One evening, on my way to a girls’ night out, I sat in the back of an auto rickshaw, my hair left open, flowing in the wind. As we waited at a red light, a man on a bicycle approached, asking for money. When we didn’t respond, he circled back, looked straight at me, and muttered a word I didn’t understand: “Dayam”. My friend leaned over and translated, he had called me a witch, apparently affronted by the fact that my hair was untied.

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I laughed, at first. It felt surreal, almost cinematic. But the moment stayed with me, lingering just long enough to become a question.

Not long after, during a visit to a village as part of an educational trip, a similar incident unfolded. An elderly woman, seated outside her house, suddenly stood and began muttering while pointing at me. My friend translated again: she called me “uncultured” and “loose-moraled” for leaving my hair open. That time, I tied it up. Not in agreement, but to keep the peace. Still, I was left with the quiet dissonance of it all: why does something as simple as loose hair stir such discomfort? 

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This time, I couldn’t laugh it off. I was angry. I began to ask why such reactions exist at all. In films and popular culture, a woman’s hair, her thick, flowing “zulfein" is revered, romanticized. Bollywood devotes entire songs to it, often equating open hair with beauty, seduction, and desire. But outside of fiction, these same strands can suddenly signal impropriety. The shift is subtle, but unmistakable. What is cherished in theory becomes suspect in practice.

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I encountered this contradiction again while visiting a temple. Before entering, an attendant gently insisted I tie up my hair. He said it was the rule for all women. Men, even those with longer hair, weren’t asked to do the same. There was no anger in his tone, just the quiet conviction of tradition. And yet I couldn’t help but feel that something wasn’t quite right. Why does the length, style, or visibility of a woman’s hair carry such disproportionate meaning?

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Our culture worships goddesses like Durga, Kali, and Parvati, powerful embodiments of Shakti, often depicted with majestic, untamed hair. Yet when a real woman mirrors that image, she is corrected, sometimes shamed. The double standard lingers in small gestures, quiet remarks, rules that rarely get questioned.

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Society tells us that this freedom, this power, is dangerous. Loose hair becomes symbolic of rebellion, of promiscuity, of wildness. A simple style becomes an act of defiance.

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The symbolism doesn’t end there. At my grandmother’s funeral, I wasn’t allowed to attend, because I am a girl, and because of my hair. I was told that even tied, my presence would be inappropriate. That it represented sensuality, attachment to the material world, a contradiction so cruel it reduced mourning to a moral checklist. As if grief requires modesty. As if sorrow has a dress code.

The contradictions deepen further in everyday life. Matrimonial ads seek brides with “long, beautiful hair.” But once married, that same hair is expected to be tied, subdued, hidden. What was once desirable becomes distracting. Controlled. It’s a subtle but powerful shift, a reminder that even beauty, when possessed by a woman, must be regulated.

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And it doesn’t stop at the hair on our heads. Women’s body hair, unlike men’s, must be hidden or erased. Men with chest hair and beards are celebrated as masculine. Women with natural body hair are shamed as unclean or careless.

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This conditioning around hair isn’t just about morality, modesty, or even spiritual practice, it’s about control. It's about dictating how women should behave, how they should appear, how much space they are allowed to take up, even in their most natural state. We are told our hair should be beautiful, but also contained. Long, but tied. Thick, but tamed. Never wild. Never free. The message is clear: the female body must be curated, edited, controlled, never left to simply be. 

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The truth is, for many women, hair is emotional. It holds memory, identity, and strength.It’s braided into childhood routines, gently oiled by mothers and grandmothers. We cut it after endings. We grow it through healing. It becomes part of who we are. There’s intimacy in its care, a slow ritual that often has nothing to do with appearance, and everything to do with feeling at home in one’s body.

Perhaps that’s what unsettles people most: a woman who feels at ease in herself, who wears her body without explanation. The discomfort isn’t really with the hair, it’s with the freedom it suggests.

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These days, I don’t always wear it loose. Sometimes I braid it, tie it in a bun, and wrap it in a scarf. But when I do let it fall over my shoulders, I do so with intention. Not to make a statement, but to remind myself that I can.

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And maybe that’s where the power is. Not in loud resistance, but in quiet ownership. In the small acts that say: this is mine. My hair, my body, my story. Let it grow, wild, unruly, sacred. Because freedom, too, has texture. And sometimes, it looks like strands left untamed.