I confess: sometimes from our veranda I spied on other kinds of women, receptionists and typists who worked for Indian Oil and Godrej, and waited across from our house for the company vans to pick them up. Torn between disapproval and envy, I noted the dresses that exposed their knees, their shoes with platform heels, their permed hair. They wore lipstick even in daytime, erupted in laughter at frequent intervals, whispered prodigiously when men in expensive cars drove by, and ignored the lascivious remarks aimed their way by lesser males. But they were Kerala Christians-members of a forbidden, scandalous species that I could never join.
Lola’s girls, though, with their perfectly arched eyebrows, glowing skin, and prettily coiffed faces hanging over me like radiant moons, were different. As they plucked and exfoliated and massaged oil and pinched blackheads and slathered my cheeks with Fair & Lovely cream, clucking soothingly when I yelped and assuring me that the end result would be worth it, I felt a strange kinship with them. They camouflaged me with sufficient foundation, face powder, kohl, lipstick, blush, and Vatika Pure Coconut Hair Oil to pass as one of Lola’s lovely ladies. They attached a glistening bindi to my forehead and clipped fake diamond earrings to my ears. They pinned a sequined sari, kept in the salon for this very purpose, to my upper body (since that was all the photo would show) to manufacture curves where none had existed before. One of them ran to fetch Lola’s nephew, who ran the photography business next door, while the others demonstrated facial expressions guaranteed to delight mothers-in-law, causing me to burst into laughter, something I never did in the presence of strangers. But they were no longer strangers. They had charmed me with their daring jokes, their code words for particular beauty procedures, their gallant laughter in the face of the drudgery that I guessed awaited them once they stepped out of the magical perimeter of Lola’s salon.
The next morning, when my mother armed me with a parasol to protect my newly lightened skin and dispatched me to the bazaar to buy bitter gourd, I used the money to rent an auto rickshaw. Half an hour later I was at Lola’s, begging her to let me work for her. Lola must have seen something-perhaps a glint of determination in my eyes reminded her of her own younger self. Although she had a room full of clients, she took the time to listen to my pleas. When I finished, she asked, “What’s the matter? You don’t want to be a bride?”
To which I answered, “I’d rather be a bride maker.”
Lola, who had been divorced twice and thus knew what was what, said, “Smart thinking.”
And just like that-although she hadn’t really needed another employee-I became one of Lola’s girls.
There was a dreadful hullabaloo at home, as you might imagine. My parents stormed into Lola’s, demanding that I be handed over. But she coolly informed them that the wife of the police high commissioner (her client for many years) was due in that very day for a gold-leaf facial. One word to her, and my father could end up in jail with charges of harassment. Once they crumbled, she took pity on them and pointed out that I would be excellently compensated. And if I should change my mind and wish to take on the yoke of domesticity, I would be provided with a Bridal Special Diamond Level photo, gratis. A Diamond Bridal photo was not to be sneezed at. My parents gave grudging permission, expecting me to tire soon of catering to spoiled society ladies.
Freed of parental interference, for the next six months I soaked up everything I could learn, from eyebrow threading to hot waxing to clay masking to hair perming. This last, most difficult skill Lola taught me herself. It was a job she entrusted only to her top girls. Pride filled me as I memorized the different kinds of rolls and tongs and end papers, the distinct amounts of time that provided Lola’s clients with various degrees of curliness, and the secret proportions of potent chemicals that, if used wrongly, could exact a heavy penalty.
AMONG THE CREAM OF COIMBATOREAN LADIES WHO FREQUENTED Lola’s, the richest and most powerful was Mrs. Vani Balan. Wife of an industrialist who had made his money in cement, she visited Lola’s every two weeks and underwent our most expensive regimes. In spite of the substantial tips she left, the girls avoided her. They didn’t like the way she flicked the rupee notes at them. Besides, she was finicky and hot-tempered and had been known to throw things if a treatment did not turn out the way she had envisioned it. Only Lola was capable of handling her at such times, and even she would pour herself a full glass of rum and Coke after Mrs. Balan exited the premises.
For some reason that no one at the salon was able to fathom, Mrs. Balan took a liking to me and began to ask specifically for me when she came in. Although I was nervous around her, I was flattered, particularly when, one time after I assisted Lola in perming her hair, Mrs. Balan said I had a gentle touch.
I was not Mrs. Balan’s sole favorite. She had a maid named Nirmala who often accompanied her to the salon and sat in the waiting room looking through the latest American magazines, which Lola’s other nephew, who worked in a government office in Hyderabad, procured for her through unorthodox means. A slim, sweet-faced girl with surprisingly elegant hands, Nirmala would turn each page with attentive consideration, although she could not read. When Mrs. Balan emerged from the inner sanctum, she was ready with a flask of chilled juice. When they left, Nirmala carried with utmost care the packages of expensive foreign cosmetics Mrs. Balan had purchased. Once, in preparation for a wedding party, Mrs. Balan was undergoing a whole-body makeover that would take several hours; I asked the girl if she wanted a snack. She shook her head shyly, though I could see that she was hungry. When I brought her an orange, she was taken aback. “For me?” she said, as if she could not believe someone would consider her important enough. She thanked me several times, calling me Elder Sister. The appellation touched me. I could see why Mrs. Balan, who was surrounded by people who believed that the world owed them everything and then some, would find her refreshing.
MRS. BALAN TALKED INCESSANTLY ON HER CELL PHONE. SHE had perfected the art of speaking without moving her facial muscles and could thus continue to destroy reputations from under a substantive swath of seaweed or a coating of alpha-hydroxy peel thick enough to render most women immobile. Thanks to her, I became privy to all manner of skeletons lurking in the closets of our fanciest mansions. Were I so inclined, I could have blackmailed large numbers of addicted husbands, unfaithful wives, and grown offspring with questionable sexual preferences. But we at Lola’s had our code of honor. And we knew that to meddle in the affairs of the powerful was akin to riding the proverbial tiger.
Mrs. Balan wasn’t the only gossip at the salon. On days when she was absent, I learned from the conversations of the other women, who viewed her with a mix of hatred and adulation, that her husband (whom she ignored) was overly fond of the young secretaries at his corporation, and her son, Ravi (whom she adored), was studying abroad. She had gone into a deep depression when Ravi insisted on going to America -to get away from her, some of our less charitable clients suggested. She had revived only after a spate of shopping trips to Chennai and Bangalore. Now Ravi was returning to Coimbatore, with a degree in psychology and a head full of Western notions.
“You tell me now, what good is a degree in psychology of all things, that also from, what’s that place, Idahore, that nobody has heard of?” Mrs. Veerappan said.
It was a rhetorical question, but her friend, Mrs. Nayar, was happy to respond. “No good. No good at all. But then, he doesn’t need to make a living, not like our sons.”