Of ponytails and pigtails

Apparently, equine and porcine posteriors are the inspiration behind ponytails and pigtails—two hairstyles quite popular with girls. But now a new trend is emerging. Young and not-so-young men are growing their tresses long enough to wear them as a ponytail—or even balled up as a bun, earlier confined only to women. It’s rather unorthodox, no doubt, but then non-conformism is the order of the day.

Does a ponytail look better on a man? Some men certainly seem to think so and flaunt it with panache to prove their point. Of course, wearing his hair long doesn’t make a man feminine any more than sporting a crew cut (or a tonsured head like Persis Khambatta once did) makes a woman masculine.

Yet, the new tonsorial trend encourages speculation. If more men opt for the ponytailed look, could the day be far off when they’ll choose to wear pigtails too, like the hard-hitting Obelix in the popular comic strip Asterix? And if the burly Obelix is any indication, the braided pigtail look would also in no way detract from a man’s masculinity. Further, perhaps letting down his hair will now come more easily to the ponytailed or pigtailed male—though, of course, he wouldn’t be able to wiggle his ‘extension’ as effortlessly as a wagtail does!

I must confess to a sneaking admiration for the robust, ponytailed male. Maybe it’s the striking novelty of his appearance or the fact that it sets him apart from others, making him stand out in a crowd. I enjoy vicariously observing a shaggy head of hair nicely slicked down into a tidy ponytail. Much as I would like to, I’ve absolutely no hope of growing a ponytail myself, having shed my thinning ‘thatch’ years ago, faster than a tree casts off its foliage in autumn!

Speculating further, to a mischievous tyke, there’s something droll and irresistible about a ponytail adorning a male head—it makes his fingers twitch with gleeful anticipation. Perhaps he will now be tempted to slyly yank the hairy protrusion sticking out invitingly in front of him in a semi-darkened cinema theater—rather than flick a groundnut at a balding cranium as we sometimes perversely did as boys, feigning innocence convincingly. For me, incidentally, the wheel turned full cycle a few years back when a mop-headed kid brazenly scored a bull’s-eye on my own shiny pate with a groundnut!

Yet, I suppose the cynic will insist that a tail (whether truncated or not) looks better on a pony as much as a mane (however hirsute it may be) looks better on a horse than a man. However, as an unabashed admirer of manly ponytails, I beg to differ.