For as long as Anjali could remember, her long black hair had been her quiet armor. It fell past her waist in thick waves, the kind people in Jodhpur complimented at every wedding, every market visit. “Lakshmi’s blessing,” her mother used to say, braiding it with jasmine before festivals. Anjali believed it protected her—through the long nights in the hospital, through the chemotherapy that stole her strength but never her smile, through the days when mirrors felt like enemies.
The doctors had been gentle but clear: the treatment was working, the counts were climbing, but the hair… the hair would go completely this time. No patchy regrowth, no half-measures. Just smooth, bare truth.
She delayed the inevitable for weeks. Scarves, pretty dupattas, even a stylish wig her sister ordered from Jaipur. But every morning her daughter, little Meera, would toddle over, tug at the scarf, and frown. “Mummy hair gone?” she’d ask in her tiny voice, patting Anjali’s thinning scalp like she was checking for hidden treasure.
One quiet Sunday afternoon, Anjali stood at the foot of the marble staircase in their new home—the one they’d moved into right before the diagnosis, still smelling faintly of fresh paint. Sunlight poured through the skylight above, turning the steps into warm bronze. Meera was playing nearby, arranging her dolls in a line like a tiny procession.
Anjali looked up at the landing, then down at her daughter. Something inside her shifted—not fear, not surrender, but a kind of fierce clarity.
“Meera beta,” she called softly. “Come here.”
The little girl ran over, pigtails bouncing. Anjali knelt so they were eye to eye.
“Mummy is going to shave her head today. All of it. Like a shiny moon. Will you be scared?”
Meera tilted her head, thinking very seriously. Then she reached out and touched the faint stubble already showing through. “Shiny moon is pretty,” she declared. “I kiss moon.”
Anjali laughed until tears came. She carried Meera upstairs to the bathroom, the one with the big mirror and the good light. Her sister had already brought the clippers, the razor, the soothing after-shave balm scented with sandalwood. No salon, no drama—just family.
She sat on a stool. Meera climbed onto her lap, facing the mirror so they could both watch. Anjali switched on the clippers. The buzz filled the room like a swarm of determined bees.
First pass: a wide stripe down the center. Dark strands fell like monsoon rain onto the white towel draped over her shoulders. Meera gasped, then clapped. “Magic!”
Another pass, then another. The shape of her skull emerged—strong, elegant, unfamiliar yet somehow deeply her own. When the clippers finally went silent, Anjali took a breath and picked up the razor.
Meera leaned forward, fascinated. “Careful, Mummy.”
“I will, jaan."
Slow strokes, cool foam, the soft scrape of metal on skin. With every glide the old Anjali fell away—the one who hid, who apologized for being sick, who measured her worth in inches of hair. What remained was simpler, lighter, truer.
When the last bit of stubble was gone, Anjali wiped her head clean and looked into the mirror. A bald woman looked back—brown skin glowing in the sunlight, eyes bright, a small red bindi like a full stop at the center of her forehead. She looked… free.
Meera’s small hands flew to her own cheeks in delight. “Mummy is moon! My moon!”
Anjali lifted her daughter high, both of them laughing. They walked back to the staircase together. At the top step they paused, Meera still in her arms. The house was quiet except for the distant call of a koel outside.
Anjali set Meera down. The little girl immediately hugged her mother’s legs, then reached up to pat the smooth dome again and again, as if memorizing it.
“Always my moon,” Meera whispered.
Anjali bent and kissed the top of her daughter’s head. “And you’re my little star. We shine together, bald or braided.”
They stood there on the stairs—mother and daughter, skin to skin, no barriers left. The light from above wrapped around them like a blessing.
And for the first time in many months, Anjali felt beautiful not in spite of what was gone, but exactly because of what remained.