I'd never really worried too much about my hair, it was always a huge mass of combination curly-wavy-straight light brown-dark brown bitch of a thing fullll of frizz. I accepted it like it was, keeping it short and tied up all the time. It was okay because quite a lot of people around me did the same. That was in school, where we were supposed to keep it like that. Then the females grew up, got great haircuts and started leaving their hair open. Ugh.
So I started off with expensive shampoos, hair masks, conditioners and leave ins. Amazingly, the hair got better.
The ones with hair like mine (not yet as big, though) walked around with their not-so-secret inferiority, saying they didn't use hair products because they feared hair fall. Pah, moron! I'd at the least respect you if you'd said they were too expensive for you to care.
I digress.
Yes, the hair got shinier, less frizzy, and less tangly. It settled down but it still was too frizzy to be left open. So I took advice from lots of websites and beauty columns and used hot oil massages, left the conditioner on for really long and washed with cold water even though it left me with a cramped-up neck and wrinkly fingers. Apparently, length weighed down the frizz so I also let it grow long. So long, in fact, that my whole back got cramped up, because I shouldn't use a hair dryer. Didn't really make a difference. 'A little longer, maybe.', I thought. But the longer it grew, the bigger it got. My hair became so healthy, it started flourishing under all that care and grew thicker, which made it look bigger because the remaining frizz got more surface area to spread over.
And so, I cut it short. Ah, freedom.
Then I read somewhere that putting half-dried hair in a braid reduces frizz. Right ho! So I let it grow long again and started braiding my hair (just one! not the afro kind) which did reduce the frizz but it still wasn't good enough to be left open.

It was THEN that straightening occurred to me! Ah ha! So I got my hair straightened. Once - didn't stay straight for even 24 hours. Twice - did it myself and lost interest after the first couple of sections. Third time's a charm. It would stay for a whole week. I could finally run my fingers through my hair without needing a half hour to get it out at the other end. I could finally leave it open! And then, I looked in a mirror. Aaah! That's like every girl on the street!! 'Hey, you look great with straight hair!' Of course you dufus, I look like you!

No no! I got my curls back. In all their mutant glory.

And I kept the braid. Nobody looks like me in a french braid.

Or maybe they do. I don't give a tiny fish tail about it anymore.

It'll be you one day.

I'm quite angry with the Mangalore incident.
So, when it happened, I wanted to know what some of my friends from 'conservative' families thought about the incident. Apart from the shocked, sane replies, I got unexpected apathetic 'Oh, yeah, that...hmmm' kind of responses, to a downright shit eating-bitch-y 'The girls deserved it!'. I found later, that she was quoting her mother and parroted something a celebrity was saying about the incident on tv to cover it up. Potaeto, potaato. Needless to say, I avoid this 'person' as much as possible.

The apathetic ones are those that bother me. I asked a couple of these miss-inexplicably-smug girls if they would like to go to a walk held to protest this incident. One girl, whom I now admire, said she doesn't think protests would work and that she wouldn't care to do something that useless. Ah, an opinion. I like her now.

Another girl declined and gave no reason. I know your reason.
She's a loser, holding back all her desires and suppressing all her natural instincts in the fear of 'looking bad'. To whom? To the people she doesn't know, those that will never matter to her. She wants to be the perfect Indian woman, with her hair in a braid and a forehead covered with a huge bindi. This perfect picture will be put up on marriage websites and given to pundits who will find men she doesn't know willing to marry her for huge sums of money. She will stay at home, cleaning, cooking, having children and getting into bed whenever her man feels horny. That is why he married her, she's a multipurpose instant female he can 'do'. Yes, she's the perfect Indian woman according to herself.

She was looking smug because she doesn't wear jeans or drink or smoke or show any signs of liberation. Because she's such a loser that she wants a boyfriend and doesn't at the same time. She likes to have men for friends, but doesn't want to be seen with them. She felt safe. For once, finally, her good-girl choices which left her feeling extremely inferior, came of some use. She doesn't want to give that up! She doesn't want those girls to get ahead. Not anymore. She doesn't want them to live the life she dreams of having. She wants to see them getting beaten up for daring to be like how she always wanted to be.
She wants them to get beaten up for wearing what they want to, for earning money and for spending it however they like. For wearing clothes that reveal their midriff and arms. For wearing makeup and leaving their hair open. For brazenly kissing men (or women) on the street. For choosing to do everything she ever wanted to and for showing no remorse about it.

You're the shit eating bitch. You're the extreme hypocrite who is undoing years of hard work feminists and social reformers have put in. You're the reason men like those in the video are having their way. You're the rotten apple.

Enjoy your moment of glory my friend, because that isn't why the women were getting beaten up.
Enjoy it while you can, because there are a lot of women who are worse and don't like you. These women will make sure you don't change for the better.

One day your turn will come to get beaten up, regardless of what you're wearing or drinking. Thanks to you and people like you, you will get beaten up for just being. On that day, I will not stand by like you did. I will not reply with silence. I will fight for you. In spite of what you think, because that is what I do.

I like the shit eating bitch girl more.