Skip to main content

One Hairy Day....



One thing that has remained constant among the world humans under this lockdown (forced & self) is their involuntary quest for both introspection and extrospection. Whether we want it or not, life has boiled down to the bare essentials even for the fortunate ones.
while we women fight for equal treatment as that of our male counterparts, nature has done its bit in making us realise that women and men are just a few levels of androgen apart. All thanks to the salons being shut. Some of us who are not that good at DIY techniques can give a complex to the males in the locked house with our bushy eyebrows, noticeable moustaches and a dash of beard. Among the thousands of forwards being forwarded during this lockdown, there was one such forward that resonated with my current feeling. So, I too mindlessly forwarded the same to the other groups without knowing there would be a backlash by a man! Yes, a man stating that, I shouldn't be engaging in gender discrimination.
 I knew it was an exaggerated joke but little did I know that a self-deprecating joke had something to do with gender discrimination. Turns out, it has a lot to do with that!

This post may not go very well with women who find waxing, threading and other dreadful methods therapeutic. But,it will definitely ring a bell with those who don't understand why we do it but do it anyway.

Ladies, do your gentlemen get waxed?
Mostly, No
Gentlemen, do your ladies get waxed?
Hell yes!
A few every week, few every fortnight and the others ??? Never mind!
However, irrespective of the frequency the question remains- WHY?  Because all the other ladies do. It's almost like a screening test for most to even make friends..."Oh she hasn't waxed her hands"... "Oh My God! She has worn ankle-length leggings and her legs look like Amazon jungle". In my defence, I am just thinking aloud here.

Recently my neighbour barged into my house because I normally don't invite people in. Hey before you judge me, I have two monkeys so if you show up at my doorstep without my invite, you are in for a surprise. The same kind of surprise when u see my unwaxed hands and legs.
So back to my neighbour, she asked if I would want to accompany her to the parlour to get the hands, legs, armpits waxed because there was some discount going on. I told her I just get my eyebrows and upper lips done and that too once in a fortnight so these offers don't help much. Also, they don't even give you that light massage on your eyebrows after they are done threading(Huh! the little pleasures of a sleepless mother) like back in India therefore, lesser motivation. I asked her to carry on.

She immediately realised that I had miserably failed in her screening test. Hence, she immediately decided to hug me with her sarcasm. "hahaha I know these waxing sessions are so torturous but I have to go today. I somehow managed wearing long sleeves till today"
And I  kept wondering, manage what?
She might have thought to put things into perspective for me before she left. She asked me a thought-provoking question (actually it provoked two ), "Doesn't your husband say anything? Don't you want to appear neat?"

My first thought, "How on earth is painfully getting your hair plucked which is god-gifted, just to please somebody called appearing neat???"
Second thought- She doesn't know that my husband recently got to know that I pay 40 dirhams just for eyebrows and upper lips. I recently made him wait in his car while I pit stopped at a parlour and to his utter disbelief,
I was back in ten minutes. He was so surprised, he asked if it was closed. I told him I was done with my eyebrows and upper lips so I had come to collect my wallet to pay them 40 AED. He was so puzzled.....40 AED for a ten-minute job? No, he didn't dare say it aloud because I think aloud for him too, at such circumstances.

However, he did ask me to explain the 10 minute job. I told him, "eyebrows and upper lips".
He kept gazing and finally asked, 'what does upper lips mean?'
I had to explain! So I told him, we women too get facial hair that we need to take care of. Else, I will end up sporting a moustache unless he didn't mind me giving him a complex.
He gazed again only to break into a burst of loud laughter...
All this while he was imagining me with a moustache and not falling prey to my sarcasm. That moment I felt, this man doesn't deserve even this! Yes, that liberating moment when you feel you need to take a no-filter selfie. Trust me, I was so strong for ten days that I had made up my mind to never ever undergo this painful thing again. Thought I will break the stereotype. Then on the eleventh day, all my facial hair was back and so was I in the parlour, to get them trimmed.

This time around due to the lockdown I realised I am so relaxed about my facial hair because there is no peer pressure (exempting the DIY women). This feeling and the backlash made me wonder about our obsession with waxing or threading. Waxing apparently dates back to the ancient Egyptians, but they had a more egalitarian approach. Men and women both used to get waxed. The fact that most men don't do it anymore proves that they have found easier methods of self-grooming. Or have we tricked ourselves to believe that hairless body parts make us feel confident and not like an outcast?

Nonetheless, hair or no hair, we always know how to justify what we want! Also, an ode to all the skin-deep relationships. It turns out, some relationships are not so smooth after all(pun intended)!





Comments

  1. I dread the era of the so called "Metrosexual man". Glad that trend was buried as quickly as it crawled out of whatever hole it came from.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Waav.. really to be appreciated for the new thought ..
    Shall We expect any future sign of new trend...
    Only the thing is Whether we would be fascinated by our new new styles of face do... Which our husbands shall have to get accustomed...which society may start yelling that it is a social taboo....

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love the way you pen your thoughts. A very thoughtful message put across with self deprecated humour.
    Waiting for more from you��

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you all for giving it a read😊

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tell me...

I am curious, tell me everything about thee, an open book I am, you may say I wonder, even an open book has shallow words, spilled rather carelessly, or done willfully I will never know, for you are the master of your secrets I am curious, to know the real thee, who are we really without these secrets? a bunch of lies? you may ask the whys and wherefores  or even dismiss my quest, none of my business you see business is what I bleed at! after devouring everything that you have said, I still look beseechingly at thee, like I am gazing into the infinity of secrets, just to be free from the quest! Inversely, I sense you fighting too covering every chink in your armour to say nothing or to bare it all captivating they are, food for the soul too, you might even take them to your grave! I may say as I please, in fact, you are brave! yet, I beseech you, tell me your secrets I am curious It is because I care, I will consider and cover! I can play with the words,  but truth be told, I am just c

Happy Ugadiiiiii

It is new year for kannadigas and if I am not wrong for Andhraites and Maharashtrians too... As a kid I used to be excited prior to almost all the festivals be it Sankranti, Ugadi, Deepavali or Ganesha-Gauri festival.Firstly, because there used to be a holiday and secondly because it was fun to go out for shopping with mum-dad to buy clothes (totally inappropriate for the occasions though). I strangely enjoyed and still do (unfortunately nobody believes me)joining my mum in cleaning up the house or in preparing some desserts that require heavy labour (holige, yallu-bella,etc). The best part of the festival day would be "meeting-the-bhai bhandus"! My dad is a firm believer in networking so he tried his best to enrich our social lives on those occasions( he has given up now!). He always says, 'you have to be amidst all kind of people (good, bad and humans) to know yourself better'. It made no sense to me then dad, but now I couldn't agree with you more. To be ho