experimenting with non-vegetarianism, choice of profession, being a ‘fat’ bride, choice of husband, choosing to stay child-free, being divorced, quitting a cushy advertising job, foray into psychedelic-exploration, being an artist, staying off men/ staying single – I have made all my own decisions by following my own heart and hunch. And I have endured all the consequences, positive, negative or neutral.

My understanding is this – when all decisions (about me) are mine, I can’t blame anyone for the consequences – I take ownership & all responsibility; & since all decisions are mine, the good ones are mine, and so are the bad ones – and the bad ones are more valuable to me because they are crash courses in self-awareness and growth. If I don’t make any mistakes, how will I evolve?

Additionally, from a quantum lens on things – there are no mistakes in life – only decisions and experiences leading to other decisions and experiences.

Fuck around & find out, right!?

Coming back over to the topic of my hair, a woman’s hair.

Over the years (from 15 years of age to turning 40), I have sported various lengths of hair on my proud head. There have been phases of hair straightening, hair colouring, highlighting, hair naturally curling on its own (intense humidity of Bombay), a few phases of hair fall. Through it all, my family criticised my choices. No exaggerations here. Any way I wore my hair was somehow unsatisfactory to everyone. Did I care? No. Did it bother me, the incessant judgment & criticism? Yes, of course, it’s so unpleasant.

If you have nothing nice to say about someone’s appearance, keep your mouth shut.

Basically, mind your own damn business AND cultivate some good manners.

For people hailing from cultures and countries other than India it’s important for you to know this – In India, families assume control or try to exercise stifling control over their children’s lives – no matter how old said children grow (some 90-year-old parents try to dictate their 65-year-old kids’ lives too! No joke!). Offspring is considered parents’ property. And this is truer for girl-children than it is for the boys. But yeah, it’s true across the board.

This may be changing gradually for the better, but in my generation (those of us born in the 1980s) it was pretty much a default.

I had experienced a big bout of hairfall after coming down with COVID in April 2021. Covid also brought with it a deeply depressive feeling (sort of ‘everything is pointless‘, ‘I don’t wish to live‘ sort of stuff) at the core of my being. For months afterwards I was low, I couldn’t muster up enough energy to pursue much. I used to enjoy my hair and love it even, even though I had caused it some damage with years of experimentation. But the hairfall was so stark that it sort of added to the depression I was feeling. I was feeling less and less feminine with that thinning hair. It all seemed beyond my control and it was taking a toll. Those were also the years when I was decidedly un-gendered, remember – where I had dissociated from and retired from my womanhood.

Around my birthday that year (37th birthday), I decided to chop my hair down to just above my neck. By the way, for about a decade now I haven’t stepped foot in a salon, I have been giving myself haircuts. I had noticed some time before that, when I would still visit salons for haircuts, that it had become standard practice to point out all the things that were ‘wrong’ with you – to be able to sell thousands of rupees worth of hair ‘treatments’ and other cosmetics. Used to piss me off! Unsolicited critique has no place in my headspace. I began feeling resentful about the fact that I was paying money to get criticised about my physical features. No way!

This eventually moved me enough to stop wasting my money at those temples of artificial beauty and unwarranted abuse at the hands of ignorant employees. And very quickly I realised that I didn’t need to go to salons in the first place – I just needed a pair of scissors, a mirror, some common sense and a my own hands to do the job, to my satisfaction.

Hence, for the last decade or more I have been cutting my own hair. And in all honesty, I have been mildly curious about shaving my head during that entire time – that curiosity has been growing with time. So, that day in 2021, around my birthday, I had decided to shave my head clean, by myself, with my own hands.

I had asked my dad for his electric shaver the night before, and decided to use it the next morning upon waking. First I had to cut the hair very very short in order for the shaver to not have to do much of the work. I chopped my hair off all over, leaving it at about 2-3cm in length.

Then I brought Dad’s shaver to make the first swipe across my scalp. But to my surprise, the minute I switched the shaver on, the battery died. The whole household was still asleep (I am a very early riser), so I couldn’t disturb anyone for a frivolous thing such as a shaver-charger.

