Her parents deemed her of ambrosial* quality.
Black wires grow on her head+
For which their is little accountability.
Her pater is to blame for its heredity.
His sister, her aunt, for its similarity.
Please she never could her esteemed community.
Whose Devi she resembled in the shape of her mane
But, likeness did not save her from people’s disdain.
“Why care you, child?” said the Goddess in Yodaen** syntax
Your people are proud but their sense of fashion is lax.
Not I, I said, Goddess Divine
I do my best, with your grace, by every scrap I find.
These wires though are impossible to mind.
Harder to tame than the lion you bestride.
I have accepted their unwillingness to bend
To obey rule or care for tend
No egg honey mask can disguise the task
Of Teezing these Tangles
But, I’m glad you asked.
*Ambrosial – Ambrosia was the nectar of immortality drunk by the gods in Greek mythology. It’s equivalent in Indian mythology is Amrita.
+ Black wires grow on her head – From Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130
**Yodaen – You know, like Yoda, from Star Wars
Of Opinions 
“the lion you bestride” – nice visual for hair with a mind of its own.
Or visual it was, nice in Yodean!
Uh, actually, the Goddess Durga rides on top of a lion. I found it hard to find an image of just Her, with Her hair on display, on Her lion. I hope this makes it clear!
I’m Bengali, and the festival of Goddess Durga is the biggest event of the year in our community. Bengali women are noted for sometimes resembling her – big eyes, curly hair – but that doesn’t make it easier for some of us!
Oh I see – I initially interpreted the hair as being even more challenging to tame than a lion, which was an interesting image too, if not the intended one!
That interpretation was intended too, but I guess I should have written a note on Goddess Durga at the bottom as well, to make things clear. You know, Geoff, this whole post was inspired by getting teased about my hair and not wanting to talk about it, but I didn’t know it would only result in talking about it with someone on the other side of the world. Excuse the vanity of it all!
getting teased, about a teased hairstyle? Amrita, your wordplay never ends 🙂
That was completely unintentional! Haven’t done a good job of defending, have I…
My hair is a daily adventure. My sister and brother were born with blonde hair and fair skin, so when I was born dark, with a full head of curly hair, my mother cried to my father that she had been given the wrong baby.
Aw, that’s harsh! And adventure is the right word. No matter how boring and predictable life may get, we can always depend on our hair to be moody and mysterious.
I’ve been taking a series of “hair selfies” on particularly badder than bad hair days to use in a future post!
And, my latest post shows me at an in-between weird period when my hair was straight, for a few years; but in the picture from “Pay no Attention to the Ditz Behind the Computer,” I’d recently given myself a lovely “don’t!”
Reblogged this on Iconography â™ Incomplete.