BY B. KRISHNA, M.A., J.D.
Although the world pigtail might carry some
“contemptuous odour” with it, the modern is definitely an age of pigtails as
yesterday was an age of ear-rings or high-heeled sandals. The craze in many
westernized countries for the “bob”, the “Eton crop” or the “Liberty cut” of
the twenties, which like a heat wave created a barrenness of wooden dolls over
women’s heads, seems to have passed away and the modern girl appears to have
regained her lost beauty and grace.
J. M. Barrie’s contention that a woman’s most
beautiful garment and casket contain all the adorable qualities that go to the
making of a perfect female no doubt is true to a great extent, but long, flaxen
hair is as indispensable to a woman’s beauty as milk is to the proper
development of a child, and it has undoubtedly inspired many a poet and
painter. Did not Shelley, who was so much moved by Emile’s beauty, admire her
hair tied in a single knot after the manner of a Greek Muse? Or, did not
Dushyanta feel an unsuppressible joy on seeing Sakuntala holding in one hand
her long tresses, the knot having loosened and the hair dishevelled when she
bent down to water the trees? How many poets, on beholding a lady like “the
lovely lady Christabel”, can refrain from singing:
“There is not wind enough in the air
To move away the ringlet curl
From the lovely lady’s cheek.”
Modern youth, too feels inspired. He compares the
eyes with stars, the face with the moon, and the long, raven black hair–falling
over bright, broad shoulders, or rolled up into a sweet-smelling flower–as
something that provides the blackness of dark skies to enhance the twinkle of
the stars and the brilliance of the moon. He sings with Seymour Hicks in the Shop
Girl–“with her golden hair hanging down her back.”
In ancient India, too, near about 400 A.D and even
before that, women had a remarkable talent for hair styles. They not only
parted their hair and had stylish coiffeurs or elaborate side curls, but there
used to be \in vogue “a ‘pagoda bob’ with corrugated topknot and sidepieces
falling in tiers”. But today, with the return of freedom, Indian girls in their
simple and unostentatious hairstyles look quite attractive. In their simplicity
lies their whole splendour. And today, an Indian Girl’s greatest pride probably
in her dangling pigtails.
Even in England, school girls are today wearing
pigtails like any Selina or Harriet of the ‘sixties.’ The close-cropped shingle
or the Garbo “bob” has lost its attraction.
There is something devilish about the “bob” the
“Eton crop” or the “Liberty cut.” You may take pride in having the appearance
of a born, fire-eating revolutionary. But to the artist’s eye you appear like
the Great Sahara, with nothing to add that romance of the Shalimar, where the sweet
smelt of flowers, the cool shade of massive chinars and pleasant breezes
transport many a Jehangir and Nurjehan into a paradise–nothing, in fact, to
embellish and make you look lovely.
Chiang Kai-shek was perhaps conscious of this when
he issued an edict against bobbed hair, and therein lies probably the secret of
his Madame’s, beauty that stirs many a romantic soul. And in Hollywood blondes,
too, we feel relieved to find, the prototypes of Roman women. Recently, Perc
Westmore, a Hollywood make-up artist, tried an experiment by which he was
successful in giving a new face to his wife, Gloria Dickson, once a day and
seven a week. But for the hair, he would have surely failed to provide a
solution to those husbands who wish to see every day something quite fresh and
new in their wives.
A pigtail is, indeed, a magic wand to a woman’s
beauty. A black thick pigtail, falling over a silvery white neck “that makes
the white robe wan,” gives an extraordinary gaiety, grandeur and glamour to a
woman. It sparkles up her appearance; it makes the blossoming youth look all
the more bright and attractive–it bestows upon her a beauty that makes many a
modern “Petrarch sing and Dante kneel.” “Long, soft hair is, no doubt the sign
of a sweet, sensitive, ‘silken’ soul.” A woman’s hair has all the virtues of
the Gift of the Magi.