I looked in the mirror, and saw what I looked like with a ‘boy cut’. It looked nice! Not bad!

I decided to let it be, for some time.

I kept that haircut for over 2.5 years. More and more hairfall continued to plague me. It was truly depressing. Meanwhile the urge to just simply shave my head was screaming loudly within the walls of my curious being. I didn’t yet have the courage.

Until one day this year (June 21st, 2024), I couldn’t hold myself back any more. I woke up particularly early that morning (not by design), I was very bored those days, and suddenly had this a-ha moment – “Let’s shave my head!”

I cut my hair as close to the scalp as possible, and then I let it rip. The shaver worked this time. After the first swipe of the shaver/ razor, I was terrified, but since I started snap-bang in the front of my head, I had no choice but to keep following through till my entire head was shaved clean.

I did it! And believe you me, the more hair I shaved, the more I liked how it looked on me! I honestly couldn’t believe how lucky I was to have such a nicely-shaped scalp and skull! Wow! I loved it so much that I have since been re-shaving it clean almost every 6-10 days. I adore it! I ADORE IT!!

The more I have lived with this shaved head, the more I have seen my skin glow, the more I have looked in the mirror, the more pictures I have taken of myself, the more happy I have felt with Myself. I have a few theories as to why.

(I took this picture an hour after shaving my head, glowing with glee)

I have mentioned above how hair is such a big part of femininity in general, across cultures, and also in my country, India. Men are allowed to naturally go bald, or even shave their heads if they so wish (of course their ‘loved ones’ might question the decision and not support it, but more agency is put into the hands of men to make their own decisions ultimately). But for women, going bald is not an option. Hair signifies fertility, good values, beauty, desirability (amongst other things) for women. So a loss of hair is a loss of all those things.

Before you think that its the same for men – as in, hair signifies fertility, virility, youth, beauty in men too, but haven’t you ever heard many bald (either by choice or natural causation) men being called ‘handsome’? There you go.

Ever heard of beautiful bald women? Not in my country. One would have to be a cancer and chemo survivor to be considered ‘beautiful when bald’ here. And I would say this might apply to the rest of our world too, in general.

So, when I shaved my head, I was hyper-aware that I would be less than a woman going forward. That my very existence would come into question – on top of being a single-by-choice ‘childless’ divorced woman, now she is bald too!?

But I couldn’t help myself – I had to shave my head – it was urgent, the need/ desire had been screaming within me for years now and especially lately (2024!). And the irony is not lost on me – the fact that this year, unexpectedly, I had woken up to the realisation that I needed/ wanted male attention and affection. That I wanted romance.

How is a bald woman to find love or feel ‘attractive’ in my culture/ society?

I did not know. But clearly my priorities were clear internally, even though I may not have been able to articulate the same outwardly. I NEEDED TO SHAVE MY HEAD! How else can I say this!?

I needed to. I needed to. I had to.

So I did. Without worrying about what it would mean going forward in terms of my eligibility as a single woman. And, man, did I do myself a favour!

Ever since I have shaved my head, my view of Myself has transformed. My view of femininity has transformed, for the better. My understanding of my value & worthiness has changed. My appreciation for my womanhood has begun. My approach to men has changed. My honesty has amplified. My boldness has heightened. My self-imposed exile has started to dissipate. I feel so very free from so much baggage. And one other thing has been transformed since I shaved head – that I would say is one of the most valuable ways in which this has changed my life this year. My relationship with my mother (and my family at large).

It might seem odd to read this – but ever since I shaved my head, my relationship with my mother has transformed for the better. After I revealed my shaved head to my parents, for an hour or two my mother looked so mad, said nasty things to me, refused to even look at me. Not surprising. My dad just shook his head in disbelief, but by now he knows not to waste his energy talking me out of decisions I have already made and actions I have already taken (haha!).

But something incredible happened after that first hour or so – My mother started joking about my newly bald head! Yes! She started calling me “Aye Takley!” (“Hey, Baldy!”). And this being said to a woman is virtually unheard of. Never has a woman been referred to as this. Haha.

