Tribals who sell their hair for a living

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The story of Della’s beautiful cascade of brown hair, cut and sold to buy Jim a Christmas gift, must have tugged at many a heart. But it’s not likely to be palatable to the men and women in Pakshi Rajapura, the tribal reserve in Hunsur district of Karnataka.The population there has found a living in trading off their long hairs to the less-endowed females in other parts of the world. And contrary to what the theory of the goose that lays golden eggs suggests, the tribe markets a rare herbal oil that is guaranteed to grow “long, silky hair” on any living head.Endorsing the oil, two families in the tribal colony let their tresses down for the world to see at the Saras Mela going on at the Manjalikulam ground in the city.Jayalakshmy, her sister and two daughters, call out to passersby in a mix of Hindi, Malayalam and English, of the ‘guaranteed’ results of the bottled magic potion. One cannot help noticing the unusually large bun into which the women have wound their hair. That is when they point to the flex boards behind them which show men and women wearing knee-length and even ankle-length hair down their shoulders.After listing out the ingredients of the oil, handsomely priced at Rs 500 for a bottle of 200 grams, Annapoorna, no more than a teenager, says, “This is four-months-old hair that I have now.”She unwraps the knot and lets it fall to her waist. “It was cut and sold before I got married three months back.”She and her younger sister, Sivkanya, have been selling their hair since they were small, just as the matriarchs of the tribe have been doing for ages.Their mother Jayalakshmy looks like she had a close crop quite recently. “When we sell it, we shave it off completely. But it grows fast, you see the thick sprouts on my head?”The hair is sold to beauticians, wig-makers, and agents of film stars, Jayalakshmy, who has been in the trade for two decades now, reveals.“Most of us sell it twice every year, because the hair grows quite long in six months’ time. We also have regular customers among film stars and businessmen,” she says.The hair-growing business and oil trade have obviously made the tribal settlement, nestled in the forests at a distance of half-an-hour from Hunsur, a hotspot. The album she handed us had pictures of known faces in Malayalam film industry, indulging in herbal treatments at the tribal village.Jayalakshmy offers to send the oil by courier, if more bottles are needed. A system is already in place whereby the postman comes to the settlement every week and carries off cartons to be couriered off to various parts of the country, she informs.The hairy lot of the men have not arrived for the Mela and only the pictures are there to vouch for their endowments.The tresses that grow in a thick flamboyance on these men and women definitely defies logic. Attributing it as a peculiar genetic feature would be a more convincing explanation, though one cannot help wondering if there is a wee bit of truth in the wonders the hair oil is said to work.