I find women to be strange. Imprudent. Thoughtless. In the midst of the pandemic, they are restless about the hair on their skulls, on their foreheads, on their arms, legs, back. They want to appear all pink in video chats and zoom meets. My roommate, Isha, is no exception to this rule. She has gone a notch higher – she sprays perfume on her comb and brushes her hair with it – mind you, this is only a preview.
The other day she sprayed her favorite, Lily of the Valley, in the air like a wall and walked through it. The concentration nearly knocked me out.
‘What the f***?’
She shrugged and said this way her entire body would be coated with perfume. I opened the windows and door.
‘It’s a zoom meet na?’
‘I need to look fresh and fragrant.’
It’s April. I swab some talcum powder in the nooks and crevices of my body and despite my disinterest, I end up at Natural Salon on Mahanadu Road with Isha on this hot Saturday afternoon.
‘Here, this one, upper one.’
The parlour woman dressed in torn jeans and black tees is bent over Isha’s face to remove the strand of hair she referred to as ‘this one’. She is bulky, her butt jutting out of the jeans like an over packed sack of apples. She appears as sweet as an apple, fresh in smile. Her lips are painted in apple red color. I wonder if she’d look good in salwaar-kurta. All the parlour girls are dressed in jeans and black tees. I picture these native girls in sarees and half-sarees – covering their bodies fully. But again, they wouldn’t be able to earn a living plucking hairs and massaging skins.
It’s all about women empowerment, so says the motto of the salon. I wonder how many people visit since the outbreak of Covid. There are about four girls and two aunties (who find it difficult to hide their age in the pockets of jeans), hovering over customers like Isha. Natural Salon is a unisex beauty unit. I am relieved that they have separate stations for men and women. I pick a flyer from the glass table and browse their services. My eyes pop at the words: Face Cleanup – Reduces Stress.
‘Bull shit!’
The parlour girl stops plucking and stares at me.
‘Here, see, this one.’
Isha is literally shouting. Not something expected from someone of her body type, frail and marasmic. Or is her voice echoing in the closed room. Isha always looks pathetic in skin-hugging jeans and her blouse appears like a rag hanging from a bamboo pole.
‘This one, the one at this end and here, one, two, on this side. You pluck these three, it will be perfect.’
Is Isha as perfect as her name? She has black eyes, large and impressive. She doles them out like a dancer, glancing first in one direction and then another as if winning the hearts of her admirers. Her mother wanted her to be a dancer. Her wiry legs didn’t oblige and she ended in an office cubicle beside me.
The parlour woman is bending over Isha’s face stretched backwards on the reclining chair. Her masked face is very close to that of Isha. I sit at the edge of the sofa watching the woman standing on her toes. At times she lifts her right leg high enough to graze her bum. Sorry, but fleshy skin bothers me. She will be >100 kilos. What if she loses balance and falls on Isha? My nervousness gives way to amusement. I fake my giggle with a sound as if clearing my throat. She stops again and looks at me.
‘What happened?’ Isha asks.
‘Nothing,’ I say.
Both get back to work as if I am a nonentity.
‘It’s my cousin’s wedding, you know, I have to look good.’
The plump woman nods.
‘Here, this one in this corner and this little one in the center…’
Isha goes on and on pointing out hairs to be pulled from her brows. In the end she thinks she is absolutely stunning with thinner eyebrows.
‘Now this upper lip. Do it slowly. See, it shouldn’t become red.’
‘I will be careful madam.’
‘See, it shouldn’t look obvious, hahn…’
Isha is continuously talking and not allowing the woman to do her work.
‘My cousin’s friends from States will be there. I must look nice…’
The woman is shifting her weight from one foot to another, nibbling the edge of her lips like a rodent and nodding randomly. She is not interested in Isha’s story but Isha doesn’t stop. She tells her about a probable partner hunt at her cousin’s wedding. I am not even sure if she will be attending the wedding. She might view it on YouTube.
I say, ‘we still have a lot of shopping to do.’
I presume it is cue enough for Isha to wind up her session. The woman smiles perceptively. But Isha is Isha. She asks her about lockdown, about the number of customers per day, about the salaries. She glances at the walls filled with posters of women. She says she wants a gold facial just before the wedding, ‘my face must glow na.’
The woman suggests manicure, pedicure, haircut, a complete package of beauty.
‘What is body wrap?’
The parlour woman details the process as if we are in some dimly lit room with aromatic candles, soft music playing in the background and invisible fingers like supple tendrils dealing with the knots in our body, in our minds, in our souls.
‘Wow! It feels so good?’
Isha’s eyes flutter like twinkling stars and I know this will not end soon. Isha says she will include this treatment for her marriage, ‘hopefully soon,’ she giggles and turns towards me.
‘Cute na.’
She stares at a pixie haircut and says, ‘suits your hair.’