At first, I could hear Mom saying these words a couple of times, but it didn’t even register in my head that it was indeed I she was calling by that name! It took me a few moments to gather that She was calling me, and also laughing at me. I laughed as well. It felt so funny!

We both laughed.

Its been 5 months since that day and its been pretty much this way – between Her & I – she complains about my shaved head from time to time, but mostly She calls me “Aye takley” or “Shaakaal/ Saaboo“, (famous bald male characters from dated Indian TV/ film content) and laughs openly or to herself. I LOVE IT!!

It makes me laugh too.

I was curiously observing Her relax more and more around me, meaning she was letting her stiff upper lip posturing relax around me, being more silly than before, cracking jokes with me, more physical contact with me (where there had been none for decades – I used to have to forcibly hug or kiss her, while she would grudgingly kick or shove me away from Her). So much was changing between us. So fast. And clearly, this change began since that morning I shaved my head.

I was aghast and amazed. But since I am a child of Psychedelics, nothing truly surprises me any more. I began looking for answers though.

I was doing a mushroom ceremony by myself one night, and I saw a vision of a very young child’s head (a toddler) being shaved (its called mundan, and its a ritual followed by many Indian families to this day) amongst many other visions that visited me. That visual stayed with me. I remember asking the mushrooms the reason for my mother changing so much around me. I didn’t get an answer straight away. But by now I know that answers will most likely appear if I look relaxedly.

The next day I was looking for text on hair in relation to energy, following a hunch regarding the vision the mushrooms showed me. And I got my answer – it seems that hair can trap a lot of old stagnant niggling negative energy over time, and cutting or shaving hair can release those energies from the person’s being. I have a solid hunch that Me shaving my head simply released a lot of the negative energy that my Mother & I had shared since decades. You see a mundan is done for babies to cleanse them of negative energy, past live baggage, and to grant them a fresh start!!!!!!!

By shaving my head, I believe now, based on evidence – i.e. the sudden change in my relationship with Mom – that I have unknowingly given Her & I a fresh start.

And ever since I concluded this, I can finally see why this need in me (to shave my head) was SO DAMN URGENT, SO DAMN MOVING! I had to do it, I needed a fresh start – in so many areas of my life!

Now that I have talked about the biggest boon stemming from me shaving my head (Mommy dearest & I), I would love to elaborate on all the other life-affirming consequences of going bald by choice, in no particular order:

WHAT IS A WOMAN? I haven’t come to an answer that would address the whole trans-gender debate (neither do I care to address that here), but I have come to understand my individual womanhood better – FINALLY! I have never felt more like a woman than I have since I shaved my head. I don’t know how to explain this. I’ll try.

Ever since my divorce, I had retired from life, from womanhood – I had stopped relating to ‘womanhood’, I had become more and more masculine in my outer appearance too, I wouldn’t make any effort to ‘look feminine’ for most of those 7 years, and especially since I gave myself that boy-cut in 2021 I had totally lost interest in even trying to pretend to “be” a woman. Does this make sense at all?

So, imagine my surprise when, upon shaving this head of mine, I began to feel more like a woman than I had IN YEARS!! I had often lamented over these part few years – in my Ayahuasca circles – that I no longer looked or felt like a woman. And some enlightened tribe-members had reminded me that the definition of ‘woman’ is as broad as it is wide. While I understood this in theory, I couldn’t practically relate to this. Today, with this shaved head, I do. I am woman. I am feminine. Oh so majestically.

And not because I now conform to any of society’s stifling ideas of what it means to be a feminine woman either – but despite that – from the inside-out I now feel so supremely feminine. Like a flower, a symbol I have never before identified with, with layers upon layers of petals. Blossoming, blooming and engaging with every season. Nectar flowing. Attracting butterflies and all of god’s winged wonders.

I am in my creative and existential Prime now – I just didn’t anticipate (nor could I have in a million years) that a shaved head would catalyse and/ or outline that!

