Being a girl in India is no easy work. Especially for an urban girl who is flying past the changing times and is yet grounded to her roots. She encounters countless challenges on an everyday basis. Be it travelling in local transport with men having eyes fixated at her bosom, the ‘because you’re a woman’ office politics, the ‘girls should not do this’ family embargo, the ‘mummy ne kuch sikhaya nahi kya’ in-laws brickbat, the ‘ab tak shaadi nahi ki, toh bachche kab honge’ nosy relatives, the ‘girls should not be too curvy or lanky’ pressures, the monthly menstrual torment… it’s all about challenges in here.
And as if that was not enough already, when a hassled girl with tousled hair, tanned skin, undone brows, overgrown upperlips and unwaxed legs makes it to the salon oasis just to make her feel better about herself,… boom!! There comes the nasty witch fairy walking her walk and talking the talk. With a gait announcing her great repertoire in making every girl the princess she’d love to be, she sports some heavily done smoky eyes, bright red lipstick bordered with thick dark lip liner on a mousse laden face, mascara that’s clumped on those frail lashes for her own good, blush that’s the essence to her clowny appearance, liner that well makes her the wicked kitty and most of all, the smirk and narrowed eyes that are all set to scorn and scar you well until your next appointment.
She is your very own self-proclaimed beauty expert; Who may not know nothing about beauty, but all about how to make you look the 'ugly you'!
After a hassled week, on that one Saturday of the month when you’re particularly off your chums, you decide to step into the salon to just ease off and take it slow. The excruciating pain induced by the hair threader, the hot wax or even the face steamer seems to soothe your mind and soul in many ways than one can expect. It’s all mind over matter then. But just as you make up your mind to make the most of this pamper day, that annoying lil’ witch fairy walks up to you, only to make it the worst day of the month!
She starts off with the eyebrows and upperlip. Plucking each hair strand with so-called perfection, she is quick to notice the open pores, dried out skin and patchy compact on your face. When I ask her to keep the brows thick and only rid of the extras, she makes sure that she does so, only to change the shape of the arch and flatten it altogether. Instead of plucking the hair from the root, after good ten minutes of pressing her head like a pecking hen over my eyes, all I have is half-plucked hair that are now, even tougher to rid of. And the upperlip, let’s just say, I can’t seem to find a single hair strand there, but a magical thick black line appears all over it. “Aapke eyebrows kahan kiye they? Ekdum shape bigaad diya hai! Kuch shape hi nahi bacha” I promptly blame the next door parlour for my plight, putting this lady on a pedestal, hoping atleast now she will do me some justice. Turns out, she’s avenging for having gone to the next door parlour! Two days later, I am sitting at home using my plucker to bring my brows in a decent shape, do away with all the extras, and still trying to figure out a way to deal with the magic moustache I now sport.
With a nasty smile, she then takes me to her mysterious wax & facial room. While you can smell the essential oils diffused just a minute before I walked in, the bed is neatly made and equipment rightly arranged. As she hands over the fresh bandeau dress for me to don, she steps out of the room in precisely three counted steps, leaving me to change. As I don my outfit for the day, she knocks in and starts the wax ritual. “Underarms are very sensitive, so we will not use the regular honey wax, but the rica peel-off wax. Its less harmful and easy on the skin.” I’m fascinated! Minutes later, her head is dug deep into my underarms, struggling to peel-off the small clumps of the rica wax and takes a good 20 minutes for a normal 5 minute routine. And that is also somehow, my fault! Face-palmed, as I sit back up for the remaining wax process, bang comes the volley of complaints after just one application. “Kitni ingrowth hai! Aapne full growth hone tak wait kyu nahi kiya? Aap razor use karte ho kya? Ab pura wax do do baar karna padega. Kyunki ek baar mein toh baal niklenge hi nahi.” My repeated response of “yeh mera full growth hi hai” is conveniently diffused in the air, quite like the essential oils. Only thing, the oils are essential, my response isn’t!
