"Hair" by Nina Daswani
I am a new mom, laying on the bed in my one-bedroom apartment in
Waikiki, sunlight and traffic sounds streaming in, marveling at my baby鈥檚 beautiful
hair 鈥� the brown curls that strangers stop me in the street to comment on 鈥� and
thinking about how much I love them. I think a part of the reason I love them is
because they come from me. This is not his father鈥檚 hair, but my hair. People always
say that he looks like a mini version of his father, but I know I am in there too, and
sometimes I want to scream at them, 鈥淗e鈥檚 mine, too!鈥� His father鈥檚 family attributes
everything in him to a relative of theirs. His long, graceful fingers come from a great-
uncle somewhere. They claim he will play the piano because of this uncle鈥檚 genetic
influence, not knowing that I played the piano, and if my son does too, perhaps it
will be because of me. Or maybe it will just be his own gift, not linked to any
ancestor. In later years, on every post I make about him playing sports, his paternal
grandmother will remind the world that 鈥渉e comes from a long line of athletes on
his dad鈥檚 side鈥�. Never mind the fact that I take him to the basketball clinics and
sporting events, his dad rarely making an appearance. His height is also a direct
result of his paternal great-grandfather, of course, with no mention of the fact that
all my dad鈥檚 brothers are over six feet tall. It is as if I was just a vessel for this perfect
product of their genetic gifts.
It鈥檚 surprising that he got my hair, because his father is African American,
and we expected his hair to be like his dad鈥檚. But he has my hair: dark, curly, Indian
hair. The same hair I have chemically altered for most of my adult life. The same hair
I have raged against and fought with and forcefully transformed into straight,
smooth, silky strands. The same hair I have fried and relaxed and hot-ironed into
submission. I also recognize that this hair is my mother鈥檚 hair. It is not from my
father 鈥� the one who everyone says I look just like. It is from my mother, the one who
gave me her fierce intelligence and poor eyesight and hot temper. Maybe it is
because of our shared temperament that we had such a contentious relationship,
and why I was so terrified to have a girl of my own (a wave of relief washed over me
when the ultrasound technician told me my baby was a boy). I learned later that she
was terrified of driving, just as I am. Her favorite ice cream flavor was Jamoca
Almond Fudge. So is mine. She liked to wear obnoxiously bright colors. So do I.
Despite the rest of my family鈥檚 verdict that I was just like my dad, maybe I was more
like her than even I knew.
She didn't get to see me grow up and notice all the ways I am like her. And
she is not here to see me as a mother or to meet her grandson. She wasn't in the
delivery room with me or at the hospital, alongside all my son鈥檚 paternal
grandparents and great grandparents. She didn't spend the first month of his life in
this apartment with me, making sure I was fed, bathed, and cared for, while
teaching me how to feed, bathe, and care for him. But as I see her curly brown hair
on my sweet baby鈥檚 head, it occurs to me that she still managed to give him a gift, a
piece of her. And in him, in this gift, for the first time, I regard this hair as beautiful.
Yes, it is harder to brush and detangle and make 鈥渘ice鈥�, but it has its own wild
energy. Just as my mother did. Just as I do. And just as my son will. I cannot imagine
my son straightening his hair or trying to tame it as I have mine. In fact, I cannot see
anything about him that he should want to change. Yet I have spent so much of my
life doing just that to myself. Seeing myself in him, I feel more beautiful than I have
ever been.
Nina Daswani is a mother of one, living in Hawaii. She enjoys hiking, going to the beach, and playing with her dozens of cats.