Beauty and the Beast

Pune, June 28 2010

I am still dazed and a bit jet lagged, and therefore not totally equipped to be taking a walk on crowded, potholed Indian roads. But I have always loved the late evening in India. At this hour, the sky is thick and grey with chunks of pink cutting through it. The temple bells clang and the sweet smells of incense and jasmine flowers waft over the smokiness of roasted peanuts and grilled corn. Little girls are washed and combed, their hair oiled and braided with ribbons of different colors. A man sells pink and yellow balloons and a vendor skins thick chunks of sugarcane for three small boys wearing “Brazil” t-shirts. A million bicycle bells tingle.

Grace’s Beauty Parlor, around the corner from my in-laws’ apartment, has been significantly modernized since I last visited three years ago. It has metal fixtures, sinks that come out of the wall at the press of a button, comfortable swivel chairs and central AC. It is packed, which comes as no surprise, since the business of beauty is huge in India and one of the greatest things about this country is the range of beauty services available. Here, I can get my hair done at a parlor every day if I want to. I can have facials whenever I feel like and weekly, even daily pedicures and manicures, because in India, everyone wants to be beautiful.

It’s true. The parlors – from the humblest neighborhood joint to the luxurious salons at the five-star hotels – are packed with women getting highlights and lowlights; having their faces, feet and fingers bleached; getting their legs, arms and unmentionable body parts waxed. In second-tier cities like this one, it’s getting more and more common to see women with chestnut or even blonde hair. Even men get their nails done and sit around with green or yellow packs on their skin. Some years ago, I saw a Tibetan Lama getting a facial.

The most wonderful beauty experience I have ever had in India, and probably in the whole world, was in early 2007 at The Spa in Bangalore’s uber-luxurious Leela Palace Hotel. The Spa is Paradise spread across 20,000 square feet and once within its cool, marble confines, your face and body surrendered to the fairy-like hands of gentle women with singsong voices from the Northeastern corners of India, you might as well be Heaven.

Conversely, many of the regular beauty parlors in India -- much like the neighborhood Korean joints in Manhattan – are run like factories, and I always feel like I’m on the assembly line as one person threads my eyebrows, another shoves back the cuticles on my toenails and a third yanks the hairs off my legs.

It’s a dizzying experience and not always the most pleasant or perfect, and I have suffered a fair number of mishaps through the years. Once in the southern city of Chennai, a woman giving me a pedicure rubbed the skin raw off my feet with “Surf,” a ubiquitous blue detergent bar that has been India’s staple clothes-washing soap for decades. Another time in a New Delhi salon, someone waxing the hair above my upper lip wrenched off half of the latter instead, leaving me angry, red and sore for days.

The infrastructure in the smaller salons also leaves much to be desired. The towels that are thrown across your shoulders or over your face often are stained and smelly, for instance, leaving you to wonder how many people before you they were used on. Water -- or rather the lack thereof -- is a huge issue. It was indeed at Grace’s, one time when I had popped over for a quick wash and blow-dry, that there was a sudden water cut, and the woman tending to me had no choice but to wash the suds off my head by chucking a pail of very cold water over it – the very last pail of water in the salon.

Today at Grace’s, though, things are very different. Water – both warm and cold – is flowing in abundance (although the monsoon in Pune is already 20 days late and they are predicting a drought if it doesn't rain). The shelves are lined with L’Oreal products. The girls are all wearing the same smart uniform of jeans and a red t-shirt and Grace herself – she’s a surly Chinese woman -- sitting behind the counter in a purple tank top and tight black pants, a huge gold pendant around her neck, looks prosperous.

Chandini (it means Rays of the Moon) is the girl looking after me and she, like all the others who work at this parlor, comes from Kathmandu, Nepal. She is soft-voiced and has delicate yet capable hands. She can slather the sugar-lemon wax across my leg with a butter knife and yank it off at the same time as she texts on her cell phone. It’s hard to believe that she has teenage children because she looks so young.

We chit-chat for a bit and then, about 10 minutes into my session, she asks me:

“Aap kahan se hai Madam?”

It’s the million dollar question that I never know how to answer: Where are you from. Because -- Where, indeed, am I from?

“Say you’re from Bombay,” I’m always told by family members here, who don’t want me to get ripped off by every Chandini, Rekha or Savitri in India. Bombay (Mumbai) is generally accepted as the place in India where anyone who’s slightly different comes from. But I have tried that a few times and even though I speak Hindi perfectly and look like anyone from Mumbai, there is something subtly different about me and no one believes that I am from Mumbai.

So I just tell the truth: “Amreeka.”

Chandini nods.

And then she starts out:

“Madam, do a facial – primrose. New product, Madam, very good for the skin. Or skin whitening treatment with almond milk. Hair is dry also -- how about oil treatment? New oil has come from Kerala, very good Madam, top quality.”