Dare I tell her about how she’s pulling the hair in the wrong direction and not pressing the strip nicely enough for the hair to be uprooted! Shocked after seeing all the tan spots on my hands and the black spots on my back that were dandruff induced and refused to leave my back after 10 years of varied medical treatments, my witch fairy here had the remedy for it all! “Aap back spa aur polishing karwa lo. Aapke sab spots nikal jayenge. Hum ek special oil use karte hain, jissey 10 sittings mein aapki back ekdum clear ho jayegi. Aur aapki skin bhi bohot dry hai. Aap facial karte ho kya? Last kab kab kiya tha? Ohh, mahine mein ek bar karke bhi apki skin itni dry hai. Aapko fir do baar karna chahiye!” Content with mocking at me, she laughs! Quoting a mere 4000 for one sitting of back spa and polishing, I knew I would have to forgo all my weekend excursions for good 2 months! Cos the witch fairy would be perching her long teeth in my money then!
Few minutes later, my new found bestie, gets all personal and enquires about my family and whereabouts. “Aapki shaadi ho chuki hai? Lagta nahi aapko dekhkar. Mangalsutra bhi nahi hai na.” “Aap kaunsa job karte ho? Apka office yahi paas main hai kya?” All the friendly banter, only a sly means to gauge my demographic situation and spending power- may be on a 500-1000 bucks tip.
As she sets the ambience for my facial, there I lay, in a dark room with just one teeny white light emerging from God knows where. I see a ghostly figure right above my face that has some rather rough fingertips as she begins massaging my face. Mistaking it for a scrub, I told her to scrub my face mildly. Offended, she retorted, “It’s just a cream!” Chewing my lip, I went on with the massage that lasted for exactly 10 minutes, (I counted 1- 600 in my mind as she did the honors. That’s how I know.) Leaving my face under the steamer, she walks out only to chatter with her peers and return after 15 minutes. Back again, she uses the dreadful blackhead extractor and pierces my nose, chin and cheeks. Petrified and traumatized, I moan with the regular ‘oohs and aahs’, but the lady is unperturbed. As if I hadn’t had enough, she exclaims about the big bag of “Whiteheads” I carry on my face, that she’s obligated to remove. Forget the 2500 bucks I’m paying for her so-called “finest” facial!
Bruised and abused, my body tells me to pick all my belongings and run straight out in that bandeau dress, without paying a single penny. But to the honor of my sophisticated conscience, I dread and tread to the final leg of my pamper day. The haircut. “Your scalp is oily at the back.” Of course it is cos I can’t see it from here! “When did you last wash it?” I nervously replied, “Yesterday”. With a full poker face I say so, trying my best to hide the nervousness I felt as I’d spent the longest time in the bath this morning, only shampooing and conditioning my hair! After what the witch fairy said about my oily scalp, Cleopatra could well go take a walk! “Your hair is very dry too. What shampoo do you use?” I lied about using the mildest shampoo/conditioner available in the market. Which to her, was the harshest on the hair! As she pushed me into getting a hair spa, I wondered if my wallet was open to bear further vanity abuse. After long persuasion for my kind of haircut, she managed to make a style statement, making my bangs shorter than ever that poked me straight in the eye.
A pirate that I was by this time, I rose from my throne. She announced that I looked perfect. I indeed did, with some untweezed brow hair, magical black moustache, sprinkles of ½ inch long hair on my hands and legs, overtly peeled steam face, and finally, the pirate bangs! I was pampered as per the salon manual, where humiliating and physically abusing customers only to up-sell services in exchange for a big fat invoice and an ugly face, is all in good faith.
Good faith! Really!? Hot rica wax on the face of all those who even gave these smirk-faced, sly and frustrated witch fairies a job in the first place!
As the fake-grin Salon Manager handed over the hefty bill and asked for service suggestions, I fake-grinned him back and said, "May be you could put a big scotch tape over your Service Staff's mouth and give her a lesson or two in doing her job right! And yes! If she still doesn't get it, please ask her to just F*** O**!"
After a day of moronic monologue and bruised body, my bed came to my rescue and I sleep it out with one foot on the witch fairy’s face, who by the way, even haunted my dream! Calling me “You Ugly You” on repeat loop, I punch her in the eye, giving her smoky eyes and kitty liner its true definition!
Damn womanhood!
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