The secret life of women

The Spectator

The secret life of women takes place in the city’s beauty salons, away from the public glare, behind Venetian blinds or curtains or shaded windows.

Here, women drop their guard, their social face, their outer skins of mother, wife, school teacher or executive, and led by their common pursuit of beauty they become just themselves: vulnerable, needy, hopeful — almost the girls they once were, before life happened to them.

Cheek by jowl they sit on salon chairs, patiently waiting their turn, flipping through glossy magazines featuring others more beautiful and better groomed. And when their turn arrives, they voice their anxiety about their hair in sotto voice:” My husband does not like it short” they say or “Will it make me look fat?”

And the hair stylist, after decades of hearing exactly the same anxiety, voiced exactly the same way, plays therapist, marriage counsellor and life coach and addresses the insecurities of the woman sitting in front of her — before addressing the hair.

It is in its beauty salons that Mumbai’s women catch their much needed respite, between bus and train and scooty and kid’s homework and office and mother-in law. Here, they put their feet up, indulge in some gossip, and literally let their hair down. Want a quick recipe for quiche? Need a masseur? Want a diet? At Mumbai’s salons, help is always at hand.

And because salons in Mumbai are predicated on the business model of attracting the largest numbers and so charge a pittance for their services compared to most places abroad, they are the great arbiters of equality and democracy. I have seen the wives of tycoons and billionaires sit on the same stools receiving exactly the same service as the secretary or the humble housewife on the next stool.

At Mumbai’s beauty salons status, ego and bank balance are deposited at the counter before checking in. Here, in the best tradition of the city, nobody gives a damn who you are-as long as you pay the bill.

Which is not to say that Mumbai’s salons don’t have a heart or care who they are bleaching/plucking/waxing/dyeing. They care for the old, the aesthetically-challenged, the down at heel are treated with dignity and sensitivity. It’s just that time is short, and the queues are long — and so thank you maam — do come again.

I am a great voyeur at Mumbai’s beauty salons: I listen in to the giggling school girls as they get their hair straightened for the first time. Watch the young mothers fuss over little kids as they wail through their first hair cuts. Pretend not to hear the daughters-in-law as they bitch about their mothers-in-law.

But the one abiding image that epitomises the great Mumbai salon experience for me is the one that also speaks of the city’s spirit: each month without fail, a nonagenarian, bent over double with age, barely able to walk, is brought by her minder to the salon I frequent. Barely able to see, her skin withered away by wrinkles, incoherent and possibly incontinent-nevertheless she comes to have her eyebrows plucked! As long as there is life in Mumbai —there is the pursuit of beauty!

s_malavika@dnaindia.net