She plies me with all kinds of ideas but I veto all of them. I am starting to feel tired and a bit overwhelmed. But I let her talk me into painting my nails with some new shade of premium red, and glazing them with what she calls “Chamki,” a glittery silver overlay.

I have not had red fingernails since I was in my 20s. Now, they are not only red, they are silvery red. And I feel fabulous.

I’m the last one out of Grace’s since I have to wait for my nails to dry. I am a generous tipper – 50 rupees to the girl who shaped my eyebrows, 100 rupees to Chandini. Nothing in dollars, exhorbitant by local standards. But I don’t care. I don’t come to India every day and these are hard working girls. They have children to feed, they have boyfriends they wish to marry. I can only contribute to their betterment in this one way.

June 25, 2010

The Enigma of Arrival

Was it really only eight years ago, right before my then two year-old son's first visit to India, that the manager of my local Republican National Bank in downtown Manhattan told me he had never heard of the Indian Rupee, and that anyway, his institution did not deal in "wierd" currencies? Hard to believe.
In the departure hall at Newark airport, there's a large poster for money changer Travelex. It shows four currencies: The U.S. dollar, the Euro, the Malaysian Ringitt and the Indian Rupee (sorry, China). It assures a seamless transition from one part of the world to the other, and indeed, that is what I felt when I left the very modern international airport in Mumbai after a 24 hour journey across continents and set foot onto the soil of this country that is and isn't my country. Was I really in India, or was this Bangkok, Singapore even? Where were the crowds that used to throng the exit, broad grins spread across their brown faces? They had garlands in their hands, baskets of fruits, they were fascinated and welcoming even of those they had no relationship to. No sign of that mass of humanity. In its place, only an American businessman in shorts, there to receive his mother, and someone named Trisha, who's been living in India for a year and was excited her college friend was coming to visit her. A few stragglers here and there were totally blase about international travelers.
So here is India 2010: That much closer to the world than when I left it three years ago to move back to Europe. In the early morning, the monsoon rain-drenched Mumbai roads are silent and they actually look clean. There is no one around. Not even a stray dog.
But then at a pit stop somewhere between Mumbai and the city of Pune where my in-laws live, there it is -- that assault on the senses that is and always has been India. It is 4 o'clock in the morning and Bollywood is blaring. A million cars toot "Here comes the Bride" and "Congratulations" as they reverse in all directions. The curious crowds are snacking on kebabs in the harsh fluorescent light, staring at us through the car window. Opening it up a crack, I smell the scent of the first jasmine flowers of the day. It mixes in with the odors of incense and charcoal, coconut oil and humidity. It is India.

Feb 27, 2010
This is a scene out of a Mr. Bean movie: Farshid's cousin Bahram weaves a tiny and totally beaten up car through the crowds, veering dangerously past trucks, bikes, motorcycles, cows, dogs, goats. You name it. I had forgotten how mad the traffic is here and I had wanted to forget how much Bahram's driving freaks me out. We are on our way to watch Germany play England at High Spirits, yet another bar that has just been opened by yet another cousin. Every night, it is this: "So and so cousin" has opened "such and such place" that is the new hangout and we have to go. On the way, we pick up a man who actually lived in Geneva for 10 years and his girlfriend, a talented artist from Sri Lanka. Germany has scored two goals already.
Everyone loses each other at the bar -- an outside space with two large screen TVs. The owner, cousin Khodadad, related somehow to us as everyone who owns bars and restaurants seems to be, is probably not more than 25. The crowd is young and hip. We could be in New York. Everyone is rooting for Germany and they win.
I call home: Sasha has been watching the match with his grandfather and Keya has been watching a Bollywood movie.
Mach number two: Argentina-Mexico. We are tired of standing around and decide to go to the luxurious Oakwood hotel and sink into the comfortable armchairs in the bar there. There are several very drunken Germans celebrating their victory. We order fish kebabs and "kati rolls" (sort of like cut up soft tacos), cocktails. But in this uber-luxurious venue, we are being chewed up by mosquitoes. They had made fun of me for bringing my repellent along with me. Well, now who's having the last laugh.
2.30 a.m.: Post match, the roads are deserted. A pack of stray dogs runs after the car. The Germans are so drunk, they cannot even stand, and I am not sure where they are headed. And worse luck: The cops stop us. Bahram does not have his license. Farshid's license will not do. It is a tense moment for me, although I know this happens all the time in India and the police are around so late at night to make a quick buck. In the past, I too have had to pay them off. Now, Bahram is in the wrong (how can you not have your license on you, no matter where you are in the world, the developed or the developing), you should have it. The rule book says pay a fine, but if you know how to deal with the cops, as my husband and his cousin do, you can get away with the bribe -- which is actually less than the fine.
I am scared of the Indian cops. They are ruthless. Who knows what they can do. I don't want to spend a night in an Indian jail. Thank goodness they let us go.
Remember, the bribe is less than the fine.