SEEING MYSELF MORE: Ever since I have shaved my head, literally from the minute after doing it, I have been looking at myself from all angles in the mirror. First it was curiosity, then it turned into admiration and delight. Of course vanity comes attached with this too. The ego looks for and finds a hook of security in how ‘good it looks’/ ‘how good I look’. But I don’t care. A healthy ego is good. And my ego is HEALTHY right now 🙂

Ever so often, much more than (hundred times more) ever before, I pose for my camera, a big smile on my face, flaunting my beautifully shaped head.

This is an astonishing turn of events for me because I actively avoided the camera for the last decade or so. I refused to be photographed or would do it out of politeness (group pictures to commemorate certain events etc.). So, for history’s sake – it’ll be interesting for me to look back 10 years from now and see that suddenly, in the year 2024, not only was I a part of others’ camera rolls, but I was also filling up my phone with Selfies (!!!!!). Big change for me! Happy 40th Anjuri.

SEEING MYSELF MORE CLEARLY: I don’t know if this will make sense, but I feel like I am able to see myself better, clearer ever since that layer of vanity (hair) has gone. I can see my eyes clearer when I look at myself in the mirror, my smile is beautifuller, my facial features are somehow more potent now – if that makes any sense!? Hehe. I can see myself clearer.

UNBURDENED BY ANOTHER LAYER OF VANITY: Post COVID, I began experiencing a lot of hairfall. And I was aware that at least half of my energy was going into just focusing on that, on how scanty my hair was appearing, how the short hair made me look masculine (not by design). I don’t know WHO I was trying to impress – maybe it was just my Inner Critic – but I was definitely stressing about it constantly. I wouldn’t enjoy the rain (one of my favourite things on this earth) as it is meant to be – wouldn’t walk in the rain, would watch from indoors, begrudgingly – why? because wet short hair would appear even more scanty.

The thinning hair gave me another excuse to stay hidden from the world. To stay a hermit. Not to say that I have become a social butterfly now – but I am not actively hiding any more (more on this in the next few posts).

The hair ‘problem’, akin to my age-old body-image hangup, became a dull, boring, ‘ugly’, ‘insecure’, ‘stagnant’, ‘drudgery-like’, ‘negative’ outline to my identity as a woman as well as a person. I was mostly preoccupied with this vanity stuff. Ugh.

What a waste of life! F*CK THAT!

Ever since I have shaved my head, I cannot emphasize this enough – I AM FREE. Free from all this nonsense hair-insecurity-garbage taking up space in my monkey-mind and free from worrying about how my hair looks!

This act also gave me a ton of new courage and a completely new approach to problem-solving – CREATE RADICAL CHANGE – meaning, address and/or eradicate the problem at the SOURCE – NO HAIR, NO CRY (hahahaha).

Additionally, I feel like an uncaged beast now. I feel uninhibited in newer ways. I seriously didn’t expect any of what has taken shape and form within and without me with this simple yet counter-cultural act of shaving my head. I feel like a genius (what a genius impulse and idea!). I feel like I should’ve done this years ago – but I know everything happens in its own good timing – and it just so happens that I shaved my head in the run-up to turning 40 (not by design, but by impulse)! Aaaaaaaahhhhhh! Yaaaas. What a way to end a decade and to start a new significant one!

UNPRECEDENTED CONFIDENCE AND NONCHALANCE: I will say something here that might not make sense – but here it goes – my skin has been glowing since I shaved my head, my smile is freer and more joyous. I remember that morning when I shaved my head – I couldn’t stop smiling for hours. It was like a hanger was stuck in my mouth. I smiled so much that morning (mostly at my reflection in the mirror) that my cheeks began to hurt.

Self and social confidence, in general, are at unprecedented levels currently. I have always been a confident person, walking into a room like I own it, but NOW I do not even feel the NEED TO OWN A ROOM, ANY ROOM – I am relaxed, more relaxed than ever before.

Having a shaved head also gels naturally with my style of being an ‘open book’ as much as possible (without hurting anyone deliberately) – WHEN YOU SEE ME, YOU ARE SEEING ME AS I AM, totally and completely as I am. You know what I mean?

