This question was asked by the blind young man to the new fellow traveller in the story ‘The Eyes are not Here’ written by Ruskin Bond.

The narrator was a blind young man travelling by train to Mussoorie. The story begins when the train reaches Rohana station when a girl, a fellow traveller, gets into the young man’s compartment. The narrator, being a young man, is inquisitive and tries to pick a conversation with the girl. The young man manages to hide the fact that he is blind by making prudent and discrete remarks. Finally the girl gets off at Saharanapur.

By that time the blind man had been fascinated by the sound of her voice and the sound of her slippers and was even tempted to touch her hair, being attracted by the perfume. A man gets into the compartment and finds the young man day – dreaming.

He breaks into his reverie and says that he was sorry that he was not as attractive a travelling companion as the one who had just left. In reply, the narrator says that she was an interesting girl and asks the fellow traveller whether she kept her hair long or short.