I grab a sheet of bubble wrap from my bag and begin popping the air bubbles. I don’t mind the taph-taph sound I make. The others gawk at me as if I am from some other planet.
Isha says, ‘ok ok, let’s go.’
She pays through Google pay and tells them she will visit soon. She runs to catch up with me while I jump two, three, steps at a time to reach ground floor. The salon is on the fourth floor.
‘Why do you act so weird,’ she asks me as I reach for my two-wheeler.
She groans when it doesn’t start. She points to a sapphire colored TVS Jupiter in the parking lot and suggests that I must buy a new one. I wrap my dupatta tightly around my shoulders and tie a knot at the back. My red Bajaj Spirit splutters like a black widow when I kick it hard. I throw my oiled braid back as we zoom forward.
Our next stop is Shoppers Stop. I am comforted by the fact that Isha finished all her wedding shopping several months before and that too without me. She says she needs a pair of white jeans. She thinks white will look good on her and she plans to wear it when she goes out with her cousin’s friends. I follow her into the shop.
I notice a woman with protruding buttocks, trying jeans– low waist, torn ones, hugging types, ankle length. Each time she emerges out of the trial room she lays bare her buttocks wrapped in jeans to her boyfriend. Finally, she settles for a one piece that makes it difficult to hide her treasures. The couple walks out of the store hand in hand.
Isha fails to get what she wants. We are back on the road to the Lifestyle store on MG Road. What I learnt from my previous shopping trips with Isha is not to follow her. I sit beside a headless-mannequin near the trial room while she goes in search of her fits and sizes.
I look around at the brands of women wear – Melange, Biba, Bossini, Ginger, Aurelia, Code – and wonder why women need to dress up in myriad colors and designs. Are they vulnerable?
My eyes follow this bulky woman, henna-headed and a pair of Brobdingnagian glasses sitting on the bridge of her rather huge and unusual nose. She is dressed in white culottes, sleeveless kurta and a stole hanging loosely from one shoulder. Her husband is trailing behind her with her handbag perched on his shoulders. She picks nearly half a dozen kurtas. She must be in her late forties and he must be in his fifties.
As she makes her way into the trial room, he sits a few feet away from me on the pedestal of a half-naked mannequin. She is as fast as a buzzing bee, emerging out of the trial room every five or six minutes. Her selection is bold prints and bold colors akin to her domineering tone pecking her husband for his opinion. As if his views mattered to her. I hear him whisper to another man sitting on the pedestal beside him – husbands are for carrying wife’s bags and to say yes, only yes. The other man roars like a buffoon. He glances sideways at me and smiles. I give him a bland look. Both men stare seriously at the collection in the lingerie section positioned at the entrance to the trial room.
I get up from there and search for another haven. After nearly an hour or so Isha finds what she wants. She messages me to pin my location.
Shoe section.
She notices me sitting on a stool facing a wall, and asks, ‘buying sneakers?’
I didn’t answer. Together we approach the counter where she pays the bill for half-a-dozen dresses. She’s in a hurry. She wants to try her new clothes.
‘You tried na,’ I say.
She smiles sheepishly. Once we reach our room, she’s busy with the trials. I laze on the couch and think of her – when she first moved in with me, she was weird, her talk was, her walk was, her attire was – her unpolished and uncut nails, hair untrimmed and split, heels chapped, a rough look on her face. I liked her for her oddness – a male bee would also think twice before wandering anywhere near her. It didn’t take her long to understand her privileges. She was alert to her needs.
Some days, especially shopping days are enormously difficult on me.
I was only six; say seven years running, with a pixie cut, wearing pink shorts and a waist-length top, I was chubby and adorable. I was playing with the bubble wrap my mother had thrown away after unpacking her new glassware. I popped it with my thumb. Taph-taph-taph. My uncle walked in. In fact, in the society we lived every male in the neighborhood is the customary uncle or brother. He stroked my pixie cut and greeted my mother.
He came closer and whispered, ‘treasures,’ and hit on my bum. He settled on a nearby sofa and pulled me towards him. Before I knew I was seated on his lap. A hand grazed my thighs, my inner thighs while another caressed my back.
He asked my mother about when my father will be back from office. She chuckled and said, ‘from when did I expect him to be home soon?’
Her back was towards us. She was busy arranging fresh gladioli in the vase. The yellow and orange flowers with tall stalks were a reflection of her taste and status. Every Saturday she painstakingly ordered them from the florists. On Sundays we had guests at home, some admiring the décor of our house, others the dishes and some others the host.
He laughed along with her. In that little moment of laughs, he grabbed my breasts and kissed me. I popped the bubble wrap in my hands continuously. My mother was annoyed at the sound and turned back. I jumped from his lap and ran to the bathroom to wash off his cologne fragrance from my face and neck.