Now on to an interesting phenomenon I have noticed re: my shaved head –

MY MERE EXISTENCE TRIGGERS SOME, FREES SOME: As if shaving my head is a fundamentally political/ social statement (which it is totally not! – as written above – it is deeply personal), random people have been having REACTIONS to it. And by random, I truly mean Random – and its mostly men. Men I don’t even know. Men who aren’t my friends. Men who I am not related to. Men who I don’t even know the names of – apparently some men are simply baffled, but not rendered speechless. They MUST share their opinion with me, ask me why I have ‘done this’ and stare at me for extended periods of time. These men are mostly older – let’s say 60+ years of age. Mind you – they aren’t my uncles or grandfathers. They are just some men.

An uncle, out on his morning walk, to whom I have casually said ‘good morning’ a few times a year when we are out and about at the same time (while I walk my dog) – has now stopped me in my tracks, crossed the road, gestured to me from afar to stop and wait for him – why? so that he can question my life choices. The first time he asked me “why this?”, I answered rather politely, “I have always been curious, so I finally did it.”. He wasn’t satisfied. He wanted to know if I am ill. I replied politely that I wasn’t. Then he asked me if it is for religious purposes or “are you planning to become a monk?”, which he followed up with a blatant “given your choice of clothes it doesn’t seem to be the case!” (I was wearing my regular ‘walking my dog and simply existing‘ t-shirt and shorts). My patience was running out by now. I laughed in his face and got out of that conversation.

Apparently, this wasn’t the end of it – the same morning this ‘Uncle’ came across my elder cousin brother (walking his dog Louie), and proceeded to ask him, “why has your sister shaved her head?”, to which my brother said something vague. Uncle then proceeded to tell him what I had said to him earlier that morning to which my brother remarked, “well, if you have already asked her and she has answered, why ask me?!”

Right said Fred.

But noooooooooooo.

This Uncle bumped into me a few days back and decided to question my shaved head again. This time I simply laughed in his face and walked off. he asked, facing my back, “when are you going to grow it back?”, to which I shouted a naughty “neverrrrrrrrr”. he was suitably horrified and in disbelief.

It is one thing to question Me about a decision I have made about my appearance, my body, which is NOT HARMING ANYONE – BUT IT IS COMPLETELY BACKWARDS FOR A STRANGER (‘Uncle’) TO ASK MY BROTHER ABOUT MY DECISION. This just reinforces the fact that I don’t belong to MY SELF APPARENTLY. That somehow I am social property. Communal. Familial. That other people, whether they are related to me or not, get to have a say in my decisions purely about myself. WTF!?

I have a few of these kind of people in my family too – annoying, nosey, rude – stating their opinion about my shaved head like some unrequited royal decree. Pisses me off. Another thing they do is ask me every few days, or every time they see me, “when are you growing your hair back?“. It’s as if my shaved head triggers them, makes them mighty uncomfortable and they need that discomfort to be temporary – meaning I must make changes to my life in order to make them comfortable! Ha!

These people need to mind their own damn business and hair. (I usually answer, “I am never growing it back!” – and watch their faces shrink in anguish – it’s quite funny!)

But, I must, rather happily, add this to the above – these ‘type of people’ are a very small fraction of the large group of folks who have been reacting to Me. Mostly, the reactions have been delightful. Strangers slow down their vehicles to check whether they are actually seeing a bald woman walking her dog. On two-wheelers, the pillion seat passengers turn their heads to keep staring at me – so many women keep staring, whether its a doctor’s clinic waiting room, a grocery store, a shopping mall, a hotel lobby, a restaurant – people just simply watch me, not repulsed, not mocking, mostly just surprised and curious. And I simply smile back to disarm them.

I am hyper-aware of the fact that this is an unusual sight – Me, a chubby woman with a shaved head., nonchalantly existing in social spaces, in a small city. I get it. I don’t mind being stared at, as long as its not in a creepy or ‘burdensome’ way (and it genuinely hasn’t been that way, for the most part).

