I Dyed My Hair and Everyone Stopped Talking to Me

It’s great what a bit of a colour change will do!

As a child, I was the “fair” one of my family.

Not your typical white-blond child who ends up with dark blond hair as a young adult. It was dark blond that became white blonde in the African sun (or green with some added chlorine — but that’s a story for another day).

As a young adult, it was light brown, and blonde in places — more so, the more sun it saw. Being a fan of travelling to hot and sunny places, my hair was often glowing a lot more golden than it is these days. Which I loved, apart from when it brought me too much male attention in places where young, blonde females were more of a rarity, i.e. anywhere south and east of northern Europe.

It was on one of my travels abroad that I really began to get wound up by the constant attention I was getting.

After an autumn and early winter of volunteering in Nepal, my partner and I had travelled into northern India for a bit of something different and a chance to buy things to sell on a market stall back home. On that occasion, we decided to spend a month in Pushkar in Rajasthan — a major pilgrimage site and a popular tourist destination.

I wrote a little about it in the following story.

The main purpose for us to spend time there was to rest after working hard with a children’s shelter and living very basically in the Kathmandu valley, as well as working with some wonderful and honest tailors I had found to stitch all the clothing I wanted made.

We got ourselves a simple room to rent and would eat and drink out. We often went for walks around the area, visiting nearby temples or exploring the periphery of the lake. Sometimes my partner and I would walk together but often I would walk around the town alone, to the tailor’s shop, browsing the souvenir shops, or simply to find a nice place to drink chai.

It was on these solo rambles around town that I would find myself unable to get far before another man was calling out to me,

“Hey madam, come here. Stop and talk to me! Where are you from?”

It was the same thing over and over, like a record that had got stuck. No one had anything original or different to ask me. And if they had already asked me those questions previously, the next occasion would invite, “Where have you been?” or “Where are you going?” every. single. time.

It was driving me nuts.

One day, I had a thought occur to me.

What if my hair wasn’t so fair? Would I still be stopped by so many men, every single day on every single walk?

The thought led to a fun idea of an experiment. Henna was available in many of the shops around the town, and used, mostly on the skin by Indian women, but commonly on the hair by westerners. My own mother had used it on her own hair a lot when I was younger.

I had never considered using it for it was really recommended for use on darker hair. Like a highlight — a reddish tinge to give dark brown hair a little lift.

I knew that if I used it on my own hair, it would have a more profound effect, showing up far redder than was common. However, I was feeling brave and ready to play a little game. So I bought some henna powder and followed the instructions to use on my hair.

As I imagined, my hair did turn quite a strong, orangey-red. It looked odd against my skin but the main thing was that my hair was no longer blonde at all.

And so I went on with my daily life in Pushkar, going to visit the tailor, going to drink chai, and wandering the streets.

But nobody spoke to me.

That’s right. I was suddenly able to walk down the street and not get stopped by anyone, or called to come and chat with every other group of men I passed.

This seemed bizarre that it would work so instantly. Surely they didn’t only stop women because they were blonde?

My questions were answered around a week into my new, peaceful existence when, finally, one man did call out to me to ask me a question: “Which country are you from, madam?”

I replied, “England.”

“Oh, I thought you were Israeli because you have henna in your hair! That’s why I didn’t speak to you until now.”

And that explained everything. The typical Israeli tourists who went to Pushkar would stick together in groups, bargain aggressively over everything they purchased from room rentals to bedsheets, were more direct than a Roman Road, and spoke and laughed at volumes no other nationality could match. And Israeli women typically dyed their hair with henna a lot.

(Though, I will add that I met many beautiful, more sensitive Israelis on my travels who made a point of not travelling in large groups since they didn’t want to be lumped with those who were giving Israelis in general a bad name.)

Men in Pushkar were generally too frightened to start conversations with those they recognised to be Israelis.

Which was ironic because — remember I mentioned that my mother had used henna on her hair regularly? You see, it was indeed a common thing for Israeli women to do, and my mother was one. In fact, I have dual citizenship and am half-Israeli.

I even travelled on my Israeli passport on my first trip to India (which nearly got me turned away from a Christian guesthouse) and that may have explained why anyone who needed to see my passport was so polite to me on that first trip.

So, in reply to that man, I said, “Oh, I am Israeli. I have just never lived there.”

To which he had no idea how to respond, so he just left it there and I went on with my day…peacefully.