"Beauty is my hobby."
As she spoke these words, from behind my closed eyes I could feel her soft, nimble fingers and probing eyes examine my face for effects of malign toxins on my skin. There I was, barely 21, on my first trip to Singapore, lying on a comfortable bed in a dark corner of a nondescript little beauty salon in the West Avenue Market of Bukit Batok. I had gone there placing my trust solely on the recommendation of my aunt, and I could see why she adored the little woman who was in love with beauty.
"You have nice skin." she said. "But you're still young, lah." She added, with that expression so characteristic of Singlish. "How old you?" she asked me and I replied. "How old you think I am?" she asked, and still with eyes shut, I tried to picture her face and estimated. "Maybe 27-28." I could imagine the smug smile on her face as she said "No lah, but I will tell you. And I will give you tips."
Over the next couple of hours, as she proceeded to give me a facial massage, efficiently and painlessly stuck needles over designated points on my face, wrapped my face with therapeutic herbs, covered my eyes with a cool vitamin C pack and my face with sweet smelling face pack; she told me her life story. Her husband had abandoned her 10 years ago, for a young Vietnamese girl. And now she was a single mother of a 11 year old son. I tried to picture her face again. Could I have missed a detail while trying to estimate her age? Maybe I should take another good look at her when I open my eyes, I thought.
Through the entire process of the facial treatment, I listened to her talking about her daily beauty routine. She had given up food which caused toxins to accumulate in the body, including most of meat based products, hot spices, what we in India know as "
Tamasik" food. "I love my chicken too much to give it up" I mused to myself. She kept giving me "tips": "wash your face with cold rice water every morning and night", "dilute the shampoo you use with water before applying to head" or "don't let the shampoo lather touch the skin of your back or your arms, always wash hair facing down". Though I listened patiently, and quite curiously, I doubted I would ever be so dedicated to my "beauty routine".
Then she said something that caught me off-guard: "I became beautiful after my husband left me." I was 21 and not nearly half as experienced in the matters of love as I am today. But I understood what a heart-break was. It doesn't take much imagination and experience to understand pain; it only requires you to be human. I sensed that even 10 years after being abandoned, this woman was still vulnerable enough to share something so personal with a complete stranger. However, I found her take on loss of love, interesting, to say the least. To me it seemed that she had substituted the pursuit of love in her life, with the pursuit of beauty. I had never before imagined the two things to be comparable even, they operated on different spheres, from where I saw them then.
At the end of the routine, when I finally opened my eyes, she showed me a photo of hers, as she was 10 years back. Could it be! I thought. This woman had lost almost 15 years. She was nearly 40, and now that I could see her with my eyes wide open, I would have bet she was not more than 25, had I not known any better. Gone were the puffy dark patches under the eyes, the slight crow feet and beginning of wrinkles at the corners of the mouth. This could be straight out of the "before-and-after" ads for age control creams. Except, this was real, and was achieved not with a miracle cream but after consistent effort over 10 years.
A few months back when I was suffering from hopeless post-traumatic stress, one of the days while I was crossing a road I found myself wishing for a truck to come and hit me. At a level of mindfulness this shocked me in fact; for even at my worst, I have never been the suicidal kinds. Desperate to save myself from the clutch of those
dementors, I got myself an appointment for a facial and hair spa at my favourite salon. By the end of the day, as lame as it may sound, while I looked at my radiant face in the mirror, I was once again convinced that I had reason to live.
When I dress up, I am a different person. Once someone from office even remarked after seeing a photo of me from a party that I had attended the night before, that it was "such a deceptive photo." I laugh it off; for the 'me' in power specs and corporate attire, with no makeup and bed hair that refuses to settle down, is probably more fake than the 'me' in a little black dress, wearing eye makeup and plum lipstick, flirting with a man over a glass of martini, and devising for myself a fake name, identity and phone number to give away to him by the end of the night, simply for the fun of being able to hide behind a face that no one recognizes by the day. I find the shallowness of beauty to be as compelling as the depth of love. Ask any drag-queen and hear them concur with me.
Over the years, the versatility of beauty, has helped me use it as a substitute, albeit only temporarily, for love, hope, happiness and sometimes even truth. When I feel ugly, I get a facial. When I feel unloved, I paint my nails a fiery red. When I feel unwanted, I get a bikini wax. When I doubt myself, I lose those glasses, pluck my eyebrows, wear cat-eye kohl and look straight into the mirror at myself with a fresh resolve. When I am tired of the disappointments in life, I get a head and body massage. When I feel hopeless, I wear my white dress and pearls and the future suddenly turns bright again. When I feel low on confidence, I wear those 3-inch high heels and my esteem stands taller. When I feel charmless, I wear a dainty silk scarf and large sun shades that give me an air of eminence.
You must have heard Desree crooning "
love will save the day." Well, I simply can't wait around for love to salvage my days for me.