Recently, a fellow dog owner, a young man stopped me to try to talk to me, while I was walking my dog Koko, one evening. I was a bit wary of that but within seconds I understood he was harmless. He asked me about my shaved head, curious if there was a medical reason, and when I simply said “I just wanted to do it, so I did“, he just looked at me in silence for a few seconds, smiled and quietly said, “I wish I had your courage”. And then we proceeded to have a casual conversation about dogs, until I big adieu. Now we say hello when we pass by each other on the road. Good man.

Another thing I have noticed, which is a bit difficult to put into words for me yet, is that women seem to find relief in my appearance after they have spent a few seconds or minutes hanging out with me or watching me. Meaning that maybe they expect to be horrified and somehow personally offended by my shaved head, but when they see me ‘fully relaxed’ into it (which is how I feel and am all the time now), they see me smile, they see my skin glow, when they see me rub my head in conversation – THEY RELAX INTO IT AS WELL. Does this make sense?

There is a literal example of this that I experienced recently. One of my sisters-in-law (cousin brother’s wife, let’s call her RJ), when she saw my shaved head for the first time (we were in the stairwell of the house at the same time) – She seemed positively surprised and kept remarking, “Arey, accha toh lag raha hai, accha toh lag raha hai itna!” (Wow, its looking good only, it’s looking good!”) with a tone that suggested relief & happiness – the ‘oh my god, I was expecting to feel uncomfortable at seeing you, but I am surprised by how nice its looking and how You still look like You – its cool!” tone.

Last but not the least –

DATING APP WORLD REACTS TO MY SHAVED HEAD IN UNEXPECTED WAYS:

I have received mainly two type of reactions from the many men of the dating app world (Bumble+Hinge) upon joining said apps in July’2024.

[P.S. A couple of blogposts will specifically be dedicated to my unique explorations-experimentations with the online dating world, if you’d like to read more from me.]

The pictures I had uploaded on my profile were, naturally, those with my current look (shaved my head in June’2024) – with my shaved head, proudly and gleefully smiling into the camera.

The many many comments and ‘compliments’ I received on those pictures/ because of those pictures can be categorised as either ‘conveniently presumptuous’ OR ‘admiration-laden’. And both surprised me at the beginning.

I’ll explain.

Some (many) men seem to assume that this ‘chick with the shaved head‘ is supremely ‘kinky‘ and ‘sex-positive‘ (by now I have observed that many many men use these two words on their profiles as part of their bios – either claiming that they themselves are ‘sex positive’ or stating that they are looking for someone who is ‘sex positive’ – but I gather that most don’t understand the true meaning of the phrase – they mostly think it means ‘having lots of sex with lots of people’ or simply ‘being open to having sex’ lol).

They think that if She is ‘crazy’ enough to shave her head, she must be ‘crazy’ enough to do ‘crazy’ things in bed. Haha! This is so funny because basically I am very vanilla. Haha. These men are usually up for a great disappointment – Being a big believer of ‘never misleading anyone’ – I almost shout from the rooftops in all my chat/ conversations – I AM VANILLLLAAAAAAA.

Some men choose to believe their assumptions over my vehement admissions. I unmatch and move on.

So, this aspect has been very funny and borderline shocking to me – the fact that men/ people would simply associate my shaved head with supreme kink-ability-capacity-preference. Shrug emoji.

I say, assume at your own peril 😀

Lastly, a lot of men from the online dating world (Bumble & Hinge) have also showered me with such cheerleading, such praise, such curiosity, such gentleness with regards to my shaved head. They have congratulated me on my boldness and apparent confidence (from my pictures), they have asked me what led me to go for it, they have called me ‘goddess‘, they have heaped their praises on me, they have had long chats with me about hair and femininity and womanhood and gender, they have been wonderful – it has truly surprised & delighted me!

[Honestly, I never expected Indian men to be open-minded in this way. When I joined the dating apps with my shaved head, I honestly thought I was kidding myself – that no good men would find me classically attractive or intriguing or approachable, you know?]

All in all, I have to say that I am humbled, delighted & surprised by the ways and manner in which the world has opened up to me since I shaved my head in June this year. What a multi-faceted, freeing, feminizing experience it’s been!

Cheers!