I don’t even know if it is an aphorism .it may well be a thought from my jumbled head . But I remember very clearly that every time I cut my hair , I console myself with the words : Cut Hair, Cut Care.

And, surprisingly, it works.

Believe it or not, I always wanted long, flowing tresses . Not exactly long enough for Rapunzel’s prince to climb on. But , at least long enough to swish around my waist.

Sadly this remained a dream unfulfilled even now.

Ever since I can remember , I was marched off to the hair dresser’s every 4 weeks . My curly locks were shorn off to keep my unruly mane tame. It was a traumatic time for me to see the hair fall at my feet.

But I know it didn’t look nice . Especially when people remarked that I looked like our then PM Indira Gandhi.

However, there was nothing I could do but lump it .

Gradually, I learnt to live with it and even begin to like it – not so much for the looks but for the convenience .

While my friends spent hours taking care of their hair, all I had to do was run my fingers through it and it was done.

So when Daughter No 1 and Anna Shetty we’re little girls, I regularly trimmed their hair. Sometimes even at home!

But having had short hair all my life, I realised that in order to really look after her hair, a girl should have long hair as a child at least once in her life.

So sometime during their teens, the girls were allowed to keep longer hair than I’d ever kept . And , by the time Anna Shetty got married, she could actually sit on it !

But of course practicality takes over and she gradually cut her hair at various lengths at various times . Finally, yesterday it was down to her hairstyle of her baby days a short pixie crop.

It seemed the perfect way to deal with a hot summer that would involve daily dips in the swimming pool.

But none of us were prepared for Wow Dinga’s and Little Po’s reaction. .

For the first time they actually said “Yucky Aie” ! And believe it or not , Little Po pronounced solemnly, ” Girls should have long hair”.

What is really strange is that all along , the boys never thought of their mother and I as girls !